Portugal 2026: manifestação de interesse is gone, and what replaced it

Arriving in Portugal and regularising afterwards is no longer a route. The manifestação de interesse mechanism was discontinued as of 31 December 2025 and repealed by the 2026 immigration law. Under AIMA and the consular rules, a worker must now hold a signed employment contract before the work visa is issued.

What was removed, and what took its place

Under the old system a worker could travel to Portugal, find work, register with social security and regularise residence through a manifestação de interesse. The 2026 amendment to the Foreigners' Law closed that door. The open job seeker visa went with it, replaced by the Visto para Procura de Trabalho Qualificado, which is limited to highly qualified occupations set by government ordinance. For most construction, warehouse, hospitality and agricultural posts, that visa does not open.

That leaves one workable route for a Nepali hire. The worker signs a contrato de trabalho, or a promise of contract, with the Portuguese employer while still in Nepal, and the consulate issues the work visa on that basis.

How the AIMA route runs now

The sequence is straightforward to describe and slow to execute. The employer prepares the post and the contract, the worker signs it in Nepal, and the work visa application goes to the consulate. Once the worker is in Portugal, the residence file sits with AIMA (Agência para a Integração, Migrações e Asilo), and the 2026 reform adds a security clearance from the Unidade de Coordenação Antiterrorismo.

Two changes matter more than the paperwork. First, the reform abolished deferimento tácito, the tacit approval that treated an undecided file as granted once the authority missed its deadline. Delay used to run in the worker's favour; now delay is only delay. Second, aima.gov.pt schedules appointments by released capacity on a new online platform rather than on demand. A start date therefore depends on a slot, and the slot has to be taken on the day it appears.

For an employer this pushes the whole plan forward. There is no longer a stage after arrival where documents can be tidied up. Contract, authentication of Nepali certificates, consular application and the AIMA appointment all have to close before the first shift. Added together, the realistic Kathmandu to Lisbon window is counted in months. The D1 route detail sits in Portugal's D1 work visa and AIMA, and the cross country comparison in EU work permit timelines.

The application at the consulate is the D1, the residence visa for subordinate work, lodged at the Portuguese consular post with jurisdiction over the worker's place of residence. It names the employer and the post, so a change of company or job title before departure leaves the visa and the contract describing two different jobs, and the AIMA stage stops on that mismatch.

The wage in the contract is read as well. The floor is the national minimum wage or, in a sector covered by a collective agreement, the rate that agreement sets for the job, whichever is higher, which matters in hospitality, construction and agriculture. The last risk sits after arrival: if the residence permit file is not opened with AIMA inside the visa's validity, the visa lapses, the worker is in Portugal without authorisation, and the appointment queue starts again.

What this means for Nepali hiring

The Department of Foreign Employment recorded 7,900 Nepalis taking a labour permit for Portugal in FY 2082/83. A large share of that movement rested on the arrive and regularise habit, which is precisely what the reform closes. The workers most exposed right now are the ones acting on advice that was accurate in 2024.

Two failure modes are worth naming plainly. The first is travelling on a tourist visa to look for work and register later: that plan now has no legal basis, and it ends in a refused residence file and a return flight. The second is consular, and it is quieter. An applicant arrives with an unsigned draft contract or a verbal commitment from the employer, and the file stops at the counter, because the signed contract is the legal basis on which the visa is issued at all.

Count a Portuguese hire from the date the contract is signed, and hold the consular processing and the AIMA appointment as two separate lines rather than one. Our page for employers sets out how those lines are tracked against a site start date.