Brazilians are the largest foreign group and already number 550 thousand residents in the country and 412 thousand registered workers
Data released by , based on statistics from , indicate that Portugal was the EU (European Union) Member State with the most entry from 2012 to 2023, with an average annual growth rate of 34.3% — well above the European average of 8.8%. Estonia (30.3%) and Lithuania (30.2%) appear next.
Estimates point to more than 500 thousand Brazilians in the country.
The jump, however, does not put Portugal at the top when the criterion is the proportion of foreigners in the resident population. With 9.6%, the country ranks 12th in the bloc and is far from Luxembourg, where 47.3% of residents are foreigners — the highest rate in the EU, according to the same basis.
The expansion of immigration occurs in a country that also appears, in these data, to have challenging demographic and social indicators. Pordata points out Portugal as the 2nd oldest in the EU, behind only Italy: there are 53 young people for every 100 elderly people. Ireland, cited as the country with the youngest population, records 122 young people for every 100 elderly people.
In terms of families, only 25.6% of households have children, a proportion 6.8 percentage points lower than in 2011; Slovakia leads, with 35.6%.
In the labor market, Pordata describes Portugal as the EU country in which the active population is least educated: 4 in 10 people do not have secondary education, a rate much higher than in countries such as Poland and Lithuania, where 1 in 10 did not complete this level. At the same time, in the 25 to 34 age range, the platform records that the country already appears in line with the European average: 43.2% with higher education, compared to 44.1% in the EU.
It is in this context that the debate on immigration, which has a , gains a more concrete economic component. According to , immigrants’ contributions to Social Security – equivalent to Social Security in Brazil – easily exceeded the value of the support received. In 2025, foreigners received 811 million euros in social benefits, but paid around 4.1 billion in taxes — 5 times more.
There are areas, such as agriculture, where there are already more foreign contributors than Portuguese. In accommodation and food, foreigners make up almost 40%. According to the same data cited, after removing the social support given to foreign workers, Social Security has a balance of more than 3 billion euros with immigrant discounts. From 2024 to 2025, the amount handed over to the State by the foreign population increased by 465 million euros.
According to AIMA (Agency for Migration and Asylum Integration), Portugal had, at the end of 2024, approximately 1.6 million immigrants, of which around 484 thousand were Brazilians.
This number does not include Brazilians with citizenship of an EU country (European Union). In March last year, the Prime Minister of Portugal, Luís Montenegro (PSD, center-right), even spoke of around 550 thousand Brazilians residing in the country.
The population of Portugal, according to the 2021 census, is just over 10 million. In public schools, children of Brazilian citizens represent 49.5% of foreign students enrolled for the 2024/2025 academic period.
The interactive platform launched by Pordata on Monday was presented as part of the celebrations of the 40th anniversary of Portugal’s accession to the then EEC (European Economic Community), in January 1986. Using data from Eurostat, the panel allows comparing indicators from the 27 countries in the bloc and positioning Portugal in terms of topics such as population, economy, cost of living and income, energy and environment — a cross-section that helps to explain why immigration has become, at the same time, a demographic phenomenon and a labor market factor. and a relevant component of public accounts in the country.
