Decreto-Lei 41/2023 (Portugal)
Portuguese decree-law creating migration agency AIMA to replace SEF's administrative immigration role.
Article 82 of Portugal's foreigners' law, in the wording Decreto-Lei 41/2023 gave it, stopped deeming late renewals granted on 11 September 2026. Applicants facing a silent AIMA must now sue, in courts holding 152,000 pending cases.
Last refreshed: 4 October 2026
Why can Portuguese residents no longer claim tacit approval of a late renewal?
Timeline for Decreto-Lei 41/2023 (Portugal)
Mentioned in: Portugal axes tacit renewal of permits
Nomads & CommunitiesBackground
Decreto-Lei 41/2023 of 2 June 2023 created the Agência para a Integração, Migrações e Asilo (AIMA), which took over the administrative migration and asylum powers of the Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras (SEF). The decree took full effect on 29 October 2023.
It also merged the High Commission for Migration (ACM) into AIMA and set up a borders and foreigners coordination unit inside the internal security system. It amended Lei 23/2007, the foreigners' law, including Article 82 on the renewal of residence permits.
That renewal article is where the decree now meets the courts. Its 60-day tacit-approval clause had shielded applicants from a slow agency; with the clause repealed from 11 September 2026, AIMA's delays turn into litigation.
Silence no longer means approval
In its 2023 wording, Article 82 treated a renewal as approved whenever AIMA, the agency this decree-law created, missed its 60-day Deadline for a cause not attributable to the applicant. Lei 62/2026 repealed that clause with effect from 11 September 2026.
The decree's institutional design survives, but its fallback for a slow agency does not. A foreigner whose renewal stalls must now go to an Administrative Court, where 152,000 cases were already pending. Specialised immigration courts, approved by the government in July 2026, are meant to absorb those suits.