Portugal: More than 93,000 CPLP citizens get residency permits in one month

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Portugal: More than 93,000 CPLP citizens get residency permits in one month

9:06 CAT | 12 Apr 2023

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Lusa]

More than 93,000 Portuguese-speaking immigrants, mostly Brazilians, have obtained residence permits in Portugal in the first month of operation of the new immigration and border service (SEF) portal for automatic attribution of this document, according to an assessment published on Tuesday.

The platform for obtaining a residence permit in Portugal for citizens of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) began on 13 March and is intended for Portuguese-speaking immigrants with processes pending at the immigration and border service until 31 December 2022 and for those who have a CPLP visa issued by Portuguese consulates after 31 October 2022.

In a statement summarising the situation, SEF said that it had received 114,131 applications for residence permit certificates from CPLP citizens since 13 March.

Of the 114,131 requests made on the CPLP portal, accessible via www.SEF.pt and www.ePortugal.gov.pt, SEF issued over 103,572 documents with a reference for payment, of which 97,631 were settled and resulted in granting 93,209 residence permits, according to the security service.

The service said that nationals from Brazil accounted for 86.5% of CPLP residence permit requests, followed by citizens from Angola, with 3.8%, and Sao Tome and Principe, with 3%.

SEF notes that as part of this process, databases are consulted, and the CPLP residence permit certificate is issued if the applicant is not identified as being subject to an alert for the purposes of return or refusal of entry and stay.

The security service said that 6,043 alerts were detected, requiring a more detailed consultation to ascertain whether or not a CPLP residence permit had been granted.

SEF also stressed that this new model, which is exclusively digital, is aimed at CPLP citizens with expressions of interest delivered by 31 December 2022, and those who hold the new CPLP consular visas issued after 31 October 2022, providing access to education, health, social security, professional activity, vocational training and justice, thus representing an opportunity for these citizens to regularise their situation.

According to SEF, these residence permit concessions are automatic and “exclusively online, without the need for any other type of interaction with the service or physically going to any SEF offices”.

However, in the case of minors involved in the legalisation process, they must go “at a later date to a SEF service point”.

The residence permit for immigrants from the CPLP costs €15, and the availability of this electronic document generally takes 72 hours.

This residence permit in Portugal for citizens of the CPLP is granted under the mobility agreement between the member states of the organisation.

Besides Portugal, Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe and East Timor are members of the CPLP.

The residence permit under the CPLP mobility agreement is initially valid for one year and is renewable for two successive periods of two years.

SEF data shows that the foreign population residing legally in Portugal increased in 2022 for the seventh consecutive year, totalling 757,252. The Brazilian community was the one that grew the most, as well as being the most numerous.

At the end of last year, there were 233,138 Brazilians living in Portugal.

Source: Lusa