Who actually moves to Portugal — and what it means for your business
The brochure picture is British retirees in the Algarve and American remote workers in Lisbon. The official data says something else: 1.59 million foreign residents, 14% of the population, a third of them Brazilian, a fast-growing South Asian workforce, and a smaller, richer Western segment growing faster than any of them. If you are sizing a market, hiring or choosing where to open, these are the numbers to start from — including where the two official sources disagree by tens of thousands.
Every major nationality, and the segment you are selling to
The 21 largest communities with published figures. Tick the groups that make up your market and the sizer adds them up against the whole foreign population.
Doubled in four years, then the brakes
The foreign population went from 7.1% to 14.0% of Portugal between 2021 and 2025. Almost all of that happened before June 2024.
| Year | Foreign residents (INE) | Permanent immigrants (INE) | Net migration (INE) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 748,155 | 222,775 | — |
| 2022 | 1,074,245 | 495,979 | 371,277 |
| 2023 | 1,350,174 | 461,751 | 307,288 |
| 2024 | 1,538,426 | 394,904 | 216,629 |
| 2025 | 1,597,539 | 254,253 | 70,862 |
INE, population estimates released 22 June 2026, and Pordata from INE. 2021 is a series break: INE switched to an administrative-data method, which also raised emigration figures sharply. Resident figures for 2022–2024 are derived from INE’s published annual increases.
The reason for the turn is one decision. The manifestação de interesse — the route that let people already in Portugal regularise on the strength of a job — was abolished on 3 June 2024. AIMA reported a 59% fall in new residence-seeking inflows afterwards, and INE’s permanent immigration fell by more than a third in 2025. The resident stock still grows, because the agency spent 2025 clearing the backlog: it granted 337,880 new titles, up 55%, most of them for applications filed before the route closed. Anyone reading the permit figure as a measure of arrivals will overstate demand by a wide margin.
Who they are, commercially
Brazil alone is roughly a third of all foreign residents; with Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé the Lusophone group is around 750,000. Same language, same legal culture, deep family networks, and access to the CPLP mobility agreement. For consumer businesses this is the volume market; for employers it is the largest Portuguese-speaking labour pool outside the native one.
Angola and Guinea-Bissau grew 7–10% even in 2025India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan together hold about 242,000 residents. They arrived overwhelmingly through work routes, concentrated in agriculture, logistics, construction and hospitality. This is also the segment the June 2024 change hit hardest: India fell 7.3% and Nepal 8.2% in 2025, the only large communities to shrink.
For employers: the pipeline has narrowedBritish, French, German, Dutch, American, Italian and Spanish residents number around 200,000. Smaller than either group above, but with the highest spending power, the highest use of advisory services, and a tight geography: Lisbon, Cascais, Comporta and the Algarve. Americans are its growth story — 2,888 in 2017, 19,258 by 2024, and the top nationality for golden visas in 2023.
The British share is flat to falling since BrexitAIMA counts 84,889 Ukrainians, of whom around 65,000 are under temporary protection; INE counts 47,514. The difference is exactly the protected population, and its future status depends on EU decisions about the protection regime rather than on Portuguese immigration law.
Read Ukrainian figures with the protection status in mindSeventy per cent in four districts
| Region | Foreign residents | Share of foreigners | Foreigners in local population |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lisbon district (AIMA) | 605,895 | 38.2% | — |
| Greater Lisbon (INE) | 546,419 | 34.2% | 22.6% |
| Setúbal district (AIMA) | 173,885 | 11.0% | 18.3% (peninsula, INE) |
| Porto district (AIMA) | 167,498 | 10.6% | — |
| Faro / Algarve | 166,124 | 10.5% | 27.9% — the highest |
| All other districts | 472,452 | 29.8% | — |
Top municipalities in 2025: Lisboa 200,073; Sintra 98,652; Porto 60,351; Amadora 55,457; Cascais 53,683. AIMA district figures are as reported by Lusa from the 2025 report; INE figures are for NUTS II regions.
Golden visas and NHR: smaller than the headlines
- 11,535 investor visas from October 2012 to end of 2022, of which 10,593 through real estate.
- Real estate removed as a route in October 2023.
- 2024: 2,081 investor titles plus 2,909 family members; 2025: 2,685 plus 3,967.
- No cumulative figure published by AIMA since 2023; lawyers estimate around 55,000 related applications pending.
- NHR beneficiaries: 41,229 in 2019, 128,958 in 2024 (IGF audit, April 2026).
- Tax expenditure: €619.7m in 2019, €1,741m in 2024.
- Closed to new entrants in 2024; transitional registration ran to 31 March 2025.
- IFICI, its successor: no beneficiary figures published.
