Lei 23/2007 (Portugal)
Portugal's foreigners' law governing entry, stay, exit and removal of non-nationals.
Article 82 of Portugal's foreigners' law lost its tacit-approval clause on 11 September 2026, so a residence renewal the migration agency AIMA decides late is no longer granted by default; applicants must sue instead, in courts holding 152,000 pending cases.
Last refreshed: 4 October 2026
What happens now when AIMA misses a residence renewal deadline?
Timeline for Lei 23/2007 (Portugal)
Mentioned in: Portugal axes tacit renewal of permits
Nomads & CommunitiesBackground
Lei 23/2007 of 4 July 2007, passed by the Assembleia da República, sets Portugal's legal regime for the entry, stay, exit and removal of foreigners. It covers visas, residence permits and family reunion, and is commonly called the Lei de Estrangeiros.
It has been amended many times, by Decreto-Lei 41/2023 among others, and most recently by Lei 62/2026, in force from 11 September 2026. That law transposes the EU's Pact on Migration and Asylum and the recast Single Permit Directive.
AIMA, the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum, decides residence applications under it: 60 days for a renewal and 90 days for a first grant, with a 30-day extension in exceptional cases. Since Lei 62/2026 revoked Article 82(7), a missed renewal Deadline no longer produces a permit by default.
Late renewals no longer grant themselves
Until 11 September 2026, paragraph 7 of Article 82 deemed a residence-permit renewal granted when AIMA failed to decide within 60 days. Lei 62/2026 revoked that paragraph. The 60-day Deadline in paragraph 6 survives, but nothing now follows automatically when it is missed.
An applicant left waiting must go to the Administrative Courts, which already hold 152,000 pending cases; the government approved specialised immigration courts in July 2026 to take such suits. The amending law kept 90 days for first-grant decisions and added a 30-day extension for exceptional cases, so the law's clocks still run without any consequence attached to the renewal one.