Portugal's 2025 Migration Overhaul: 20,000 Exit Orders and Stricter Visas

Portugal’s government has quietly sketched a very different migration map for 2025: far fewer newcomers will be welcomed, and far more people already in the country will be asked to leave. Lisbon now faces a backlog of roughly 20,000 return decisions—a figure that puts the country in the same league as Europe’s biggest deporters only a year after being one of the continent’s most permissive destinations.

Snapshot — what matters right now

• Returns jump from 400 to 23,000 in one year

• Only 86 beds currently available for people awaiting removal

• Two new centros de instalação temporária promised for 2026, capacity 600

• Government wants EU rules to reflect Portugal’s “new reality” before signing off on relocation quotas

• Brazilians remain the largest single nationality facing expulsion

A startling statistical somersault

In 2024 Portugal processed scarcely 400 removals—the lowest tally anywhere in the European Union. By mid-2025, the figure had exploded to 23,000 planned returns, propelling the country into the bloc’s top tier for enforcement. Minister of the Presidency António Leitão Amaro insists the shift shows authorities are finally “catching up” after the abolition of the manifestação de interesse channel and the birth of the new immigration agency AIMA.

Behind the acceleration lies a painstaking audit of more than 400,000 pending files—many dating back to the pandemic—plus fresh political determination in Lisbon to prove it can police its own borders. The Portuguese resident foreign population, now hovering near 1.6 M, no longer guarantees automatic regularisation; prospective migrants must secure a work contract before arrival.

Brussels wants figures, Lisbon wants flexibility

The Commission’s migration scoreboard still relies on data frozen in June 2025, painting Portugal as a low-pressure country. Lisbon argues that view is “seriously out-of-date” and used the discrepancy to vote against the EU’s latest solidarity mechanism. Leitão Amaro is lobbying for “built-in flexibility” so Member States showing sudden spikes in enforcement are not simultaneously obliged to accept additional asylum seekers or pay into the €420 M fund.

Portugal’s calculus is simple: acknowledge the “migratory pressure” it now faces or allow it to seek a derogation from relocation quotas. The next six months of negotiations in Brussels will decide whether Lisbon’s tougher stance wins any concessions or merely alienates allies who supported the pact.

Who is being shown the exit?

While officials refuse to publish a full nationality breakdown, internal AIMA notes seen by several Lisbon-based NGOs indicate that Brazilian citizens account for more than half of forced removals since 2024, followed by Angolan and Nepali nationals. The ministry says it prioritises voluntary return with travel stipends where cooperation is forthcoming, but a draft “Lei do Retorno” now in public consultation would allow detention for up to 18 months for those who resist.

Secondary movements—migrants whose asylum bids failed elsewhere in the EU—also loom large. Around 20,000 such cases have surfaced in Portugal “over recent years”, according to Leitão Amaro, making the country an unexpected stop-over rather than a first point of entry. That label could influence Brussels’ future burden-sharing formulas.

Accommodation gap wider than ever

Portugal currently operates just 86 secure places for people awaiting deportation, spread across aging facilities at Porto airport and Lisbon’s Unidade Habitacional de Santo António. As a stop-gap, the interior ministry is converting a disused government complex outside Leiria and eyeing a military barracks in the Alentejo for temporary expansion “by early summer”.

Long-term relief hinges on two purpose-built centres: one in Odivelas (Lisbon region) and another somewhere in the North. Each would house 300 detainees and were originally costed at €30 M under the Recovery and Resilience Plan. That line item was dropped in November 2025 due to missed deadlines, forcing the treasury to scout alternative funding.

Impact on businesses and communities

Employers who once relied on regularising staff post-arrival must now secure visas before hiring. Construction and hospitality lobbies warn of an acute labour-supply crunch by spring, especially if removals outpace new legal inflows. On the ground, social-service organisations report a surge in anxious families seeking legal advice, even when fully documented.

At the same time, foreign workers transferred nearly €4 B in social-security contributions to state coffers last year, cushioning the pension system. Economists caution that an aggressive deportation drive could erode that revenue just as Portugal confronts demographic ageing.

Expert view: “Credibility versus compassion”

Migra Europe analyst Susan Fratzke tells Diário Económico that Portugal’s volte-face highlights a wider EU dilemma: “Everyone wants credible returns, but no one wants to bankroll the infrastructure.” Human-rights lawyer Maria Inácio adds that longer detention may clash with rulings from European courts if judicial review mechanisms are not bolstered. The government maintains it can respect due-process timelines while expanding capacity.

What to watch next

Brussels’s updated migration scoreboard, due in March 2026.

Parliamentary debate on the Lei do Retorno and potential amendments to detention limits.

Contractor selection for the Odivelas and northern centres—critical to meet the 30 June 2026 completion target.

Labour-market data in Q2 to gauge whether tighter rules squeeze recruitment.

Portugal’s migration playbook is being rewritten in real time. For residents, employers and would-be newcomers alike, the message from Lisbon is unmistakable: the era of near-automatic regularisation is over, and the ability to enforce exits has become a new metric of success for the government.