A course finished before an AIMA appointment set for 2027

In July 2026 AIMA began sending out appointment dates for residence permit applications submitted through its portal in April. Some of those dates fall in the second quarter of 2027, and the set covers more than 20,000 cases. For anyone holding one of those letters, the wait between application and appointment runs well past a year.

For one group that delay creates a problem of its own. Until September 2026 it was possible to apply for a residence permit as a student on a vocational or professional training course without first obtaining a visa, and thousands of applications were filed on that basis. Those courses last months, not years. The course therefore ends long before AIMA ever calls the applicant in.

The question is a direct one: does finishing the course before the appointment mean the application is refused? On the position AIMA has made public, and on a reading of the law, it should not. It is not a guarantee, and the reason is set out in the last part of this article. For applicants whose file does not involve a course at all, the relevant issue is the delay itself, dealt with further down.

What AIMA clarified in November 2026

In statements reported by the press on 3 November 2026, AIMA said that later completion of the course does not in itself lead to refusal, provided the applicant already met the legal requirements. Each case continues to be assessed individually. For that purpose the agency indicated that the start and end dates of the course must be evidenced, that enrolment and attendance existed on the relevant date, and that completion occurred before the appointment or the decision for reasons outside the applicant's control.

AIMA itself limited the scope of that position to cases already under instruction and to appointment requests filed before 11 September 2026, the date on which the amendments to the foreigners act came into force. The clarification was reported by DN Brasil.

Why 11 September 2026 separates the two situations

Lei n.º 62/2026, of 10 September, published in Diário da República no. 176, series I, came into force on the day after publication, under its article 11. That act closed the routes to regularisation without a prior visa. It repealed paragraph 4 of article 92 of Lei n.º 23/2007, which extended the student regime to anyone admitted to courses at qualification levels 4 or 5 of the Quadro Nacional de Qualificações, the Portuguese national qualifications framework, and to training courses delivered by educational or vocational training establishments. It also repealed paragraph 4 of article 91, on higher education students without a residence visa, and paragraph 3 of article 93, on trainees.

Residence on the basis of course attendance has not disappeared. Paragraph 1 of article 92 now covers courses at level 4 of ISCED 2011, the international standard classification of education, but it requires a residence visa issued under article 62 of the same act, which is applied for at the consulate before departure. The remaining amendments are summarised in the new immigration law and what changes for students.

The law applies to the future, and the application is an earlier fact

Lei n.º 62/2026 contains no transitional provision for Lei n.º 23/2007. Its article 10, on the application of the law in time, covers only applications and proceedings pending under Lei n.º 27/2008, on international protection. In the absence of a specific rule, the general rules apply.

Paragraph 1 of article 12 of the Código Civil, the Portuguese Civil Code, provides that the law applies only to the future and that effects already produced by the facts the law is intended to govern are preserved. Paragraph 2 adds that, where the law governs the conditions of validity of certain facts, it is understood, in case of doubt, to concern only new facts. An application filed in April 2026 predates the new act, and it is under the regime then in force that it must be assessed.

The delay in the appointment is not the applicant's fault

The time limit for deciding a residence permit application is 90 days, extendable by 30 days in duly substantiated exceptional circumstances and with notice to the applicant, under paragraph 5 of article 82 of Lei n.º 23/2007. An appointment set for 2027 on an application filed in April 2026 is far beyond that limit.

Article 13 of the Código do Procedimento Administrativo, the Administrative Procedure Code, imposes on public bodies the duty to rule on matters within their competence. Article 129 treats the absence of a final decision within the legal time limit as a breach of the duty to decide and opens to the interested party the appropriate administrative and judicial remedies. Article 8 requires manifestly unreasonable solutions to be rejected, and article 10 imposes good faith, with regard to the expectations created in the other party. Refusing an application because of a fact that arose solely from the wait imposed by the authority is the kind of solution these provisions rule out.

One change makes the wait worse and is worth recording. Lei n.º 62/2026 repealed paragraph 7 of article 82, under which a renewal was deemed granted where no decision was issued in time for reasons outside the applicant's control. Administrative silence no longer produces that favourable effect.

