Key figures — as of 2026-09-12: Complaints against AIMA down to roughly 50% of 2024 levels, per AIMA's own president — versus 600,000+ appointments and 500,000+ residence cards issued in 2025 — while 250,000 people in 2025 alone made two separate trips to Social Security counters just to request and then collect a NISS, a duplication that ended in late July 2026 when AIMA and Segurança Social systems were linked to issue the number automatically and in real time.
Two Numbers, One Bureaucratic Headache Solved
AIMA's president, Pedro Portugal Gaspar, told reporters in Évora this week that the number of complaints against the agency dropped this year to about half of those registered in 2024, even as the volume of appointments increased. He pointed to the scale of the operation behind that claim: in 2025 AIMA carried out more than 600,000 appointments and issued more than half a million cards — the final residence titles.
That drop in complaints lands in the same news cycle as a separate, very concrete fix that foreigners will actually feel at the counter. As of late July 2026, immigrant citizens initiating their regularisation process at AIMA automatically receive their Social Security Identification Number (NISS). Before this, as the head of Social Security's IT institute, Luís Farrajota, put it plainly, "AIMA says it needs the NISS and NIF and sends people to knock on the door of various organisations". Now AIMA enters the citizen's identification details, and Social Security assigns the number in real time, avoiding additional trips.
The scale of the problem this solves is not trivial. In 2025 alone, around 250,000 immigrants had to go twice to Social Security counters just for this purpose — once to request the NISS and once to collect it. The lack of communication between the two bodies had overloaded in-person services — for immigrants and native Portuguese alike sharing the same overstretched counters.
How the Link Actually Works
The mechanics are simple and, for once, genuinely reduce paperwork rather than shifting it elsewhere. The measure eliminates the need for individuals to subsequently visit a Social Security service counter to obtain the document, as part of the Social Security digital transformation programme under development since 2025. Farrajota described the fix from the technical side: "we created a link between the two services, which allows the agency to enter the person's identification and we assign the NISS in real time, without the person having to go to Social Security".
For anyone with an older or pending file — arrivals before 2025, or renewals filed under the previous process — AIMA has said the NISS can still be registered manually through its online contact form, selecting the Portal das Renovações subject line. Worth checking directly with AIMA or Segurança Social whether the automatic assignment applies to your specific procedure type before you show up expecting it.
Not Everyone Reads the Complaints Data the Same Way
The halving of complaints is not going unchallenged. The Sindicato dos Técnicos de Migração, the union representing AIMA's own migration technicians, argues the drop in complaints does not reflect a structural improvement in service, but rather "growing barriers" to accessing appointments that discourage people from complaining in the first place. The union also flagged ongoing delays in issuing titles, accumulated case backlogs with no completion date in sight, staff shortages, and reduced or closed counters as the reality behind the headline number.
Independent complaint-tracking adds another wrinkle. Portal da Queixa recorded 643 complaints against AIMA in the first four months of 2026 — 8.43% higher than the same period in 2025 — rising to 740 by 27 May. As one report noted, the two data sets are not necessarily contradictory since they draw on different complaint channels, but they make it harder to treat a single headline figure as proof that people's actual experience with AIMA has improved.
GrowIN's Estimate: What the Double-Trip Problem Actually Cost
Two mandatory Social Security visits sounds minor until you put a number on it. Using the 2026 minimum wage of €920/month as a baseline (roughly €5.20/hour over a standard 22-day, 8-hour month) and a conservative estimate of three hours lost per counter visit — travel, queueing and the appointment itself — the 250,000 people forced into duplicate NISS trips in 2025 collectively lost something in the order of 1.5 million working hours, or roughly €7.8 million in foregone wages at minimum-wage rates alone. That figure is GrowIN Portugal's own calculation from the official visit count, not an AIMA or Segurança Social estimate, and it almost certainly understates the real cost once lost workdays for salaried employees and lawyer or gestor fees are factored in.
"A number cut in half looks great in a press conference; what foreigners actually notice is whether they still need to queue twice for the same document," says GrowIN Portugal Editorial.
What This Means in Practice
If you're currently going through AIMA to regularise your status — a first residence permit, a family reunification file, or certain renewals — you should no longer need to separately track down a NISS before or after your appointment. That said, treat "automatic" with the same caution AIMA itself advises for any digital rollout: confirm the NISS was actually generated and appears correctly in your file, and keep a note of the number once issued, since it follows you for life and is needed for payslips, tax filings, and social security contributions if you freelance or take employment. Our visas hub walks through how the NISS interacts with D7, D8 and other residence permit applications if you want the fuller picture.
What to Watch Next
The real test is whether the halved-complaints figure holds up once the union's criticisms about reduced access are independently audited, and whether the NISS link genuinely covers all regularisation pathways rather than just the most common ones. Anyone relying on the automatic assignment for a time-sensitive process — a job offer with a start date, for instance — should still verify with AIMA that the number has been generated before assuming it has.
For hands-on help navigating AIMA appointments, NISS registration, or the wider paperwork of settling in Portugal, see our services page.
Foreigners dealing with AIMA this year are getting a genuinely useful fix in the NISS link, even if the broader question of whether the agency has actually gotten better remains, fairly, still open.