Portugal job seeker visa: suspended since 2025 and the alternatives for Brazilians

Law no. 61/2025 was published in the Diário da República on 22 October 2025 and came into force the following day ¹. It rewrote article 57-A of the Foreigners Law (Law no. 23/2007): the former job seeker visa became the visa for qualified job seeking and can only be granted to people with "specialised technical skills" ¹.

On the eve of its entry into force, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that, from 23 October 2025, consulates and external visa centres (VFS Global, BLS and TLScontact) could no longer accept applications for the old visa, and appointments were cancelled ⁸.

The same law touched other points that matter to Brazilians. Article 87-A now provides that citizens of CPLP Agreement countries who hold a residence visa can apply to AIMA for the CPLP residence permit ¹. The law also set 31 December 2025 as the final deadline, on pain of lapse, for applications for a residence permit under the transitional regime of the expression of interest provided for in Decree-Law no. 37-A/2024 ¹.

On paper, the new visa exists. It lets you enter and stay in Portugal to look for work, authorises you to carry out highly qualified activity while the visa is valid, and lasts 120 days, extendable by 60 more, with a single entry ⁶. The visa includes an appointment at AIMA within those 120 days; if you start working in that period, you can apply for a residence permit ¹. If the period ends without a contract, you must leave the country and can only apply for a new visa of the same type one year later ¹.

The problem is the list of specialised technical skills. The law says it will be defined by an order (portaria) of the ministries of foreign affairs, migration, education and labour ¹. On the date of this check, the official visa page says that the visa is not yet available at Portuguese consular posts and awaits regulation of article 57-A ². The visa types page of the same portal shows the category marked "SUSPENSO" ³.

Until that order is issued, there is no way to apply for the qualified visa at any consulate or VFS centre.

The law applies to procedures started after it came into force ¹. That left room for applications sent before 23 October 2025 to continue under the old rule. DN Brasil reported that VFS at one point refused applications posted before that date and later reversed course and began receiving them ⁹.

If your application was sent before the change and has not had an answer yet, keep the proof of dispatch and the date, and confirm the situation directly with the consular post that received the file.

The government's visa portal lists the residence visas that remain active and the documents for each ⁴. For people who want to work, the most used routes are these:

Route	Who it is for	Core requirement
Employed professional activity (D1)	People who already have a job in Portugal	Work contract or promise of a work contract, or individualised expression of interest from the employer 4
Teaching, highly qualified or cultural activity (D3)	Teachers, researchers, highly qualified professionals	Contract, promise of a contract, service contract or invitation letter 4
Highly qualified activity by an employed worker (art. 61-A)	People with a contract of at least six months and a high salary	Annual pay of at least 1.5 times the national average gross annual salary, or three times the IAS 4
Remote work (D8)	People who work for companies or clients outside Portugal	Average monthly income of the last three months of at least four minimum wages 4
Own income (D7)	Retirees and people who live on income	Proof of pension or income and of its availability in Portugal 4

For professions regulated in Portugal, such as those in health and engineering, the visa with a contract asks for proof that you are qualified to practise the profession in the country ⁴. People who want to start a business also have the route of a project integrated in a certified incubator, provided for in paragraph 4 of article 89 with its new wording ¹.

All national visas have the same fee of 110 euros for processing the application ⁵.

Since 17 April 2026, visa applications for Portugal made in Brazil can no longer be sent by mail: you book and appear in person at a VFS Global centre, with booking by facial recognition ⁷. There are 10 centres: São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Brasília, Belo Horizonte, Belém, Fortaleza, Recife, Curitiba and Porto Alegre ⁷. People who live in a state without a VFS centre have to travel to one of them ¹⁰.

Under article 87-A with its new wording, the CPLP residence permit is requested from AIMA by people who already hold a residence visa ¹. Plan the move counting on a residence visa issued in Brazil before the trip.

You will find websites, videos and agencies that still present the job seeker visa as open, sometimes with a step by step and a price. That content is out of date: the source that counts is the visa page on the vistos.mne.gov.pt portal ².