Immigration to Portugal

As of December 2022, Portugal had 1,733,067 inhabitants that were born in a foreign country, out of 10,516,621 inhabitants, accounting for 16.48% of its total population.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]} This figure also includes all Portuguese nationals born outside of Portugal. This applies whether they are children of Portuguese citizens living abroad at the time of their birth (for example, in 2021, there were 87,073 Portuguese nationals born in France, the overwhelming majority of Portuguese descent^[11][12][13]) or foreign-born individuals who have acquired Portuguese citizenship through naturalisation (345,458 foreign residents have acquired Portuguese citizenship in the last 15 years, of whom 20,844 did so in 2022).^[14][15] Dealing with foreign nationals (inhabitants without Portuguese citizenship, regardless of their country of birth or ethnic background), in 2022 around 781,000 foreign citizens lived in Portugal, accounting for 7.4% of Portugal's population. Among foreign nationals, about 30.7% were from Brazil.^[16][17]

In 2019 there were above 590,000 foreigners in Portugal. With the COVID-19 pandemic, that number went up to 661,000 at the end of 2020.^[18] By January 2023 their number had soared to 781,915 people.^[19] These figures do not include naturalized foreign-born residents ss well as illegal immigrants. The number of illegal immigrants, or so-called imigrantes irregulares, is difficult to determine, and is thought to be around 300,000.^{[20][21][22][23]}

Of the 781,915 legal residents not holding Portuguese citizenship living in Portugal in January 2023, 409,523 identified as male (52.37%), and 372,392 as female (47.63%).^[19]

The distribution of foreigners is largely uneven in Portugal: 65% of foreign citizens lived in Lisbon, Faro or Setúbal districts: these districts account for 35% of the country's population.^[24]

Immigrants in Portugal largely come from Latin America, Eastern Europe, Lusophone nations in Africa, and South Asia. Major groups of immigrants to Portugal include Brazilians, Cape Verdeans, Indians, Angolans, Ukrainians, Nepalis, Bissau-Guineans, Romanians, Chinese, Bangladeshis, São Toméans, Pakistanis, US citizens, Venezuelans, Russians and Moldovans. Brazilians made up the largest foreign community in the country (239,744) followed by Britons (45,265) and Cape Verdeans (36,748).^[19] The fourth largest, but the fastest growing, community of foreign residents in Portugal was represented by Indians; as of 2023 there were 35,416 foreigners holding Indian citizenship, a 626% increase since 2012.^[25] It is worth noting that almost 9,000 Indians living in Portugal have acquired Portuguese citizenship from 2012 to 2022: more than the number of Indians living in the country in 2012.^[26] The majority of Indians living in Portugal are from the former Portuguese colony of Goa or from Gujarat.^[27][28]

As of January 2023, foreign citizens' origins were subdivided as follows: Europe (33.5%), America (33.1%), Asia (17.3%), Africa (16%) and Oceania (0.1%).^[19]

The share of children born in Portugal to foreign resident mothers stood at 10.3% in 2011, 9.7% in 2017 and 16.7% in 2022.^[29][30][31] Dealing with children born from foreign-born mothers, their share reached 25% in 2022.^[32]

Due to population ageing, immigration is the only factor that has made the Portuguese population grow in recent years. For instance, despite the natural change from 2018 to 2023 being -208,656 people (meaning that in the given timespan the number of deaths exceeded the number of newborns by almost 210 thousand people) the overall population grew by 306,230 people, from 10,333,496 inhabitants as of 2018 to 10,639,726 in 2023. It is safe to say that the 2.96% growth rate experienced by the population of Portugal in the last six years was entirely due to immigration. Many scholars have pointed that, without immigration, the country's population could shrink to as low as 7 million people by 2100. Moreover, Catarina Reis Oliveira, the director of the Migration Observatory, highlights in a study that without immigrants, certain sectors of society would face collapse. Immigrants are essential for labor market efficiency, with foreigners in countries like Portugal displaying higher activity rates than nationals, as per the 2022 Annual Statistical Report of the Observatory.^{[33][34][35][36][37]}