The government has now restricted entry to foreign citizens with a visa, attributing the decline to the end of the expressions of interest, a regime that allowed immigrants to regularise their situation after entering as tourists.

On 8 April, during the announcement of the new measures to regulate immigration, António Leitão Amaro acknowledged it “was out of control”, and as a result, the outcome of the plan was revealed.

A government report found that the “flow” of foreign citizens entering the country with the goal of acquiring a residence permit increased from 156,951 in the first half of 2024 to 64,848 in the second half of the year. These figures correspond to the sum of registrations for the expressions of interest during the period under analysis with the total number of work search visas and residence visas of all types.

Since 2017, the year in which expressions of interest began, the number of immigrants who entered stood at 421,785, rising to 480,639 in 2018, and has only increased every year. “When the law changed in 2017, a decision by the Socialist Party (PS) and left-wing parties, there were just over 400,000 immigrants in Portugal”, Leitão Amaro stated. “In seven years, the proportion of foreigners residing in Portugal has gone from 4 percent to 15 percent of the total population, as we have been warning about for some time.”

“This was a big and rapid change”, he added. “This was, without a doubt, the biggest demographic change we have seen in our democracy and probably in our lifetimes.”

Currently, 1,546,521 immigrants have a residence permit, which is expected to reach 1.6 million in the coming months. “That socialist government threw open the door, did not prepare public services for this increase and allowed hundreds of thousands of pending cases to accumulate, jeopardising the integration of those who arrived”, the minister accused. “Once again, it was irresponsible and inhumane.”