Key figures — as of 2026-08-20: Cabinet approved the redistribution bill on 23 July 2026 — pending parliamentary vote, no start date yet — ending Lisbon's exclusive jurisdiction over AIMA lawsuits; the backlog stood at 133,000 pending cases in April 2026, of which a 28-judge task force cleared 22,436 rulings (~18–20%) between April and June; a near-identical decentralisation bill from Iniciativa Liberal was rejected in February 2026.
The number that matters
More than 100,000 lawsuits against Portugal's immigration agency have been stuck funnelling through a single court — the Tribunal Administrativo de Círculo de Lisboa — because Portuguese law sends administrative cases to wherever the defendant is headquartered, and AIMA is headquartered in Lisbon. The announcement comes as more than 100,000 processes clog up the one Lisbon court through which the vast majority of lawsuits against the agency have been forced to come until now. On 23 July, the Council of Ministers approved a bill to change that.
What the government actually approved
The government decided to distribute lawsuits against AIMA across administrative courts nationwide, not only in Lisbon, in a measure approved in the Council of Ministers that afternoon of 23 July. Practically, lawsuits filed against AIMA would be filed in the area where the applicant resides or is based, removing the exclusive jurisdiction of the Lisbon Administrative Court and redistributing cases among courts across the country.
Justice Minister Rita Alarcão Júdice presented the reform alongside plans for specialised judges. The measure also opens the door to creating specialised courts for immigration and international protection matters. Asked whether concentrating expertise in dedicated courts could raise constitutional concerns, the minister stressed the government wanted to create specialised judges rather than specialised courts, which would have raised doubts.
There's an awkward political footnote here. In February 2026, parliament rejected an almost identical bill from Iniciativa Liberal proposing the same decentralisation, after the Superior Council of Administrative and Tax Courts (CSTAF) gave it an unfavourable opinion over the risk of spreading the problem nationwide, with opposition from PSD and CDS-PP — the parties that support the government. When asked this time why the executive was now proposing the same measure, the minister did not answer. This time, CSTAF's tone has flipped: the council has publicly praised the government's version of the reform, according to Açoriano Oriental's reporting.
Why Lisbon got so clogged in the first place
During the proposal's presentation, the Justice Minister outlined a significant rise in the backlog of administrative court cases following 2023, the year SEF was abolished and replaced by AIMA. The surge has been dramatic: from around 50,000 pending cases in mid-2025 to well over 130,000 by early 2026. A 28-judge task force — down from an original goal of 50 — has been working through the pile since April on top of regular duties, and by July had cleared roughly a fifth of it. The court's own president didn't mince words about the strain that surge put on AIMA itself, describing the agency as being in "total panic" after rulings arrived faster than it could process them.
The bill sits inside a broader Plano Nacional de Integração package for migrants, which is one of several measures in the national integration plan for immigrants, due to be presented in September. No implementation date exists yet — the change still needs parliamentary approval before it can take effect.
GrowIN's analysis: what redistribution actually buys you
If the roughly 124,000-case pile that existed when the judicial task force began were spread evenly across Portugal's network of administrative and tax courts — there are around 16 of them outside Lisbon — each would inherit somewhere near 7,500–8,000 cases apiece rather than one court absorbing the lot. That's a meaningful drop in per-court load, but it's not the same as more judges or faster AIMA decision-making. A case moved from Lisbon to Braga or Loulé is still a case waiting for a ruling — just waiting in a different building.
"Spreading the caseload doesn't shrink it — it just changes which courthouse the queue forms outside," as GrowIN Portugal Editorial put it.
The pushback
Not everyone is convinced this fixes anything. The Sindicato dos Técnicos de Migração warned that the slowness of the system stems mainly from AIMA's own operational limitations, internal organisational issues and lack of resources, arguing that decentralising cases to local courts doesn't resolve the underlying cause of the caseload. CSTAF made a related point back in February, when it opposed the IL version specifically because of the risk it would extend Lisbon's crisis to courts around the country that have never handled this volume of immigration litigation before.
There is a precedent for tackling volume differently: after a legislative change limiting the CPLP permit route took effect on 23 October 2025, new filings dropped 78%, from 11,724 in October to 2,582 by January. That suggests the fastest way to shrink the court queue is fixing AIMA's own decision-making, not just relocating where the lawsuits land.
What to watch
The bill now goes to parliament for debate and a vote — there's no confirmed timetable. Anyone with an active intimação against AIMA should watch for guidance from their lawyer or the court on whether an existing Lisbon filing gets reassigned once the law passes. For background on the underlying legal route foreigners use to force AIMA's hand, see our visas hub, and if your renewal or permit is stuck, AIMA's own portal at portal-renovacoes.aima.gov.pt remains the first stop before any court action.
Nothing here changes visa eligibility rules or processing standards — it changes only which courthouse hears the complaint when AIMA fails to decide on time.