Key figures — as of 2026-10-12: AIMA has processed 6,000 of 46,000 pending Golden Visa applications (≈13%) — 30,000 biometric appointments already scheduled — AIMA staffing up from 723 to 850 — government still targets clearing the backlog by end-2026.
What the minister told parliament
Portugal's Minister of the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, gave the Constitutional Affairs committee a blunt update on 7 October 2026: AIMA had processed approximately 6,000 of 46,000 pending Golden Visa applications, or around 13%, while the agency has also scheduled approximately 30,000 biometric appointments. For a programme that has spent three years defined by its backlog, that 13% figure is the number worth sitting with — it is the clearest official admission yet of how far AIMA still has to go, even as scheduling capacity visibly improves.
The appointments are real progress. As recently as mid-2026 the single biggest obstacle for applicants was simply getting a biometrics slot at all. That has changed: according to Werner Gruner, Partner at Get Golden Visa, the latest figures suggest that biometric appointment scheduling is becoming less of an obstacle, with roughly 30,000 appointments booked against 6,000 decisions meaning the constraint has moved to the stage between biometrics and the decision itself.
Why a booked appointment isn't a visa
That distinction matters enormously for anyone holding a slot. The 30,000 figure measures scheduling, not outcomes. Gruner's assessment is that waits "have shortened and will shorten further for applicants who already have an appointment," provided AIMA allocates enough analysts to match the volume it has scheduled, and that meeting the government's own deadline "will depend on how quickly the appointments already scheduled are converted into decisions".
A short, self-contained line for the record: a booked biometrics appointment buys a Golden Visa applicant a date on the calendar — not a residence card in the post. (GrowIN Portugal Editorial)
GrowIN's read on the numbers
AIMA moved pending Golden Visa files onto its digital resubmission track from mid-January 2025. Taking the minister's 6,000-decisions figure against that roughly 21-month window works out to an average of under 300 decisions a month. At that underlying pace — before any boost from the freshly scheduled 30,000 appointments — clearing the remaining 40,000 files would take well over a decade, not the two and a half months left before the government's stated end-2026 target. That gap is the real story behind the headline percentage: the bottleneck isn't getting people in the door, it's turning a completed biometrics appointment into a signed decision on an analyst's desk.
The agency isn't short of proof that it can move fast when it chooses to. In family reunification, AIMA has made 55,000 family reunification appointments this year and granted 26,000 residence permits, already exceeding what the minister described as a historical annual average of fewer than 20,000. That capacity simply hasn't yet been turned on Golden Visa decisions at the same scale, and the general immigration backlog is close to resolved — just 5,000 of 445,000 pending applications still unresolved — which is precisely why ministers are now promising to redirect staff toward the ARI queue.
What this means for investors waiting
For people who filed years ago under the paper-based system, the appointment itself may finally be arriving, but the file then joins a decision queue with no published service-level guarantee for this route. Lawyers tracking the process on the ground have previously criticised AIMA's record of missed self-imposed deadlines, after the agency's earlier pledge of 30-to-90-day turnarounds following 2025's resubmission exercise went unmet. Newer applicants, filing fully digitally from 2026, appear to be moving faster through the early stages — but the headline 13% completion rate is a reminder that "faster scheduling" and "faster approval" are not the same promise.
Note too that the Golden Visa itself has changed shape regardless of queue speed: the real-estate investment route is gone, and the remaining options — qualifying funds, research, arts and heritage donations, or job-creating company formation — all still funnel through this same AIMA decision bottleneck once biometrics are done. Anyone weighing a Golden Visa application, or already stuck in the queue, should treat the government's end-2026 clearance pledge as an aspiration rather than a fixed date, and plan finances and travel accordingly. For a fuller breakdown of the current investment routes and what replaced the property option, see our visas guide.
What to watch next
Parliament's Constitutional Affairs committee is likely to receive further updates before year-end, and a new general immigration law entering into force in September 2026 sets a 90-day statutory decision deadline for residence applications — a benchmark AIMA will be measured against publicly if the Golden Visa queue hasn't meaningfully shortened by the new year. Applicants and advisers alike will be watching whether the 30,000 scheduled appointments actually convert into decisions at a pace that makes the government's promise credible, or whether the gap between bookings and approvals simply becomes next year's story.