The Migration Action Plan

The Plan, which includes 41 measures for migration, is based on the idea that the country needs and wants to welcome more immigrants, but that this immigration must be regulated and supervised, accompanied by humane integration.

Autores: Cátia Pereira Baptista, Lawyer and Team Leader, and Isadora Costa Angeli, Jurist

The Portuguese migration system has faced a series of challenges and problems over recent times, exacerbated by significant structural changes. The abolition of the Immigration and Borders Service (SEF) and the creation of the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) marked a turning point in the country’s migration policy, generating expectations and uncertainties.

Bearing in mind the urgent need to control migratory flows and regularize more than 400,000 cases pending at AIMA, the Council of Ministers approved the Migration Action Plan on Monday, 3rd June 2024, as a response to “correct the problems with the rules of entry into Portugal, resolve AIMA’s operational incapacity and ensure that border control systems are operational”.

The Plan, which includes 41 measures for migration, is based on the idea that the country needs and wants to welcome more immigrants, but that this immigration must be regulated and supervised, accompanied by humane integration.

Among the measures presented by the government, which came into force at 00:00 on June 4th, are the end of manifestations of interest and visas without work contracts and the creation of a “golden visa” for investments in equipment and projects to support vulnerable immigrants.

Decree-Law No. 37-A/2024, of June 3rd, proceeded to immediately revoke the residence permit procedures based on manifestations of interest, which allowed foreigners with a tourist visa to regularize their stay in Portugal by carrying out a subordinate or independent professional activity, without a valid visa for this purpose. From now on, foreigners who want to migrate to Portugal and settle here will need an employment contract or another solution that has been dealt with in advance at the Portuguese consulate in their country of origin. However, a transitional regime is provided for applications that are already underway, thus safeguarding the situation of foreign citizens who have already started residence permit procedures through manifestations of interest.

The repeal of articles 88 and 89 of the Aliens Law (Law 23/2007, of July 4th), which allowed foreign tourists to be legalized in Portugal through manifestations of interest, will be followed by a “review of the [general] law in parliament” in the coming months.

Among the 41 measures set out in the plan, and which deserve our attention, is the creation of “Residence Permits for Social Investment” – a change from the scope of the Residence Permits for Investment (ARI), to include investments made in reception facilities and infrastructures, integration projects and support for immigrants in vulnerable situations”. This special permit allows third-country nationals to obtain a temporary residence permit for investment activity, without needing a residence visa to enter national territory. In this sense, the executive also mentions that “this extension of the ARI is in addition to that provided for in ‘Construir Portugal’ for investment in housing at controlled costs or affordable rent”, which leaves open the possibility of reintegrating investment in real estate within the scope of the ARI, albeit in very different ways to what we previously knew.

The government also plans to create a mission structure with additional human, material, and financial resources, made possible by “extraordinary hiring measures” to respond to the more than 400,000 pending regularization requests, with plans to hire more AIMA employees, inspectors from the former SEF (currently assigned to the Judicial Police) and other professionals or specialists recruited temporarily for this project to speed up all the pending procedures.

According to the Prime Minister, “Portugal can’t be, shouldn’t be, won’t be with its doors closed to welcome those looking for an opportunity”, adding, however, that “we can’t go to the other extreme, where we open our doors wide, don’t check entry, don’t accompany those who come to us and leave them to fend for themselves”, doomed to abandonment, oblivion and, often, abuse by criminal networks trafficking in human beings”.

See here the 41 measures presented by the government that integrate the migration plan.

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