If you've dealt with AIMA, this matters.

There is something happening in the courts that anyone who has dealt with AIMA should know about. It's Friday, 24 July. Twenty-six degrees. Here's what you need to know.

🌬️ AIR QUALITY: 24 (Good).

🗞️ TOP STORY

PORTUGAL IS BUILDING DEDICATED IMMIGRATION COURTS

THE GOVERNMENT HAS APPROVED DEDICATED IMMIGRATION COURTS. HERE IS WHAT CHANGES.

The Council of Ministers formally approved a reform of the administrative justice system on Thursday that creates specialised courts for immigration, asylum and international protection cases. The idea was first proposed by the High Council for the Judiciary in mid-2024, but Thursday's vote turns it into legislation, and it comes with a practical change that was not part of the original proposal.

That change is geographic. Under the current system, nearly all legal challenges against the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) are funnelled through a single administrative court in Lisbon, regardless of where the applicant lives. The reform allows people to file cases at the administrative court nearest to their area of residence, which should distribute the caseload and, in theory, cut waiting times.

The backstory explains why it took this long. When the government disbanded SEF and created AIMA, the transition was so troubled that over 130,000 foreign nationals took their cases to court to defend their rights. The system buckled. The European Commission's latest Rule of Law report flagged that Portuguese administrative cases now take an average of 861 days to resolve, with a clearance rate of just 48%. Brussels called it a deterioration, and the government's own judicial council traced the problem directly to the volume of AIMA litigation.

The reform also creates judges who specialise in immigration and international protection law, rather than handling it as part of a general administrative caseload. The government says this will produce faster and more consistent rulings across the country. The legislation forms part of the National Integration Plan, which is due by the end of the summer.

Not everyone is convinced. The migration technicians' union (STM) called it a surface fix, arguing that the reform addresses the consequences of AIMA's failures but not the causes. Their position is that no number of new courts will reduce the volume of cases if AIMA continues to generate the delays and errors that send people to court in the first place.

What this means for you: if you are in the middle of a dispute with AIMA, or anticipating one, the change means you will eventually be able to take your case to a court near where you live rather than dealing with the overloaded Lisbon tribunal. The specialised judges should, in principle, understand the law better and move faster. The timeline for the new courts to be operational is not yet clear.

Bottom line: the legislation is now approved. Whether it fixes the agency that keeps filling the courts is a separate question, and one readers will be watching closely.

⚡ QUICK HITS

The European Central Bank (ECB) held interest rates on Thursday, as expected. The deposit rate stays at 2.25% after June's surprise hike, but the door to another increase in September was left wide open. Markets are pricing in roughly a 70% chance of a further hike when the ECB meets again on 10 September, this time with fresh economic projections to anchor the decision. The driver remains the same: energy prices pushed higher by the conflict in the Middle East. Since roughly nine in ten Portuguese mortgages are variable and track Euribor, the September meeting is the one to watch. For now, no change to repayments.

Lisbon's new airport now carries a price tag of up to €8.9 billion. ANA, the airport operator, presented its detailed technical report on Wednesday, putting the cost of the Aeroporto Luís de Camões at between €7.9 billion and €8.9 billion at 2024 prices, up from an earlier preliminary estimate of €8.5 billion. The airport will be built at Alcochete, on the south bank of the Tejo, with construction set to begin in 2029 and the government pushing for a 2035 opening. Capacity at launch: 56 million passengers a year, potentially rising to 85 million, which would make it one of the largest new airports built in Western Europe in decades.

The University of Lisbon is investing €20 million in two AI and advanced-computing data centres. The facilities will be built at the Oeiras campus (Taguspark) and Cidade Universitária, with completion due by October 2028. They will support artificial intelligence and high-performance computing across the university's schools and research labs, making it one of the largest digital research infrastructures in Portuguese higher education.

Is Your Tax Planning Legal? What Portugal's Anti-Abuse Rule Really Means, With Fresh Legal

The Portuguese Tax Authority can challenge a structure it believes exists only to save tax. Knowing where legitimate planning ends is harder than it sounds. Here is a plain guide from the team at Fresh Legal.

