Brazilians rank first in residency applications in Portugal

In 2020, Brazilians once again stood atop the list of nationalities with the highest number of residency applications granted by the Portuguese government. The preliminary data Portugal’s Service of Foreigners and Borders (SEF) provided to Agência Brasil reveal that, of 117.5 thousand residency permits issued last year, 41.99 thousand—or 36 percent—were granted to Brazilian nationals.

These residency applications were lower than the 48,79 thousand permits granted to Brazilians in 2019—before Portugal was hit by the crisis stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, which, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE), led the country’s gross domestic product to shrink 7.6 percent last year and the official unemployment rate to reach 6.9 percent. Nonetheless, the result reveals that, even amid the crisis, a large number of Brazilians continue to choose to live in Portugal.

Community

Brazilians also make up the majority of foreigners living in the European country. In 2020, also as per the Service of Foreigners and Borders, of the 661 thousand people registering, 183.83 thousand had left Brazil—which does not include those who obtained Portuguese citizenship. Next are those coming from the UK (46.27 thousand), Cape Verde (36.6 thousand), Romania (30.06 thousand), and Ukraine (28.61 thousand).