I wanted to share my experience with AIMA so far and maybe show a different perspective than what’s usually posted in this sub.
I’ll try to obscure some of the less important details for anonymity, but I’ll keep the process itself accurate.
Background:
I came to Portugal at the beginning of 2026 with my family on work + family reunification visas. One big piece of luck was that our AIMA appointment was already set on the visas when they were issued. The appointment was very close to when we arrived, so we basically had nothing ready yet (no NIF, no NISS, etc.).
Because of that, AIMA gave us another appointment during this period. We went to the Porto office. The waiting time was reasonable, the staff at the door were nice, and they spoke English with us.
We had all the documents except for one very important one that I forgot to print. I honestly expected that to cause serious problems, but they were nice enough to make an exception. They processed our biometrics, gave us the receipts, and asked me to mail (ctt) the missing document, which I did immediately.
To be honest, I was surprised by how helpful and decent everyone was. They didn’t penalize us for not speaking Portuguese (we’ve had some bad experiences with that elsewhere), and overall the interaction was pretty positive.
Anyway, I’ll make an update once we get our cards (if people are interested). If anyone has questions, feel free to ask here or DM me.
I also have a few questions if anyone can help:
* From my research, there’s no platform to track AIMA applications for first residence cards (only renewals). Is that still true?
* What’s the average wait time we should expect until we receive the cards?
* Since they gave us the receipts and accepted everything, is it still possible for them to reject the application or ask for more documents later?
Thanks.