AIMA issued 337,880 new permits in 2025. So why is your AIMA appointment still waiting?

An AIMA appointment for biometrics or a submission takes one to three months to get in 2026, and up to six months in busy periods (Jobbatical, updated 1 September 2026), even though AIMA issued 337,880 new residence permits in 2025, 55 percent more than in 2024. Both facts are true at once, and the gap between them explains most of the frustration in expat forums.

A note on the headline number. You may have seen 386,000 quoted, including in an earlier version of this page. That was an interim count: AIMA said on 26 October 2025 that it had granted 386,463 residence authorisations up to 22 October 2025, 60 percent more than the 236,030 of the same period in 2024 (Observador, 26 October 2025). The final figure is in AIMA's own Relatório de Migrações e Asilo 2025, reported by Diário de Notícias on 22 September 2026: 337,880 new residence titles issued in 2025, plus 189,331 renewals, for 527,375 titles in total. The two counts are not measured the same way, and the annual report is the one to cite.

Why is your AIMA appointment delayed when AIMA issued so many permits?

Your appointment is delayed because AIMA cleared a backlog of decisions faster than it expanded its capacity for in person appointments. The agency says so itself: its 2025 report states that the rise in new titles mainly reflects the recovery of files that had been pending for years, not new arrivals in 2025.

A residence permit is not one queue. It is at least four, and they have different widths.

1. The complete file gate. Since April 2025, AIMA does not accept incomplete applications or renewals (Jobbatical). A file with a missing document is not a slow file, it is a file that has not entered the queue yet.
2. The appointment itself. This is the narrowest point. Biometrics need a person, a room, a machine and a booked hour, and every file in the country goes through the same physical capacity.
3. Card production. After biometrics, card approval and issue often take another one to three months, longer when delivery slips (Jobbatical).
4. The mission structure. The temporary Estrutura de Missão was built to empty a defined pile of legacy files. New arrivals are a steady flow, and a structure built to empty a reservoir is not automatically the right shape for a river.

The appointment figures in the 2025 report show the scale. AIMA recorded 671,273 appointments in 2025: 261,474 in its own offices (Lojas AIMA) and 409,799 run by the mission structure. It carried out 605,890 of them. About 9.7 percent did not happen because the applicant did not show up or cancelled, which is capacity lost for everyone else.

The same report lists groups of people who were still waiting when it counted the resident population.

Those four lines add up to 194,599 people. They are official counts of specific legacy groups, not a total backlog figure for the whole agency, and AIMA has not published one.

How long does an AIMA appointment take in 2026?

Plan for one to three months from request to appointment, and six in a bad period. The end to end picture for a D8 holder is longer: Global Citizen Solutions (updated 1 September 2026) puts the time from visa application to residence card at about nine months, and says that because of the backlog the D8 process could take six to nine months as of June 2026. The same guide says the AIMA appointment is often scheduled three to four months ahead.

A D8 residence visa is valid for four months with two entries, and the AIMA appointment is meant to happen inside that window. Check the Visa Check tool for the current D8 income test before you apply.

How do you get an AIMA appointment?

You book through the AIMA contact centre, the online services portal, or the renewal portal if your case is a renewal. The contact centre number on aima.gov.pt is +351 217 115 000, Monday to Friday from 08:00 to 20:00. It handled 278,693 bookings in 2025, for slots in 2025 and 2026, double the previous year (AIMA 2025 report).

1. First permit on a residence visa. Book through the contact centre or the services portal at servicos.aima.gov.pt as soon as you land. Do not wait until the visa is close to expiry.
2. Renewal. Use portal-renovacoes.aima.gov.pt, which aima.gov.pt lists for permits that expired after 30 June 2025. It opens in batches by expiry month: the batch for September and October 2026 expiries opened on 30 June 2026 (VisasUpdate, 30 June 2026). The law asks you to request a renewal up to 30 days before your permit expires (article 78 of Lei 23/2007, cited by GrowIN Portugal).
3. Written contact. Use the contact form at contactenos.aima.gov.pt and keep every reference. A written trail matters if you later need a court.

How do you check your AIMA appointment status?

Check that you are actually in a queue before you assume the queue is slow. Many people who think they are waiting never had a file accepted, because of the complete file rule.

1. Keep the submission confirmation, not just an email acknowledging a form.
2. Pay any DUC payment reference inside its window: the guidance is 10 working days from the moment the DUC is generated (GrowIN Portugal, citing AIMA's FAQ, August 2026). An unpaid DUC stops your renewal.
3. After a paid renewal, look for the QR coded receipt in your account on the AIMA services site, about 10 working days later.
4. Make sure the phone number and email on the file are ones you read.

What documents are required for an AIMA appointment?

Bring a complete file, because AIMA refuses incomplete ones outright. Jobbatical lists the typical documents for a residence permit appointment.

1. Passport.
2. Residence visa.
3. Employment or service contract.
4. Tax number (NIF).
5. Social security registration (NISS).
6. Proof of address.

If AIMA sends you a document list for your permit type, follow it over any general list, including this one.

What can you do if AIMA does not answer?

If AIMA misses its legal deadline to decide, Portuguese administrative law lets you ask a court to order a decision. The action to compel an act is set out from article 66 of the Code of Procedure in Administrative Courts (CPTA). You are not suing for damages or asking the court to approve the permit. You are asking it to make the administration answer.

The deadline on the remedy is the part people miss. Article 69 of the CPTA gives one year from the date the inaction began. Visas.pt (updated 3 August 2026) describes the same one year window, counted from when AIMA's own deadline expires, and a four step process: case assessment, power of attorney, a preliminary request to AIMA, then the court filing. We are not lawyers, and this is not legal advice. Talk to a Portuguese immigration lawyer before the year runs out, not after.

If your card has already expired while a renewal is pending, read what is legal while your renewal is pending before you travel.

Updated on 25 September 2026. Rules and prices change: confirm with the official source linked above before you act.