Many expats and business owners quietly worry that any structure which happens to lower their tax bill could later be challenged by the Portuguese Tax Authority. True as it may be, recent court rulings have made it clear that opting for the less onerous structure (tax-wise) to organise your business is absolutely fine, as long as substance is there.

For entrepreneurs, investors, and international families living in Portugal, one of the most common sources of uncertainty is not knowing where legitimate tax planning ends and something riskier begins, especially when foreign companies, holding structures, or family transfers are involved.

The good news is the line is clearer than most people assume.

Portuguese law allows individuals and businesses to arrange their affairs in a tax efficient way, and choosing a structure that reduces a tax bill is not, by itself, considered abusive. The Portuguese General Anti-Abuse Rule, or GAAR, gives the Tax Authority the power to disregard transactions, but only when they are artificial and exist solely to obtain a tax benefit, with no genuine commercial reality behind them. A recent Portuguese court decision reinforced exactly this point, confirming that taxpayers are entitled to choose the least burdensome tax treatment available under the law, provided that the transactions they adopt to achieve such result are legitimate and commercially reasonable.

The resulting legal exposure generally falls into two distinct categories:

Structures in the first category are generally safe, provided the commercial reasoning is real and can be demonstrated. Structures in the second category carry meaningful risk regardless of how the paperwork is drafted. Structures already under dispute follow a distinct process, where the burden falls on the Tax Authority to prove the arrangement lacks genuine substance before it can be disregarded.

One of the most common misunderstandings is that simply obtaining a tax advantage is enough to justify a challenge. In reality, the recent court ruling confirmed that the Tax Authority must prove all the legal requirements of the anti-abuse rule are met, including the absence of any real commercial purpose, before a transaction can be set aside. Two businesses with similarly tax efficient structures may reach very different outcomes depending on whether their commercial reasoning was ever properly documented.

Tax planning in Portugal should not be treated as something to figure out only if it is ever questioned. A proper review of your structure, the commercial reasoning behind it, and the supporting documentation is essential well before any inspection begins. For expats and business owners with international structures, acting early can make a significant difference.

→ Read the full breakdown of the court ruling and what it means for your structure

We only partner with businesses we think genuinely help our community. If this is relevant to you, or if you know someone with a business or holding structure in Portugal, every click and every share goes a long way to keeping this newsletter free every morning.

🍽️ SPOT OF THE DAY

THE SPA BY CORINTHIA LISBON (SÃO SEBASTIÃO)

On Avenida Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro, a short walk from São Sebastião metro, the Corinthia's basement-level spa is one of those places you walk past for months without realising it takes day visitors. It won Portugal's Best Hotel Spa at the World Spa Awards in both 2023 and 2024, and the facility holds up: a nine-station water therapy circuit that runs from sensory showers and a dynamic pool through a jacuzzi, sauna and steam room to a cold plunge, ice fountain and cooling walk. There is also a full-length heated indoor pool and, above it, a rooftop sun deck where you can dry off in the open air.

The half-day water therapy circuit costs from around 90 euros per person, which gets you two hours on the circuit, the pool, robes, slippers, towels and flavoured water. Treatments (massages, facials, body work) are bookable on top. The spa is not enormous, which works in its favour: the circuit is limited to a handful of guests at a time, so it stays quiet even at the weekend.

Worth knowing before you go: book ahead, especially for weekends. Bathing suits are mandatory on the circuit and in the pool. If you are adding a treatment, the therapists named most often in reviews are Hari, Sanu, Sonia and Marina.

→ Book a session and find them here ←

Insider tip: go on a weekday afternoon when the circuit is at its emptiest, and start with the cold plunge and ice fountain before working through the heat stations. You will get more out of the sauna and steam room if your body is already awake.

A correction from yesterday: a reader, Simon, pointed out that Palácio do Grilo closed its restaurant earlier this year. He was right. The venue's own website still lists it as open, which is how it slipped through. The palace is being converted into a hotel though private events are still being ran, still worth checking out.

📅 WHAT'S ON

See you tomorrow morning.

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