Key figures — as of 2026-08-18: AIMA generated €101 million in fee revenue between September 2024 and December 2025 — and kept €62 million as net profit after €39 million in operating costs — while service fees rose by as much as 33% from 1 March 2026, and tens of thousands of renewal cases remained stuck in the queue.
The number behind the headline
Portugal's immigration agency turned a €62 million profit on the fees it charged foreigners between September 2024 and December 2025, according to figures presented by the Minister of the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, and reported widely by Público. Over roughly a year and a half, the operation to clear pending immigration cases delivered a positive balance of €62 million euros, with revenue reaching €101 million against costs of €39 million. That balance came directly from residents and applicants paying for permits, renewals and appointments through AIMA's now-defunct Estrutura de Missão, the task force set up to attack the backlog inherited from the old SEF border service.
The scale of activity behind those numbers was real: nearly a million notifications were sent out, more than 760,000 people were attended to, and by the end of the period 311,000 residence cards had been issued. But the surplus itself has become the story, not the throughput. As one lawyer specialising in migration cases put it to Público, the fee income made AIMA "um ótimo negócio" — a very good business — even as queues at service desks stayed long.
Fees went up while service didn't
Just as the profit figures were making headlines, AIMA raised its own price list. Portugal's immigration agency raised administrative fees by as much as 33% across the board, in an adjustment effective from 1 March 2026 that marked the first increase since AIMA was established in October 2023, and it reaches everything from residence permit renewals to investment residence applications. Advocacy groups reacted immediately: critics point to a paradox in which AIMA reported €62 million in profit versus operational costs while processing delays remain endemic, raising the question of whether fee increases genuinely fund service improvements or simply generate revenue.
AIMA's own explanation is procedural — it says the annual adjustment, always applied on 1 March, tracks consumer price inflation rather than reflecting a policy choice to profit from applicants. That may satisfy the letter of the regulation, but it does little for someone who has been waiting over a year for a renewal appointment with no phone line that answers and no written response to their case file, a complaint documented repeatedly in reader accounts published by The Portugal News and in Portuguese outlets covering the mission structure's closure.
What foreigners are actually experiencing
The backlog that justified the mission structure's creation hasn't fully cleared. By mid-2025, AIMA's own president, Pedro Gaspar, said the agency had analysed over 440,000 pending applications, of which 23,000 were rejected, 130,000 still needed to be processed and decided, and 170,000 were archived for lack of response. Thousands of residents report being unable to book renewal appointments at all, with immigration lawyers describing court dockets in Lisbon clogged with legal actions filed simply to compel AIMA to schedule people it is legally obliged to see.
GrowIN Portugal's analysis: dividing the €101 million collected in fees by the 311,000 residence cards actually completed and issued in the same period works out to roughly €325 collected per finished case — but that average masks a harsher reality, because a large share of that revenue came from people whose applications are still sitting unresolved, meaning many applicants have already paid in full for a service they have not yet received. Put plainly: the agency is being paid up front for outcomes it hasn't yet delivered.
As GrowIN Portugal Editorial put it: "Foreigners are financing a public agency's surplus while still queuing for the basic paperwork that surplus was supposed to fix."
Where the money goes next isn't public
Público's reporting noted that, months after the figures were disclosed, it remains unclear where the €62 million euros in AIMA profit will actually be applied. Meanwhile the agency has continued to spend on contracts unrelated to frontline capacity — including a new unified digital portal for immigrants and outsourced email management — funded, according to Público, from AIMA's own accumulated cash rather than fresh state funding.
What this means if you're renewing or applying
Nothing about these figures changes the legal process itself, but it does change the calculus for budgeting: fee schedules are now higher across most categories, and delays remain a live risk regardless of how promptly you pay. If your current title is expiring, keep every proof of submission and expired document on you — AIMA has told applicants to carry both as evidence while cases move through the system. If you're weighing a renewal, a first application, or a switch of status, it's worth reading our full breakdown in the visas hub before you file, and budgeting extra time on top of AIMA's official timelines.
What to watch next
Parliament and immigrant advocacy groups are expected to push for transparency on how the €62 million surplus is allocated, and further fee reviews are due each March under the agency's existing rules. AIMA has also promised expanded system access for lawyers and continued rollout of its online renewals portal — both worth tracking if you have a case currently stuck in the queue.
For now, the gap between what AIMA charges and what it delivers remains the defining complaint against the agency, and there's no official sign yet that either the backlog or the pricing trend is about to reverse.
Sources