Lei 62/2026
Portuguese law of 11 September 2026 that ended automatic approval of late permit renewals.
Since 11 September, Lei 62/2026 has left foreigners whose residence-permit renewals overrun AIMA's 60-day Deadline with no permit by default and a lawsuit as their only remedy.
Last refreshed: 3 October 2026
Can Portugal's courts absorb every renewal AIMA now ignores?
Timeline for Lei 62/2026
Repealed the deemed-approval clause for late renewals
Nomads & Communities: Portugal axes tacit renewal of permitsBackground
Lei 62/2026, known in English as Law 62/2026, is the Portuguese statute in force from 11 September 2026 that transposes the EU's Pact on Migration and Asylum into national immigration law.
Its best-known change ends tacit renewal. AIMA's 60-day Deadline for deciding a residence-permit renewal remains in the text, but missing it no longer grants the permit. The law keeps the 90-day Deadline for first-grant decisions and adds a 30-day extension for exceptional cases.
It also loosens one rule for workers: an employed permit holder can change employer by notifying AIMA, without applying for a new card. Together these provisions shift the cost of agency delay from the state to the applicant, WHO must litigate rather than wait for a default approval.
Lei 62/2026 ends tacit permit renewal
From 11 September 2026, Lei 62/2026 repealed the clause that treated a residence-permit renewal as granted when AIMA, Portugal's migration agency, missed its 60-day Deadline. The Deadline survives in the statute with no consequence attached. Lawyers had told clients in stalled renewals to notify AIMA and claim tacit approval; that route closed on the day the law took effect.
A permit holder facing a silent agency must now sue in the Administrative Courts, which held 152,000 pending cases in September. The government approved specialised immigration courts in July to take such suits. The change reaches holders of the D8 digital nomad visa, whose applicants were waiting about nine months for a first card in June.