Key figures — as of 2026-08-27: 52,421 foreign nationals inspected across 5,397 police actions between 21 August 2025 and 31 July 2026 — 1,117 irregular-stay cases detected (2.1%) — 831 voluntary departure notifications and 285 arrests for irregular stay — 221 forced returns and 1,732 voluntary returns completed in the same period.
A year of numbers, and what they mean for foreigners
The PSP's National Unit for Foreigners and Borders — UNEF, informally called the "mini-SEF" — has published its first annual scorecard, and the headline figure is stark: it detected 1,117 irregular cases (2.1%) among the more than 52,000 foreign citizens inspected in its first year of activity. For the roughly one million foreign residents now living in Portugal, the number itself is small in percentage terms, but it marks the first full-year data point since a dedicated policing unit took over immigration enforcement duties from the defunct SEF.
The unit's own account of the period, given in response to a request from the Lusa news agency, is precise: the Central Unit for Foreigners and Migration, through the Foreigners and Border Control Units, carried out a total of 5,397 inspection actions between 21 August 2025 and 31 July 2026, in which 52,421 foreign citizens were inspected. The enforcement outcomes were broken down by the PSP itself: these actions resulted in 831 notifications for voluntary departure from the national territory, 285 arrests for irregular stay, and one arrest for disobeying an entry ban.
Separately, the unit's returns operation — which took over responsibilities previously held by AIMA — processed a much larger volume of cases carried over from older backlogs. According to reporting on the same disclosure, UNEF executed 221 forced returns, 83 of them under police escort to the final destination, alongside 1,732 completed voluntary returns during the year. The PSP has also flagged that it continues to analyse cases of forced removal originating from AIMA and the defunct SEF, a significant part of these processes prior to 2020 — a reminder that some of the paperwork clogging the system today predates the unit itself by years.
Where UNEF came from — and where it's going
UNEF began operating on 21 August 2025, taking over border control and immigration surveillance functions previously held by the now-defunct SEF, whose air border competences passed to the PSP more than two years after its extinction. The unit's first year wasn't confined to street checks: it also absorbed responsibility for airport security, holding facilities in Lisbon, Porto and Faro, and — separately — controlled some 20 million passenger movements at air borders, reinforcing staffing at airports by close to 400 officers in the final two months of the year as queues stretched under the EU's new Entry/Exit System.
That system rollout, phased in from October 2025 and running at full capacity since April 2026, was the officers' union's chief complaint. The head of the national police officers' union described the year bluntly as "a very turbulent year," pointing to airport bottlenecks rather than street enforcement as the unit's biggest operational headache.
Not everyone welcomes the model. The president of Solidariedade Imigrante, one of Portugal's largest immigrant support associations, argued the unit was modelled on US-style enforcement and criticised it for prioritising the pursuit of immigrants over genuine border management — a criticism that speaks directly to the anxiety many foreign residents feel about visible, uniformed checks becoming routine rather than exceptional.
GrowIN's read on the numbers
Break the enforcement figures down and a pattern emerges that matters practically for anyone without fully sorted paperwork: of the 1,117 people flagged as irregular, 831 — about 74% — received a notice to leave voluntarily rather than being arrested on the spot. Only 285 (roughly a quarter) led to detention. In other words, for someone stopped by UNEF with an expired or missing residence document, the statistically likely outcome last year was a paper notice, not handcuffs — though that is cold comfort given the disruption a departure order still causes to jobs, leases and family life.
"A 2.1% irregularity rate across 52,000 checks tells foreigners the risk of a random stop is still low — but the paperwork consequences of getting flagged are anything but minor," says GrowIN Portugal Editorial.
What to watch next
The union's warning that regional foreigner-control units are still not fully staffed suggests enforcement intensity will likely grow, not shrink, as UNEF matures beyond its "turbulent" first year. Anyone renewing a residence permit, tracking a pending AIMA decision, or simply carrying an expired document should keep paperwork current and check status via AIMA's own renewals portal rather than waiting for a street check to force the issue — see our visas hub for the practical steps on permits and renewals. Expect the next annual figures, and any expansion of regional NECF units, to shape how visible this enforcement becomes outside airports and major cities.