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Immigration

Immigration policy, visa changes, and the expat experience in Portugal.

The salmon-pink neo-Moorish facade of the Tribunal da Relação in Évora, with three arched doorways, a Portuguese flag and patterned calçada paving in front

Évora Prosecutors Send Two Men and a Spanish Company to Trial Over Workers Lured to Elvas, and Ask the Court for 324,000 Euros of the Proceeds

The DIAP Regional de Évora says workers from Algeria and Morocco were brought into Portugal on job offers the defendants never intended to honour, between October 2021 and January 2022. Two men and a Spain-based company are charged.

The Portugal Brief 08 Sep 2026

Passengers queueing between retractable barriers in a terminal at Lisbon's Humberto Delgado airport, with a uniformed security officer standing beside the line

The Six-Hour Valve at Europe's Biometric Border Expired on Sunday, and It Only Lasted That Long Because the Rollout Missed Its Own Biometric Threshold

Article 7(3) of Regulation 2025/1534 let a state drop fingerprints for six hours at one crossing point when queues grew. It lapsed on 6 September. Ryanair wants it back to April 2027, and Portugal signed a letter asking for the same thing in July.

The Portugal Brief 08 Sep 2026

The yellow and white neoclassical facade of the Faculdade de Direito da Universidade do Porto, with cypress trees at either side and a cobbled forecourt

Half of Portugal's Undergraduates Miss Their Own Graduation Date, and the Foreign Student Body Has Quadrupled to Eighty Thousand in Fifteen Years

A Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation analysis puts on-time completion at 51 percent, first-year dropout at 30 percent of the intake, and architecture completion rates anywhere from 2 percent to 42 percent depending on the school.

The Portugal Brief 07 Sep 2026

The empty dune-backed sand at Meco in Sesimbra at first light, Atlantic surf breaking along the shoreline and a small boat visible far out on the horizon.

A Rubber Boat, an Outboard and Scattered Provisions Are All the Authorities Found After a Dawn Report of Thirty People Landing at Meco

A fisherman called the GNR before dawn on Sunday to say 20 to 30 people had come ashore at Praia da Foz. Officers found an inflatable, its motor and scattered provisions, and nobody at all. Portugal has recorded seven such landings on the Algarve coast since the end of 2019.

The Portugal Brief 06 Sep 2026

The white neoclassical facade of the Palacio de Sao Bento in Lisbon at dusk, the Portuguese flag flying from a pole above its columned pediment.

Portugal's New Citizenship Test Exists in Law and Nowhere Else, Three Weeks After the Deadline to Write the Rules Ran Out

Lei Organica 1/2026 gave the government 90 days to define the knowledge test now required for naturalisation. That ran out on 16 August with nothing published. Article 6 fixes the subject matter; the format, the pass mark and the venue remain unwritten.

The Portugal Brief 05 Sep 2026

Avenida Antonio Augusto de Aguiar in Lisbon looking north under a bright sun, with office blocks on both sides and traffic queued along the central carriageway

AIMA Puts Its Two-Year Staffing Gain at 17 Percent, and the Migration Technicians' Union Counters With a 19 Percent Exit Rate

Neither side published an absolute number. AIMA's own 2026 activity plan does: the establishment rises from 976 posts to 1,286, with 300 of the 310 new places in two grades, and the digital arm's whole authorised map is 40 posts.

The Portugal Brief 03 Sep 2026

The reading room of a Portuguese municipal library with wooden shelves of books, study tables and a reader working at a desk by the window

Free State-Funded Portuguese Lessons in 2026: A Practical Guide to the Português Língua de Acolhimento Courses, the 150-Hour A1 to A2 Path, the Six 25-Hour Modules, and the Certificate That Replaces the Nationality Language Test

Portugal runs a free Portuguese course that produces the A2 certificate accepted for nationality, permanent residence and long-term resident status. Who can enrol, the six 25-hour modules, why you can skip A1, and how it compares with paying for CIPLE.

The Portugal Brief 01 Sep 2026

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