Portugal Minister António Leitão Amaro to address immigrant count discrepancies in parliament

Minister of the Presidency António Leitão Amaro will appear before the Portuguese Assembly on 12 May 2026 to answer questions about large gaps between the immigrant population figures reported by the National Statistics Institute (INE) and the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA).

AIMA’s April‑2025 interim report said that at 31 December 2024 Portugal had about 1.6 million foreign citizens with valid residence permits, plus more than one million people not registered, suggesting a substantially higher immigrant count. By contrast, INE’s June‑2025 estimate placed the total resident population at roughly 10.75 million, an increase of only 110 000 since the end of 2023, implying far fewer immigrants. The discrepancy is blamed on INE not having incorporated AIMA’s administrative data in a timely or detailed manner – “Aparentemente o INE não incorporou informação administrativa na posse da AIMA”.

Liberal deputies recalled that a former president had questioned the coherence of the two sets of numbers and argued that the divergence is “materialmente relevante, na medida em que afeta o cálculo de indicadores per capita, o planeamento de políticas públicas e a própria confiança da população nas estatísticas oficiais”. The gap has also affected EU interpretations, with the bloc considering Portugal a refugee‑hosting country based on AIMA’s figures, a classification Lisbon opposed. State Secretary Rui Armindo Freitas downplayed the controversy, noting that statistical methods must adapt to changing realities and that Portugal’s unique rule changes have created statistical challenges.