The updated AIDA Country Report on Portugal provides a detailed overview on legislative and practice-related developments in asylum procedures, reception conditions, detention of asylum applicants and content of international protection in 2024. It is accompanied by an annex which provides 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 2023 are set out below.
(A) International protection
Asylum procedure
- Key asylum statistics: Portuguese authorities registered 2,680 applications for international protection in 2024. The recognition rate was 1% (a major decrease from 72% in 2023). Although the nature of the asylum authority’s caseload may vary from year to year, NGOs highlighted multiple gaps in the implementation of legal norms concerning the asylum procedure, procedural safeguards and reception conditions in 2024, particularly during the first six months. The number of appeals rose by approximately 50% compared to 2023 and information provided by courts indicated a 32% success rate at appeal stage (up from 9% in 2023).
- Funding: Funding remained a significant challenge for civil society organisations involved in the provision of assistance to people on the move as they continued to face significant financial constraints leading to delays in payments. They also experienced the repercussions of delays in the provision of funding from the EU’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund at the national level.
- Registration of asylum applications: Since the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) began operating at the end of 2023, the Portuguese Refugee Council (CPR) has observed/received reports of worrying practices regarding the registration of asylum applications. In 2024, applicants were forced to travel across the country to Lisbon in order to present/register their applications in the National Centre for Asylum and Refugees (CNAR) after being denied the opportunity to do so in all other AIMA premises apart from those situated in Porto and Coimbra.
- Interviews: Worrying systematic practices relating to asylum interviews were and/or continued to be observed throughout 2024, especially during the first six months. Issues included the modalities of interviews (e.g. conducted late at night / early in the morning and following trips across the country), their content (e.g. oversimplification of the questions asked) and procedural guarantees (e.g. applicants systematically asked if they wished to be notified immediately of the decision without being informed that this would imply a relinquishment of their right to reply and without having access to legal information and assistance; applicants not being informed of the possibility of being interviewed in a language that they understand and with the assistance of an interpreter, etc.).
- Subsequent applications: During 2024, CPR became aware that rather than registering subsequent applications, AIMA was instructing applicants to submit new facts, information or evidence within five working days and using it to decide whether or not to register the new application. This practice seemed to change in the second half of the year and AIMA acknowledged having standardised its procedures on this issue in September.
- Safe country concepts: Although AIMA has confirmed that it does not have a list of safe countries of origin or of safe third countries, CPR has observed a significant increase in the use of both concepts in 2024 compared to previous years. Regarding safe third countries, the reasons provided for such decisions did not engage with the legal requirements for the application of this concept and thus the inadmissibility of the asylum application, nor did they include individual assessments.
Reception conditions
- Issues in the provision of material reception conditions: Throughout 2024, CPR received reports of people in various regions experiencing difficulties in presenting their asylum applications whilst also not being referred to reception solutions. CPR also received reports of asylum applicants receiving limited information and social support and/or reception solutions even after their applications had been lodged. In addition, during the first half of 2024, CPR received reports of asylum applicants in accommodation that was provided directly by AIMA facing the following issues: lack of information, isolation, lack of means to access AIMA services, lack of access to material reception conditions (including food), withdrawal of accommodation immediately after notification of negative decisions (in violation of the applicable legal framework), frequent and often unannounced changes of place of accommodation, and lack of responses to specific needs, including access to healthcare.
- Right to education: A number of legal provisions on education were published in 2024 and early 2025 that provided for new accommodation in the education system for foreign students, including children who are either applying for or already beneficiaries of international protection.
Detention of asylum applicants
- Resumption of the border procedure: The application of the border procedure and border detention resumed in November 2023 and both were systematically applied throughout 2024 and early 2025, including to vulnerable applicants. In late 2023 and early 2024, asylum applicants and other people who were refused entry at Lisbon airport were frequently detained in the transit zone in appalling conditions due to the lack of capacity in the corresponding detention facility. As a result, many of them were forced to sleep on floors or in camp beds or even airport seats without bedclothes or access to personal items or personal hygiene facilities, and with inadequate food provision.
- Detention of vulnerable applicants: The Public Security Police has confirmed that there is no formal or systematic mechanism for identifying vulnerabilities at border points. Information collected by CPR has indicated that children accompanied by family members and other particularly vulnerable people such as pregnant women, sick people, victims of torture or violence, and others are systematically detained.
Content of international protection
- Cessation and review of protection status: CPR identified a new AIMA practice regarding the cessation of protection extended to family members (e.g. under family reunification when the sponsor acquires Portuguese nationality). Children and other family members were not notified of decisions to cease the extension of international protection and therefore were not able to exercise their right to an adversarial hearing or a judicial review of the authority’s decision.
(B) Temporary protection
- Key temporary protection statistics: AIMA did not provide any information on temporary protection in 2024. According to data from the EU’s statistical office (Eurostat), 72,890 people have been granted temporary protection in Portugal since February 2022, including 7,120 in 2024.
- Duration of temporary protection: The duration of temporary protection was extended twice in 2024 up to March 2026.
- Registration under temporary protection: During 2024, CPR became aware of cases of significant delays (up to one year) in the issuance of certificates of temporary protection without any information being provided to the people concerned. This was particularly problematic for third-country nationals who lived in Ukraine before the full-scale invasion, many of whom were family members of Ukrainian citizens.
- Freedom of movement: The Ombudsperson highlighted reports of authorities failing to respond to requests for cancellation of temporary protection status submitted by beneficiaries who wished to move to another country where they would benefit from similar protection. CPR also received similar complaints during 2024.
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.