What should be gathered before the appointment

The burden of proving the facts alleged lies with the interested party, under paragraph 1 of article 116 of the Código do Procedimento Administrativo, which in paragraph 3 allows documents to be filed and useful evidence to be requested. For the situation described in this article, it is advisable to attend the appointment with:

• a declaration from the educational establishment stating the start and end dates of the course;

• proof of enrolment and attendance on the date of the application;

• the course certificate or diploma, where already issued;

• proof of submission of the application through the portal, showing the date;

• the appointment notice received from AIMA;

• documents evidencing lawful entry into and stay in Portugal on the date of the application.

Documents issued outside Portugal follow, as to form, the law of the issuing State, under paragraph 4 of the same article 116.

The firm's view, and why it is not a guarantee

The firm takes the view that completing a course during a wait imposed by the authority is not a valid ground for refusal, for the reasons set out above. That view neither replaces nor binds AIMA's decision.

There is a concrete reason for caution, and it is not hypothetical. In proceedings before the Tribunal Administrativo de Círculo de Lisboa, the Lisbon administrative court, the firm sought an order requiring AIMA to issue the residence permit of an applicant who had applied under article 92 of Lei n.º 23/2007. In February 2025 AIMA required proof of enrolment in the course, which was filed eleven days later, and that document stated that the course would end in December 2025. In its response to the court, AIMA argued that the applicant could not obtain a residence permit for studies that had already taken place in the past, and asked for the proceedings to be declared without purpose.

That is the opposite of the position the agency made public in November 2026, and it was advanced in relation to an application filed before 11 September 2026, which is precisely the type of case the clarification claims to cover. A position given to the press is neither a legal rule nor an administrative act, and nothing prevents the end of a course from being raised again in an individual case.

The practical consequence is straightforward: the clarification is something to rely on in argument, not something to count on. Anyone with an appointment should assemble proof of the dates before attending and also prepare for the possibility of refusal.

If refusal does occur, the notification opens a time limit for judicial challenge and may be accompanied by the duty to leave Portuguese territory, a regime described in deportation and removal from Portugal.

If the application was not based on a course

A large share of the applications now waiting for a 2027 appointment were filed on other grounds, in particular work. Nothing in AIMA's November statement concerns those files, and the completion of a course is irrelevant to them. What those applicants share with the group described above is the delay, and the delay has its own legal treatment: the time limit in paragraph 5 of article 82 of Lei n.º 23/2007 and the failure to decide under article 129 of the Código do Procedimento Administrativo apply regardless of the ground relied on.

Applicants in that position may find the requirements of the work route useful background, set out in the Portugal work visa in 2026.

Frequently asked questions

Does finishing the course cause a pending application to lapse?

No. The application stands and must be decided, under the duty to rule in article 13 of the Código do Procedimento Administrativo. What AIMA states is that later completion does not in itself lead to refusal where the requirements were met.

Does the same apply to applications filed after 11 September 2026?

No. The position AIMA made public was limited to cases under instruction and appointment requests filed before that date. Anyone intending to attend a course from then on needs the residence visa under article 62 of Lei n.º 23/2007, applied for at the consulate.

Can anything be done about an appointment set for 2027?

The decision period in paragraph 5 of article 82 of Lei n.º 23/2007 has been widely exceeded in these cases, and article 129 of the Código do Procedimento Administrativo opens administrative and judicial remedies for the failure to decide. One available route is the intimação para proteção de direitos, liberdades e garantias, an urgent order to protect rights and freedoms under article 109 of the Código de Processo nos Tribunais Administrativos, in which the judge issues a preliminary ruling within 48 hours under paragraph 1 of article 110. What the courts have already done about administrative inertia is discussed in is the AIMA queue jumping action worth it.

On what date did enrolment have to be active?

On the relevant date of the application, according to AIMA's statement, and not on the date of the appointment. That is the point the documents gathered must establish.

How the firm can help

What decides these cases is the timeline of the file, and that timeline sits entirely in the documents listed above. From them it is possible to tell whether the situation falls within the position AIMA made public, whether it is worth acting on the failure to decide before the appointment, and what should be ready should refusal come.

Dutra & Ferrari handles residence permit applications based on course attendance and acts before the administrative courts, including in urgent proceedings brought over delay by AIMA. The immigration services are described on the site. To have your case reviewed, just get in touch and send whatever has already been gathered.