Key figures — as of 2026-09-15: UNEF became operational 21 August 2025 under Lei n.º 55-C/2025, launching with 1,200 PSP officers and growing to 1,504 by its first anniversary (20 August 2026) — checking 19,749,328 people at air borders and making 428 detentions; the unit inherited an estimated 100,000 pending removal/return files from AIMA, including 20,000 active cases in Lisbon alone; the EU's EES biometric border system has been fully operational at all Portuguese air and sea borders since 10 April 2026.
A new badge at the border
If your residence permit lapses in Portugal today, the knock at the door is more likely to come from PSP than from AIMA. That's the practical result of UNEF — the Unidade Nacional de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras, or National Unit for Foreigners and Borders — which became fully operational on 21 August 2025 under the Polícia de Segurança Pública, created by Law no. 55-C/2025 of 22 July, formally establishing the UNEF within the PSP, following the dissolution of the former SEF on 29 October 2023. It has since taken on a second full year of operation, and its powers now cut squarely across territory that used to belong to AIMA.
Nicknamed the "mini-SEF" by Portuguese media, it entered into force with 1,200 police officers fit for border control at airports. That headcount has grown fast: by its first anniversary, the PSP had deployed a total of 1,504 officers for airport security and border control — a jump of roughly 25% in twelve months, with the government aiming higher still. The medium-term objective is for UNEF to operate with about 2,000 people, including police officers, specialised technicians, service providers and civil-society volunteers.
What UNEF actually does — and what AIMA no longer does
The split matters because the two bodies now answer to very different mandates. AIMA remains the administrative face of immigration — NIFs, permit applications, appointments, renewals via the online Portal das Renovações. UNEF is the enforcement face. For individuals and businesses dealing with immigration procedures, particularly those involving airport entry, visas, and foreign national compliance matters, UNEF now serves as the main contact point within the PSP.
Three functions moved specifically from AIMA to the police:
- Removal, readmission and return operations for people in an irregular situation — deportations, in plain terms. UNEF is also responsible for the removal, readmission and deportation of irregular migrants, which had previously been assigned to AIMA.
- In-country compliance checks. UNEF is tasked with monitoring the stay of foreign citizens on national territory, within the PSP's area of jurisdiction — meaning officers, not case workers, now carry out territorial inspections and can open administrative infraction files under immigration law.
- Running the temporary holding centres at the Porto CIT (Santo António) and equivalent facilities at the Lisbon, Porto and Faro airports.
Airport border control itself wasn't new to the PSP — it had been building capacity there since SEF's 2023 abolition — but folding removals and in-country enforcement into one specialised unit is what changes the experience for anyone whose paperwork slips.
The AIMA backlog UNEF inherited
The handover wasn't clean. According to PSP's deputy national director João Ribeiro, speaking as the transfer began, the unit was receiving daily "25 cubic metres" of pending return and removal files, with the PSP preparing for a pessimistic scenario of around 100,000 active or semi-active return processes. Some of that paper trail is startlingly old: a number of files were nearly 50 years old, not formally closed, several predating SEF's own closure. Lisbon alone accounted for an estimated 20,000 active cases, some awaiting a decision since 2019.
GrowIN analysis: set against the year-one enforcement numbers, the scale of that backlog looks less alarming than it sounds. UNEF's checkpoints screened 19,749,328 travellers and recorded 428 detentions in its first year — a detention rate of roughly 1 in 46,000 people checked, or 0.0022%. For the overwhelming majority of foreigners passing through Portuguese airports, UNEF is invisible. The friction shows up almost entirely for people already flagged: expired documents, active warrants, or open removal files from the AIMA-era backlog.
EES adds another biometric layer
UNEF's launch coincided with the EU's new Entry/Exit System, which replaces passport stamps with biometric records for non-EU short-stay travellers. The EES was gradually introduced starting 12 October 2025, and as of 10 April 2026, it is fully implemented at all air and sea border crossing points in Portuguese territory. The rollout wasn't smooth — Lisbon airport saw a temporary EES suspension over the winter due to queues — but UNEF officers are now the ones operating those biometric kiosks day to day, adding fingerprint and facial-image checks to the same border posts where the unit also screens for fraud and outstanding warrants.
"UNEF is the agency that shows up once your paperwork has already lapsed — AIMA is the one you're supposed to call before that happens," as GrowIN Portugal Editorial puts it.
What to watch next
Not everyone is convinced the split has improved anything. Migrant-support groups have argued UNEF was built "with the most negative aspects of SEF, and not the more positive ones SEF could have had." The union representing rank-and-file officers has also flagged uneven staffing — many PSP commands still lack officers dedicated to in-country foreigner checks, with no genuine investment in internal enforcement — meaning the "compliance check" side of UNEF's mandate may lag well behind its airport border-control side for some time yet.
For anyone renewing a residence permit, applying under the new nationality rules, or simply trying to keep their AIMA file in good order, the practical takeaway is straightforward: know which door to knock on. Administrative problems still go to AIMA. Anything involving a lapsed status, a flagged file, or an airport encounter now runs through UNEF. Our visas hub tracks both processes and where GrowIN's services team can help if a renewal has already slipped past its deadline.
Nobody should treat UNEF's arrival as a reason to panic — but it is a good reason to renew on time.