Without up-to-date documents, immigrants cannot leave Portugal. Responsible for updating the residence card, IRN cannot meet the demand. Government tends to extend validity until the end of the year.
Foreigners who have been living in Portugal for a number of years face serious problems renewing their residence permit in the country. The situation is so chaotic that, since 2020, the Government has been issuing a series of decrees to extend the validity period of documents. The most recent, number 41A, ensures that all identity cards and even authorizations issued based on an agreement with the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), on A4 paper, remain valid until June 30, 2025.
Despite this decision by the Government, the disruption is huge. In a message sent to PÚBLICO Brasil, Brazilian Flávio Freire says he was forced to cancel a trip to Switzerland, where he and his wife were going to spend last Christmas with family. The reason: the wife's residence permit has expired. The two went in March of last year to the Institute of Registries and Notaries (IRN) agency in Aracaju to update their documents. Flávio's card arrived at his house in September, but his wife's hasn't yet. They lost the plane ticket they had already purchased. The couple has been in Portugal since 2018.
According to lawyer Larissa Belo, the retired couple, who moved to Portugal using the D7 Visa, did very well not to risk traveling outside of Portugal with one of them having an expired residence permit. “The decree that extended the validity period of documents is only valid within Portugal,” he says. Therefore, if the Swiss authorities wanted to check their status in Europe, they would have every right to do so and could create problems. “In these situations, it is better to wait, even if it takes a long time to receive the new residence card,” he adds.
Larissa points out that many people get confused about where the renewal of the residence permit is carried out. “There are a large number of foreigners who believe that document revalidation is carried out by AIMA (Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum), but this is not the case. In fact, the renewal process takes place at the IRN. This was defined after the extinction of SEF (Foreigners and Borders Service), replaced by AIMA”, he explains. The path to renewal, the lawyer points out, is the Siga Portal. “There you can try to schedule an appointment. The problem is that the IRN is serving very few people,” he emphasizes.
Longer term
The prospect is that, given the high demand for document renewal and the IRN's low response capacity, the Government will be forced to extend, once again, the validity period of immigrant documents. “Our projection is that this period will be extended until the end of the year,” says lawyer Catarina Zuccaro. “There are many pending renewal requests, and the IRN is unable to respond to them all by June 30 of this year. For her, the Government is aware of the problems and, when the deadline approaches, it will make a decision that favors those who are being harmed.
In the case of workers with expired residence permits, the chosen path has been that of the courts. “We have received many requests from employees of Portuguese companies who need up-to-date documentation to appeal to the courts. Last week, for example, we filed a lawsuit on behalf of a group of Peruvians who are working on a dam in Spain. Colombian workers also approached us to obtain residence permits with valid terms,” he adds.
In the opinion of Fábio Knauer, CEO of Aliança Portuguesa, the first quarter of the year will be decisive for the Government to show whether or not it has the capacity to respond to the demand for document renewal, while at the same time running a task force, with 20 centers service, to resolve around 450 thousand pending AIMA processes.
He believes that, if it is unable to untie all the knots, the public administration will have to find a new alternative, which involves extending the validity period of expired documents. “If this happens, people without valid residence permits will be confined for an additional period in Portugal, which is not fair, as they are victims of the State’s inefficiency,” he says.
Until the SEF was abolished, residence permits were renewed automatically, with applications being made online. “But that ended when the IRN took on that role,” reinforces Larissa Belo. She reminds that appointments for the service continue to be made electronically. “But there are very few daily vacancies. That’s why so many people have been complaining about expired documents in Portugal,” he adds.