The number of people who will now depend on an AIMA decision was counted by the Government on October 20th. It is more than double the titles granted by SEF in the entire year 2022.
New migration agency inherits 327,000 pending residence applications with the end of SEF
There are 327 thousand residence permit application processes that remain pending at the time of closing the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) and passing responsibility for this administrative portfolio to the Agency for Integration, Migrations and Asylum (AIMA), which already exists and formally starts working on October 29th.
SEF states that the daily average for submitting an expression of interest on the SAPA portal is 1000 requests.
The data were presented during a visit by the Minister of Internal Administration to Lisbon airport when the Agency for Integration, Migrations and Asylum (AIMA) is two days away from taking office, which will succeed the SEF in the administrative functions of issuing documents for foreigners.
SEF director, Paulo Batista, acknowledged SEF's "heavy legacy", but highlighted the work done this year, stressing that "so many new residence permits have never been issued".
This year, SEF issued 306,000 new residence permits to foreigners.
According to data released today, the most representative foreign community in Portugal is Brazilian (400,759), followed by Ukrainian (77,680), the United Kingdom (56,921), Angola (55,983), Cape Verde (54,335), India (47,558 ) and Italy (39,914).
In September, the SEF informed Lusa that almost one million foreign citizens with residence permits reside in the country.