Key figures — as of 2026-09-05: AIMA workforce up 17% between July 2024 and July 2026 — from 742 to 867 staff since January alone, with 48 more expected by year-end (total 915) — while the sector union claims staff departures rose 19% over the same period; standard residence permits currently take 3–6 months, Golden Visa files still 12–18 months; an estimated 40,000–60,000 cases remain actively pending.
The headline number
Portugal's immigration agency has grown its workforce by 17% since 2024, and it wants applicants to know about it. AIMA president Pedro Portugal Gaspar said the agency added 125 employees since January, taking its workforce from 742 to 867, with a further 48 people expected to join by the end of the year, bringing the total to 915. For anyone who has spent the last two years refreshing the AIMA portal or waiting on a residence card, that's the kind of number that lands with cautious optimism rather than celebration.
AIMA has been under intense pressure since it replaced SEF in October 2023, inheriting a huge backlog of immigration cases alongside responsibility for new applications. The agency now says it is entering a different phase, with more staff and a growing number of services moving online. Speaking to PÚBLICO Brasil, Gaspar said the agency was now in a position to focus more heavily on the quality of its service after a period dominated by the clearing of outstanding cases.
Not everyone agrees on the maths
The staffing story has a second half AIMA's press release doesn't emphasise. Portugal's migration technicians' union, the Sindicato dos Técnicos de Migração, called the 17% figure "an misleading number", contrapondo a saída nesse período de 19% dos trabalhadores e um saldo real negativo — in other words, the union argues that staff departures actually outpaced hires over the same window, meaning the real net change is negative rather than positive. The union's precise claim, translated: staff exits rose 19% across the same two years, so the real balance is therefore negative.
That's a meaningful caveat. A gross headcount increase means little for wait times if experienced caseworkers are walking out the door as fast as new ones are trained up — training and onboarding take months, and a revolving door doesn't add net processing capacity in the short term.
What this actually means for wait times
For context on where things stand: AIMA issued 386,000 residence permits in 2025, marking a 60% increase compared to 2024, and officials point to that as evidence the system is working. But the "cases resolved" figure widely quoted — around 93% — is contested, because "resolved" includes archived and rejected cases, not only approved ones, according to immigration lawyers. Strip that adjustment out and one legal source estimates 40,000 to 60,000 cases remain actively pending as of early 2026.
Standard work and residence permits currently run three to six months in 2026, a significant improvement from the 12 to 18-month waits common during the worst of the backlog crisis. Golden Visa applicants have it worse: the realistic timeline from Golden Visa application submission to receiving your first residence card is 12 to 18 months as of early 2026.
GrowIN analysis: If AIMA's net 125-person hiring bump (the January-to-September addition) were to translate directly and proportionally into faster throughput — which is a big "if", given the union's departure-rate concerns — a 17% capacity gain applied to a typical 90–180 day standard permit wait would shave roughly 2–4 weeks off the upper end, nudging the range toward something closer to 75–150 days. That's our own back-of-envelope estimate from the published figures, not an AIMA forecast, and it assumes no further departures, no new backlog surge, and stable appointment scheduling — assumptions history hasn't been kind to over the past three years.
The practical reality for foreigners
"A 17% headcount increase on paper doesn't guarantee a single day shaved off anyone's actual wait — the union's departure numbers are the real story to watch," says GrowIN Portugal Editorial.
For someone currently in the AIMA queue, none of this changes anything immediately. Existing biometrics appointments, renewal timelines and processing queues don't reset because of a staffing announcement. What's more likely to matter in the near term is the continued shift to digital renewals — an in-person appointment is only required if biometric information needs to be collected, according to AIMA — plus whatever happens with the union's staffing dispute, which could resurface as further strikes or slowdowns if it isn't resolved.
What to watch next
Three things worth tracking over the coming months: whether the promised 48 additional hires actually materialise by year-end, whether the union's retention concerns translate into further industrial action, and whether the 40,000–60,000 residual backlog cases show measurable movement in AIMA's next quarterly disclosure. Anyone with a pending application or renewal should keep documentation current and check status directly via AIMA's online portal at aima.gov.pt or the renewals portal rather than relying on headline percentages. For a fuller picture of where the backlog actually stands, see our earlier deep dive in the /news/ archive, and for guidance on your own residency route see visas.
Staffing numbers are a start, not a resolution — the backlog Portugal built up over three years won't clear in one hiring round.