Your case was approved — so where is the residence card?

You logged into the portal and saw the word you had been waiting months for: deferido. Approved. And then… nothing. Weeks pass. The postbox stays empty. You start refreshing the portal daily, wondering whether something went wrong.

This is the single most repeated question among people going through AIMA right now. So let us answer it honestly, including the part nobody likes.

The short answer

There is no official deadline for the card to reach you, and AIMA does not publish one. We looked: the agency's own FAQ on residence permits covers travel, renewals, lost cards, fees and certificates — and says nothing at all about how long production and delivery take after approval.

So when someone in a group tells you "it takes 30 days" or "mine came in a week", they are describing their own case, not a rule. There is no rule.

Why the silence — and where the law actually ends

This is the part worth understanding, because it explains everything else.

The law does set a deadline — but for the decision, not for the card. A residence permit application must be decided within 90 days. That clock covers everything up to the moment your status changes to deferido.

After that moment, the law simply says nothing. Producing the physical card and putting it in the post is not a step the legislator attached a deadline to. You are not in a queue with a promised end date — you are in a gap between two rules.

One more thing worth knowing while you are counting days: for a first residence permit, silence from the authority does not count as approval. Portugal's Supreme Administrative Court confirmed this in 2024. Waiting past 90 days does not automatically grant you anything — which is precisely why the deferido notification matters so much.

What you can and cannot do while you wait

Travelling: be careful here

AIMA is explicit on this one: the receipt proving your application is not a travel document. You cannot use it to move around the Schengen area. To leave Portugal you need a valid travel document and you must meet the entry rules of wherever you are going.

This catches people out badly, because the receipt feels like proof of status — and inside Portugal it largely is. At a border it is not.

Collecting the card in person

Sometimes AIMA emails you to come and collect the card rather than posting it. If that happens, know the cost in advance: in-person delivery of a residence permit carries a fee of €28.50, set by Ordinance 307/2023. It is not a scam and not an extra charge someone invented — but it is a real cost that surprises people at the counter.

Check the address you gave

The card goes to the address in your file. If you have moved since the appointment — and many people move exactly in this period — the card is travelling to a place you no longer live. Changing the data on your file is done through the AIMA Contact Centre, by appointment.

If it genuinely does not arrive

There is no magic button, but there is an order of operations that beats refreshing the portal:

1. Confirm the address on file first. Most "lost card" stories end here.
2. Write to [email protected] with your process number, stating the approval date and that the card has not arrived. Keep the email — a paper trail matters if this drags on.
3. Call the Contact Centre on (+351) 217 115 000, weekdays 08:00–20:00.
4. If months pass with no answer, this stops being an administrative delay and becomes a legal matter. People in this position do bring court actions to compel a decision or delivery, and they win them. That is the point to talk to a lawyer, not to a Facebook group.

One thing that is genuinely useful and almost nobody knows

Any AIMA centre can issue you a certificate of residence time — the document that counts how long you have legally been in Portugal, used for nationality applications and much else. You do not need the physical card in your hand to request it, and it is worth knowing about long before you need it.

The honest summary

Your case is won. The card is an administrative formality that the law forgot to put a clock on. Keep the deferido notification — until the card arrives it is your proof that the permit exists — check your address, and escalate in writing rather than in your head.

And if someone offers to "speed it up" for a fee: there is no such mechanism. What exists is a fee for collecting it in person, and that is paid to AIMA, not to an intermediary.