|Published on: 2nd July 2026|Categories: News|
The updated AIDA Country Report on Portugal provides a detailed overview of legislative and practice-related developments in asylum procedures, reception conditions, detention of asylum applicants and content of international protection in 2025. It is accompanied by an annex providing an overview of temporary protection.
A number of key developments drawn from the overview of the main changes that have taken place since the publication of the update on 2024 are set out below.
(A) International protection
Asylum procedure
- Key asylum statistics: According to the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA), 1,765 applications for international protection were registered in 2025.
- Appeals: 510 appeals against negative decisions were registered in 2025. 26% of them were successful.
- Registration of asylum applications: The Portuguese Council for Refugees (CPR) observed significant difficulties regarding the filing and registration of international protection claims, access to information and document renewals in 2025. Applicants continued to rely on support from NGOs to access basic information, legal documentation and support services.
- Delays in the processing of regular asylum applications: According to AIMA, there were 8,836 first-instance international protection cases pending at the end of 2025. Based on information that CPR was able to gather on 96 regular procedure decisions issued in 2025, the overall duration of the procedure varied between 104 days and 3,099 days with an average of 662 days.
- Interviews: Several concerning practices in asylum interviews persisted throughout 2025. These included inappropriate or intrusive questioning in some cases, a failure to ask relevant follow-up questions in others and a lack of interpreters for certain languages.
- Resumption of the border procedure: The border procedure and subsequent detention regime continued to be systematically applied in 2025, including for vulnerable applicants.
- Admissibility and accelerated procedures: Accelerated procedures were used frequently in 2025. However, in many cases, they were often applied without sufficient supporting evidence to justify the grounds for their use.
- Special procedural guarantees: AIMA systematically suspended proceedings under general administrative rules rather than providing special procedural guarantees (i.e. postponement of the interview or admission to the regular procedure) even in cases where the incapacity was evident and the agency had itself requested medical reports.
Reception conditions
- Issues in the provision of material reception conditions: Access to services remained very difficult for people living outside Lisbon as limitations on registration of applications also limited access to reception conditions. Applicants also faced arbitrary practices such as being turned away for not having appointments or being redirected to alternative AIMA offices. Severe gaps in information provision, social support, and immediate housing solutions also persisted, and there were reports of applicants resorting to using a social emergency line.
- Healthcare: In April 2025, two ministerial orders clarified that incomplete registrations are allowed for up to 180 days without interruption of healthcare access, and that asylum applicants could register for primary healthcare and be assigned to a family health team. However, according to some NGOs, difficulties in accessing healthcare persisted nationwide.
Detention of asylum applicants
- Detention statistics: According to the Public Security Police (PSP), 449 asylum applicants were placed in administrative detention. 330 cases related to entry refusals and border-issued asylum claims and the other 119 were linked to removal or judicial expulsion proceedings.
- Detention of vulnerable applicants: Although CPR noted some improvements, vulnerable people continued to be detained in 2025, including in the airport transit zone.
- Grounds for detention: In December 2025, MPs raised concerns about courts systematically ordering the detention of asylum applicants contrary to PSP assessments and without considering alternatives to detention. They also questioned the government on the operationalisation of a dedicated hearing room in Lisbon airport, similar structures in other airports and measures to ensure compliance with national and international law.
Content of international protection
- Status and residence: The lack of national implementation of National Centre for Asylum and Refugees (CNAR) services and the unavailability of other AIMA services had a significant impact on renewal of documentation by beneficiaries of international protection.
(B) Temporary protection
- Key statistics: According to AIMA, there were 66,740 registered beneficiaries of temporary protection at the end the end of 2025.
- Duration of temporary protection: In March 2025, a government resolution extended temporary protection until March 2026. It has since been extended until March 2027.
- Cancellation of temporary protection: In 2025 AIMA cancelled the temporary protection statuses of some non-Ukrainian nationals who had initially been granted protection in Portugal when the personal scope of the protection was broader. Based on CPR’s experience, affected people were not heard prior to the draft cancellation decision, nor were they requested to submit supporting documentation.
The full report is available here and the annex on temporary protection is available here.
For more information about the AIDA database or to read other AIDA reports, please visit the AIDA website.
