Portugal told 27,000 people to leave. Only 800 did

More than 27,000 immigrants have been told to leave Portugal this year. It’s Wednesday, 28 October. Twenty-two degrees. Air quality: 15 to 55 (Good to Moderate). Here’s what you need to know.

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27,000 TOLD TO LEAVE PORTUGAL THIS YEAR. ONLY 800 HAVE GONE

Portugal has ordered more than 27,000 immigrants to leave this year. Around 800 have gone of their own accord, the minister of the presidency, António Leitão Amaro, told parliament. A source in the PSP, the Public Security Police, told Diário de Notícias that officers expect to have removed more than 1,000 people by force by December, leaving roughly 25,000 cases outstanding.

Orders on this scale are new. Portugal issued 444 in 2024 and 23,134 in 2025, according to the annual internal security report, and this year’s total has already passed that. An order isn’t a deportation. AIMA, the immigration agency, describes it as a formal warning, issued by AIMA or the police, to someone found to be in Portugal irregularly, giving them 10 to 20 days to leave, and it can be contested.

The PSP gives three reasons for the gap. Some people have probably left for another European country without anyone logging their departure. Others are fighting their cases in court, and an interim injunction keeps them in Portugal until a judge rules. And a closed case doesn’t guarantee a flight: the person’s home country has to supply travel documents, which can take time. For its part, the PSP’s foreigners and borders unit says it tries voluntary return, with assistance, first.

That approach is on its way out. A new returns law the president has signed replaces the voluntary notice with a compulsory duty to leave. Anyone who stays can be held by police and put through forced removal. The change follows new EU rules adopted this month, which likewise turn return decisions into an obligation to leave and allow detention of up to two years, against Portugal’s cap of 360 days.

What does it tell you about the system? Issuing orders is the easy part. Carrying them out runs into court appeals, slow paperwork from other countries and gaps in the record of who has already gone. The new law tries to close that gap with detention instead of waiting.

If you’re living in Portugal legally, with a valid residence permit or a renewal under way, none of this applies to you. But as Tuesday’s renewals story showed, expired cards no longer stay valid automatically, so if yours is coming up, renew on time.

Bottom line: Portugal is issuing removal orders far faster than it can carry them out, and the new law swaps voluntary departure for detention to close the gap.

⚡ QUICK HITS

Prime Minister Luís Montenegro has praised the police over Sunday’s housing camp clearances. Opening the budget debate in parliament on Tuesday, he said the PSP had been “especially careful and competent” and had acted proportionately. He accused the Socialists, Communists and Left Bloc of exploiting protesters’ anger for party advantage, and defended his rent law as a way to bring more homes onto the rental market. President António José Seguro, who met the prime minister on Monday, struck a different tone: “These are not normal images for an established democracy,” he said, and he called again for dialogue on housing. The PSP has since released a video showing bottles and signs being thrown at officers, warning that violence against police will not be tolerated. The Left Bloc called the president’s words abstract and vague, while Chega said Seguro should have praised the police. MPs hold the first vote on the 2027 budget today.

Public sector unions have called a nationwide strike for Friday 20 November. The Frente Comum, an umbrella group of public administration unions, argues the 2027 budget leaves workers, pensioners and public services worse off, and has timed the strike for four days before the final budget vote. Its coordinator, Sebastião Santana, accuses the government of ignoring public workers’ needs, and the unions say the budget would deepen problems already building in health, education, housing and justice. Schools, health services and public offices could all be hit, though nobody will know how widely until the day itself. Separately, unions in Portugal and Spain have been discussing a joint Iberian general strike on 11 November, which has not yet been confirmed.

Lisbon airport has more long delays than Porto or Faro, but far fewer than the Azores. An analysis by the passenger rights firm AirAdvisor of flights at 14 Portuguese airports, from October 2025 to October 2026, found that 5.85% of Lisbon flights were delayed by more than an hour, roughly one flight in 17. Porto came in at 4.82%, about one in 20, and Faro at 4.18%. All nine Azores airports were above 7%, led by Santa Maria at 10.89%, or about one flight in nine, while Porto Santo did best at 3.77%. Madeira had one of the lowest delay rates, but when its flights did run late, they went all in, with an average delay of two hours and 25 minutes, the longest in the study. Arriving three hours or more late at your final destination can qualify for EU compensation, depending on how far you flew and why the flight was late.

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🍽️ SPOT OF THE DAY

PROCÓPIO (AMOREIRAS)

Procópio has no sign, and its front could pass for someone’s home. You reach it through a little square by the Jardim das Amoreiras, past a lit fountain, and step into a single room of red velvet, dark wood, gold and stained glass, with glass-bead curtains, bow-tied barmen, jazz playing low and a drinks list that reads “popcorn and VAT included”.

Alice and Luís Pinto Coelho opened it on 5 May 1972, naming it after Paris’s Café Procope, which had charmed them on a trip there years earlier. On opening night, the surrealist poet Mário Cesariny played the piano. Two years later came the Carnation Revolution, and with parliament close by, Procópio filled with politicians, journalists, diplomats and, it was whispered, spies, earning it the nickname Lisbon’s Rick’s Café. It was also one of the first night spots in the city that welcomed women.

The couple split in 1974, and Alice kept the bar. The family still runs it. It began as a whisky bar and is now a cocktail bar: for its 50th birthday, the family brought in the 1991 world bartending champion to rework the list. It has made the European Bar Guide’s top 100 bars in Europe, which praises its neighbourly, local crowd.

Worth knowing before you go: drinks aren’t cheap, but they come with popcorn, and there are toasts and snacks if you’re hungry. It opens around 6pm and closes at 2am, but listings differ on weekend hours, so check before a Saturday or Sunday visit.

→ Find them here ←

Insider tip: the nearest metro is Rato, but walk up through the Jardim das Amoreiras instead, so you arrive past the fountain.

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See you tomorrow morning.

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