Policy · 8 min read
The AIMA backlog, explained
Portugal's AIMA inherited an estimated 400,000 pending immigration files from the dissolved SEF in October 2023. One year on, who sits in that backlog and when it will clear.
By Diego Ferrer · October 28, 2024
Diego Ferrer
Lisbon / Porto · Lisbon, PT
When the Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras (SEF) was dissolved on 29 October 2023, its administrative function was transferred to the new AIMA — Agência para a Integração, Migrações e Asilo. The transfer was legally clean. Operationally it created the largest administrative backlog in Portuguese migration history: between 347,000 and 410,000 pending files, depending on which counting method the government uses in a given week.
Who sits in the backlog
Four groups:
- Manifestação de Interesse applications filed between 2017 and June 2024 — the largest single category.
- Family-reunification files pending at the moment of transfer.
- Residence-permit renewals where biometric data could not be captured before SEF closed.
- First-time asylum applicants whose files were still with SEF's asylum unit on 29 October 2023.
The clearance plan
AIMA's published target is full clearance by end-2025. The current rate of file resolution — public statistics are released quarterly — tracks against roughly 70% of what full clearance would require. The internal AIMA working estimate shared with practitioner associations is that a residual block of ~90,000 files will remain into 2026.
For applicants: the single highest-leverage action remains filing a complaint with the Provedor de Justiça (ombudsman) where the file has been pending beyond the SLA. Three Lisbon law firms we work with report that this escalation route is producing resolution within 30–60 days in cases where direct AIMA follow-up has not.