Portugal’s current Golden Visa backlog has no official figure

Portugal’s Minister of the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, told a parliamentary committee on 7 October 2026 that the migration agency AIMA could now move on to family reunification and investment residence permits (ARI), known as Golden Visas, according to Lusa. The news agency reported 6,000 ARI cases already dealt with, without saying how or when. TLT found no official figure for the files still pending, nor any Portuguese source for the 13% figure cited in English-language coverage.

For a Vietnamese family with an ARI file still open, none of these figures shows where that file stands or when it will be decided. The Portugal Golden Visa remains open; the options AIMA lists include a fund route. On TLT’s reading of Portugal’s 2026 nationality law, for an applicant with no other Portuguese title, the ten years of legal residence now required of Vietnamese nationals before naturalisation start when the permit is granted, not when the file was lodged.

What the minister said, as reported

Parliament’s page for the hearing before the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees links only the video of the session; no minutes, transcript or tabled document is attached, so the figures below are as the press reported them.

According to Lusa’s report, carried by CNN Portugal and Observador, the minister said the capacity now installed at AIMA had allowed it to move on to “two other groups”, family reunification and the ARI. In the CNN Portugal copy, Lusa wrote that of the “46 mil pedidos de ARI pendentes” (46,000 pending ARI applications), “já foram despachados seis mil casos” (6,000 cases have already been dealt with), in a sentence that also gives an appointments figure not used here. The sentence is Lusa’s paraphrase, not a quotation, and does not say whether “despachados” means decided, issued or handled in some other way. Observador’s version of the same copy carries no ARI figure.

Diário de Notícias quoted the minister describing the 46,000 differently: “Quando nós chegámos tínhamos cerca de 46 mil, 45 mil processos parados” (when we arrived, we had about 46,000, 45,000 stalled cases). On DN’s account, 46,000 is the stock the Government says it found on taking office, the same figure Lusa’s paraphrase labels pending; neither report has him giving a separate figure for today’s queue, and DN gives no 6,000 figure.

The 13% figure

A figure of 13% appears in English-language coverage of the hearing. TLT found no Portuguese source for it: not Lusa’s copy in either outlet, DN’s report, Parliament’s page, the AIMA pages TLT read or the Government’s own summary of the hearing, published on 12 October, which lists four results, none of them about investment residence.

On TLT’s reading, 13% is Lusa’s 6,000 divided by the 46,000. That ratio sets cases dealt with over an unstated period against a stock the minister dates, approximately, to the Government’s arrival, so it cannot be read as a share of today’s queue.

The target set for 2026

The commitment dates from the budget hearing of 29 October 2025. The Government’s explanatory note for that hearing forecast AIMA’s own revenue at about €85 million in 2026 (€85,423,277 in its table), against €71.6 million in 2025.

According to Lusa, carried by Observador, Jornal de Negócios and RTP, the minister said that “next year” the Government would resolve the remaining pending cases it had left to the end “for reasons of social equity”, those that pay the most, the Golden Visas. Lusa reported him saying that “grande parte” (a large part) of ARI permits would be resolved in 2026 and pay “esse valor” (that amount) in fees, and presented this as his justification for the €85 million; the note itself makes no such link. In February 2026 an official source at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers told Jornal Económico that AIMA maintained the objective of handling during 2026 “todos estes pedidos” (all these requests), meaning, in the paper’s account, the pending Golden Visa files.

What AIMA publishes

AIMA moved ARI renewals to its online renewals portal from 16 February 2026, and new applications are filed on the Portal ARI. Its FAQ says AIMA schedules appointments by case progress, the state of the application on the portal and operational availability, and that after the in-person appointment the applicant waits for the procedure to run, with a further notice if documents are needed or an unfavourable decision is envisaged. On TLT’s reading, an appointment is a step in the file, not a decision.

The latest official output figure TLT found is in AIMA’s 2025 Migration and Asylum Report, published on 22 September 2026: 2,685 ARI were granted in 2025. TLT found no AIMA statistic on ARI files pending, scheduled or decided in 2026, and no official waiting time.

What it means for a file still pending

AIMA’s page on the investment permit still lists, among other options, at least €500,000 in non-real-estate investment funds set up under Portuguese law, with at least 60% invested in companies headquartered in Portugal. No investment may go to real estate; TLT described in July the earlier reform that removed the property route.

Organic Law 1/2026, in force since 19 May 2026, requires seven years of legal residence for nationals of Portuguese-speaking countries and EU citizens and ten years for others; nationality applications pending on that date stay under the old wording. The law treats as legally resident those in Portugal under a title, visa or permit, and it revoked Article 15(4) of the Nationality Law, which since 2024 had counted the time from the application for a temporary residence permit, provided it was granted. On TLT’s reading, for an applicant who holds no other Portuguese title, the clock towards naturalisation now starts when the ARI is granted. TLT reported the change in August.

AIMA’s next president

At the hearing the minister also said that a current board member, César Teixeira, would become AIMA’s president this year, according to DN and Lusa’s copy in Observador. On 13 October AIMA’s website still listed Pedro Portugal Gaspar as president and Teixeira as a board member. Board members are appointed by resolution of the Council of Ministers; TLT found none for Teixeira, and DN reported that no date had been set for him to take office.

What this article has not established

No official figure was found for the ARI files pending on 7 October 2026, and it is not established what Lusa’s “despachados” covers, or the period and cut-off date of the 6,000, which rests on a single Lusa copy. Parliament’s page links only the video of the hearing, with no official transcript; the recording contains further ARI figures that TLT has not checked by listening and does not print. The 2025 pledge was not checked against the recording of that hearing, so the link between AIMA’s revenue forecast and ARI fees rests on Lusa. TLT read AIMA’s news pages but ran no site search, found no official waiting time and no resolution appointing César Teixeira, and did not establish whether residence time accrued before 19 May 2026 counts under the new rule.