INE data confirm drop in immigration rise

The numbers on immigration disclosed by the Statistics Office on 22 June show that "immigration is controlled today" and that the reform undertaken in this field has clear outcomes, claimed the Minister of the Presidency António Leitão Amaro in a statement to the press in Lisbon.

The numbers from INE show there was a substantial reduction in new immigrants entering Portugal. When compared to 2022 and 2023, where the rise in the immigrant population was 326 090 and 275 929 new entries, respectively, the contrast with 2025 is evident, with only 59 113 new foreign citizens residing in the country.

As stated by the Minister of the Presidency, this is the first time in 9 years where the number of immigrants is practically unaltered compared to the previous year, evidence of the outcomes of the reform undertaken in the migration policy.

Specifically, the Government ended the expression of interest scheme two months after taking office on 3 June 2024, with a 60% reduction in entries in the second half of the year.

In September of the same year, the task force set up by the Government to recover thousands of files pending at AIMA, I.P. was set up and it completed its work in December 2025 under what was one of the largest national operations in the history of Portuguese public administration.

Through this work, it was possible to handle all the pending file and verify the criminal records, give those people papers and check the reality of foreigners in Portugal, already disclosed via an AIMA interim report on 8 April 2025, which is now confirmed by INE.

INE updated the number of residents in Portugal to 11 424 031 people, 1 597 539 of which are foreign citizens. From 2021 to 2025, the foreign population had a growth of 824 914 people, noting the years of 2022 and 2023 with exceptionally high numbers, meaning that this part of the population now represents 14% of the resident population.

"If the Government hadn't ended the expression of interest at the start of the summer 2024 and regulated the other flows, today the reality would be an immigrant population representing 20% of the total population", António Leitão Amaro also claimed.