Key figures — as of 2026-09-03: UNEF (National Unit for Foreigners and Borders) began operating 21 August 2025 under Law 55-C/2025, taking over removal, readmission and return powers previously held by AIMA — AIMA keeps the documentary/residency side — UNEF now has 1,300 officers, rising toward 2,000 during 2026 — in its first year it inspected 52,421 foreign nationals, found 1,117 irregular cases (2.1%), and completed 221 forced returns plus 1,732 voluntary returns.
A police force, not a paperwork office
Foreigners living in Portugal now deal with two very different bodies for two very different things. The Unidade Nacional de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras (UNEF), the National Unit for Foreigners and Borders, was formally established within the Public Security Police (PSP) after being signed into law on 17 July 2025, continuing the restructuring that followed SEF's dissolution in October 2023. It went live shortly after. The UNEF, informally nicknamed the "mini-SEF," began operating on 21 August 2025 and took over border control and immigration enforcement duties that previously belonged to the defunct Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF).
The split is deliberate. Beyond airport security and border control — including the Temporary Installation Centre for foreigners in Porto and equivalent spaces at Lisbon, Porto and Faro airports — UNEF is also responsible for removal, readmission and return operations for people in irregular situations, powers that had previously been assigned to AIMA. AIMA does not disappear from the picture — it still issues residence permits, processes renewals through its online portal and handles the paperwork side of legal migration. What it no longer does is chase people down or execute a deportation order. That job now sits with a uniformed police unit built specifically for it.
Who's actually running things, and how big is it
The PSP's National Foreigners and Borders Unit currently has around 1,300 police officers, with the number expected to rise to 2,000 during 2026. That's a meaningful expansion from the roughly 1,200 officers who staffed the unit at launch, and it signals the government intends UNEF to be a permanent, growing fixture rather than a stopgap. Officers work both airport checkpoints — now running the EU's biometric Entry/Exit System introduced from October 2025 — and territorial inspections away from the border, checking whether foreign nationals already inside the country are complying with the terms of their stay.
The numbers from year one give a sense of scale. UNEF detected 1,117 irregular cases — 2.1% — among more than 52,000 foreign citizens it inspected in its first year of activity. Those actions resulted in 831 notifications for voluntary departure, 285 arrests for irregular stay, and one arrest for disobeying an entry ban. On the removals side, the unit carried out 221 forced returns, 83 of which were escorted to the final destination, and completed 1,732 voluntary returns, 995 of them in the first seven months of 2026 alone. The PSP also reported that 720 coercive removal processes were initiated, of which 262 have already been decided, and more than 800 flights were scheduled for voluntary and forced return procedures.
GrowIN analysis: add the forced and voluntary return totals together — 221 plus 1,732 — and UNEF processed roughly 1,953 departures over its first eleven months of operation, or an average of about 178 people leaving Portugal every month under its enforcement powers. That's a workload AIMA was never built to carry alone, and it explains why the government chose to hand it to a dedicated police structure rather than expand AIMA's own staffing.
Not everyone is comfortable with the model
The rollout hasn't been friction-free. The unit has faced several constraints at airports, mainly in Lisbon, since it entered into operation on 21 August 2025. Migrant-support groups have raised sharper objections. Timóteo Macedo of Solidariedade Imigrante told Lusa the unit resembles "uma polícia que tem uma perspetiva de perseguição dos pobres imigrantes" — a policing outfit he says prioritises chasing migrants over managing borders. The union representing PSP officers has described the first year as difficult, largely blaming queue backlogs on the new EU biometric checks rather than on UNEF's enforcement mandate itself.
What actually changes for compliance
For someone renewing a residence permit, applying for a NIF, or tracking an IFICI application, nothing changes — that traffic still runs through AIMA and Portal das Finanças, as covered in our visas hub. What changes is exposure at the border and during in-country checks: UNEF officers, not AIMA staff, now verify your legal status at airports and can issue a notification for voluntary departure or initiate a coercive removal process if your paperwork has lapsed. Carrying proof of a valid residence permit or pending renewal receipt is more important than ever, since the agency checking your papers on the ground is now a police force with its own case-processing pipeline, separate from the one handling your application file.
"Portugal now has two front doors for foreigners — AIMA for paperwork, UNEF for enforcement — and residents need to satisfy both," says GrowIN Portugal Editorial.
What to watch next
The government has signalled UNEF's headcount will keep growing toward 2,000 through the rest of 2026, and a dedicated case-management IT system for the unit is due for development this year, which should eventually speed up how removal and readmission files move. Anyone with an expired or pending permit should keep renewal confirmations on hand and monitor AIMA's portal closely, since the agency issuing your documents and the one enforcing them are no longer the same body.