Southern Administrative Appeal Judges Carry 315 Pending Cases Each, Up to 25 Times the Load at the Ordinary Appeal Courts
Portugal's two administrative appeal courts ended June with 14,630 pending cases after taking in more than they decided. At TCA Sul each judge carries 315, against 20 at the Lisbon Court of Appeal. What the backlog means for anyone in a dispute with the State.
Each appeal judge at Portugal's southern administrative appeal court had, on average, 315 cases waiting at the end of June, against about 20 per judge at the Lisbon Court of Appeal in the ordinary courts. The figures, from the Conselho Superior dos Tribunais Administrativos e Fiscais (CSTAF, the council that runs the administrative and tax courts), were reported by ECO on Tuesday.
These are the courts where residents take on the State: tax disputes with the Finance Ministry's tax authority, challenges to council decisions, and other claims against public bodies. When such a case goes to appeal, it lands at one of the two Tribunais Centrais Administrativos (central administrative courts, the second tier): TCA Sul, seated in Lisbon, or TCA Norte, seated in Porto. A third, in Castelo Branco, was created on paper but has never been installed, the CSTAF says.
The first half of 2026
According to the CSTAF data quoted by ECO, the two courts received 3,460 new cases from January to June and finished 2,778, so the pile kept growing. It stood at 14,630 pending cases at the end of June.
- TCA Sul received 2,017 cases and finished 1,435, a resolution rate of 71.1 percent. Its backlog rose by 591 to 10,708. Both its administrative and its tax sections fell behind.
- TCA Norte received 1,443 and finished 1,343 (93.1 percent). Its backlog rose by 93 to 3,922. The tax section cleared more than it received and cut its stock to 2,035; the administrative section's stock rose 13.9 percent to 1,887.
Per judge, TCA Sul carried 315 pending cases and TCA Norte 135. Set against the 2025 averages at the ordinary courts of appeal (20 per judge in Lisbon and 12 in Évora), a TCA Sul judge had more than 15 times the Lisbon load and more than 25 times the Évora load. The CSTAF describes a second tier with "a high volume of pending cases", concentrated at TCA Sul, where its capacity "remains significantly below the number of new cases".
There is one improvement: the oldest files are shrinking. Cases filed in 2012 or earlier and still unresolved fell from 289 to 220 at TCA Norte and from 1,426 to 1,138 at TCA Sul.
A backlog that has nearly doubled since 2020
The CSTAF's own 2025 figures for TCA Sul show its pending cases climbing every year, from 5,554 at the end of 2020 to 10,117 at the end of 2025. Its "disposition time" for 2025, which is the stock of pending cases divided by the year's decisions and expressed in days, was 1,426 days overall and 1,884 days in the tax section. At TCA Norte, the same indicator was 565 days, with a year-end backlog that has stayed between 3,512 and 3,830 cases since 2020.
What it means for you
- If you win or lose a case against the State at first instance and either side appeals, expect the appeal to take years, particularly in the south.
- For tax disputes, arbitration at the CAAD (the administrative arbitration centre) is an alternative to the courts. We set out the options, deadlines and fees when the first-instance tax backlog figures came out.
- Immigrants suing AIMA face a separate queue at first instance: about 89,000 cases were pending in September, as we reported on 29 October.
