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The white and black panelled facade of the Loja do Cidadão public service centre in Mafra, Portugal, with the town's coat of arms on the wall and a cyclist passing on the road outside.

The Once-Only Rule Goes to Parliament: Public Bodies Would Have to Fetch Your Documents Themselves, and Your Consent Would No Longer Be Collected

Proposta de Lei n.º 107/XVII/2.ª asks Parliament for 180 days to legislate the once-only principle by decree-law. Use of the state interoperability platform becomes compulsory, and the consent requirement written in 2014 is revoked. The data regulator had asked for exactly this legal route.

The Portugal Brief 21 Sep 2026

The long white neoclassical facade of the Palácio de São Bento in Lisbon, seat of the Portuguese parliament, with the national flag flying above its columned portico under a clear blue sky.

Portugal's Immigration Agency Is About to Lose Its President Two Years Into a Five-Year Term, and Parliament Hears Him on Tuesday

The parliamentary economy committee hears Pedro Portugal Gaspar on Tuesday over his designation as a board member of the Competition Authority. He has led AIMA since July 2024 on a five-year mandate. The competition seat runs six years and cannot be renewed.

The Portugal Brief 21 Sep 2026

The interior of a Portuguese Espaço do Cidadão public service office, with staff at numbered red and white desks serving citizens and others waiting on chairs along the wall.

Two Fields Have Vanished From AIMA's Permanent-Residence Form for EU Citizens, and the Check Now Runs Itself in About Half an Hour

From 15 September, EU nationals and their family members applying for permanent residence through AIMA's renewals portal no longer supply a NIF or a NISS. The agency verifies both automatically. The fifteen-day and three-month statutory deadlines are unchanged.

The Portugal Brief 20 Sep 2026

The public hall of the Conservatória dos Registos Centrais in Lisbon, a long counter with numbered service points, blue chairs along it and printed silence notices hanging overhead.

Changing Your Name in Portugal in 2026: A Practical Guide to the Six Words You Get, the Free Routes and the 200 Euro Special Process

Portuguese law caps a full name at six words, two given names and four surnames, and sets out exactly when you may change it. Most changes cost nothing, because they follow a change in your legal status. Simply wanting a different name costs 200 euros.

The Portugal Brief 14 Sep 2026

Porto City Hall seen down the length of Avenida dos Aliados, its clock tower above a stone facade, with the reflecting pool and magnolia trees of the square in the foreground.

The Inspectorate That Watched Portugal's 308 Councils Was Folded Into the Finance Ministry in 2011, and Its Published Audits Have Gone From 28 a Year to Two

The Socialist Party wants the local-government inspectorate abolished in the 2011 austerity reorganisation brought back. The Inspectorate-General of Finance that took over its work publishes every council report it signs, and that archive is the clearest measure of what the merger cost.

The Portugal Brief 12 Sep 2026

The Escola Secundaria Marques de Pombal in Belem, Lisbon: a long pink public school building behind railings, its name carved above the gate and bare flagpoles outside.

Lisbon Families Whose Children Still Show as Not Placed Are Taking the Education Ministry to Court, and the Desk That Used to Place Them by Hand Is Gone

Term has started and the Portal das Matriculas still reads Nao Colocado. The parents have formed a group and are preparing to sue. Two teachers explain what disappeared when the DGEstE was folded into the new AGSE: the only people who could see the whole network.

The Portugal Brief 11 Sep 2026

The counter hall of a Loja de Cidadao public-service centre in Lisbon, with numbered positions, staff behind desks and floor markers telling people where to wait their turn.

AIMA's First-Half Scorecard Is Four Percentages Deep, and the Single Absolute Figure It Publishes Is the Number of Compliments

The agency says appointments at its shops grew more than 60 percent in the first half of 2026 and complaints fell 35.8 percent. The three percentages are mutually consistent and imply a rise of about 64 percent. None of them says how many appointments were actually held.

The Portugal Brief 11 Sep 2026

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