Put against 1.59 million residents, both regimes are niche. Golden visas produced a few thousand residents a year; NHR at its peak covered under 130,000 people, many of them returning Portuguese. They matter enormously for the advisory and property markets, and very little for the overall shape of who lives in Portugal — which is driven by work and by the Portuguese-speaking world.
Where the two official sources disagree
- AIMA — Relatório de Migrações e Asilo 2024 (October 2025, primary); Relatório de Migrações e Asilo 2025 (22 September 2026, via Lusa, DN and Postal — the PDF could not be retrieved); SEF RIFA 2022 for 2017–2022.
- INE — Estimativas de População Residente 2025 (22 June 2026); permanent migration flows via Pordata (updated 2 October 2026).
- IGF — audit of the NHR regime, approved 29 April 2026. SEF data via Lusa for golden visa totals to 2022.
We could not find published counts of D7 (passive income), D8 (digital nomad) or study visas in either report; consular statistics from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would be the source. AIMA did not publish a US-specific figure for 2025.
What people ask before they choose a market
How many foreigners live in Portugal?
About 1.59 million at the end of 2025. AIMA, the immigration agency, counts 1,585,854; INE, the statistics office, estimates 1,597,539, or 14.0% of a population of 11.42 million. In 2021 the share was 7.1%, so it has roughly doubled in four years. AIMA's figure is wider than holders of a valid permit: it includes pending manifestação de interesse cases, expired CPLP permits and people under temporary protection.
Which nationality is largest?
Brazil, by a wide margin: 493,622 residents according to AIMA and 574,195 according to INE for 2025. That is roughly a third of all foreign residents. Angola, India, Ukraine and Cape Verde follow, each between about 70,000 and 100,000.
How many Americans live in Portugal?
AIMA counted 19,258 US citizens at the end of 2024, up from 14,129 a year earlier — a 36% rise in one year and nearly seven times the 2017 figure of 2,888. AIMA did not publish a US-specific figure for 2025, but reported growth of 10% for North and Central America, led by the United States.
Where in Portugal do foreigners live?
Mostly around Lisbon. In 2025 the Lisbon district held 605,895 foreign residents, 38.2% of the total, followed by Setúbal, Porto and Faro at roughly 10–11% each. Those four districts hold 70% of all foreign residents. Proportionally, the Algarve has the highest concentration: foreigners are 27.9% of its population, against 22.6% in Greater Lisbon.
Why did immigration slow in 2025?
Because the manifestação de interesse route, which let people already in Portugal regularise on the basis of work, was abolished on 3 June 2024. INE's count of permanent immigrants fell from 394,904 in 2024 to 254,253 in 2025, and net migration from 216,629 to 70,862. AIMA's resident total grew only 2.7% in 2025 after 18.3% in 2024.
Why do AIMA and INE give different numbers?
They measure different things. AIMA counts people in its administrative system, including pending and expired cases; INE estimates the resident population from several administrative sources. The biggest gap is Brazil, where INE's figure is about 80,000 higher. For Ukraine the gap runs the other way, because AIMA includes around 65,000 people under temporary protection. AIMA has also revised its own earlier totals upward by as much as 260,000.
Are the 337,880 residence permits granted in 2025 new arrivals?
Mostly not. AIMA granted 337,880 new titles in 2025, up 55%, but most of them cleared applications filed before June 2024. To measure arrivals, use INE's permanent immigration flow, which was 254,253 in 2025.
How many golden visas has Portugal granted?
11,535 investor visas from October 2012 to the end of 2022, over 90% of them through real estate, according to SEF data. Real estate was removed as a route in October 2023. AIMA granted 2,081 investor titles in 2024 and 2,685 in 2025, plus family members, and has not published a cumulative figure since. Lawyers estimate around 55,000 related applications pending.
How many people used the NHR regime?
128,958 registered beneficiaries in 2024, up from 41,229 in 2019, according to an audit by the General Inspectorate of Finance approved in April 2026. The tax expenditure reached 1,741 million euros in 2024. NHR closed to new entrants in 2024; its successor IFICI has published no beneficiary figures.
What does this mean for a business setting up in Portugal?
That the customer base and the labour pool are far more international than the brochure picture of retirees in the Algarve. One in seven residents is foreign; Portuguese-speaking Africans and Brazilians are the largest groups, South Asia supplies a large share of the workforce, and high-income Western residents — British, French, German, American — are a smaller but fast-growing and concentrated segment around Lisbon, Cascais and the Algarve.
Know your segment before you sign a lease
We help companies size the Portuguese market for their actual customer, choose the city and the structure that fit it, and set the company up with the tax and payroll in place from day one. If the numbers say the market is not there, we will tell you that too.