As another point of reference, after having successfully exited the eu from Madrid as a resident with an expired portuguese ari residency card, and also successfully entered the eu in Germany as a resident with same expired residency card, I also entered Porto this week, and had the most hassle in Porto. The agent clearly had no clue as to what rules were in place (or not) for expired residency cards. I handed him proof of payment for the renewal along with the expired card and us passport. He was incredulous I hadnât received anything more from aima since my June 2025 renewal for my card that expired in March 2025. But I explained that I hadnât, and he sort of shook his head and let me in as a resident.
I checked the website mentioned above and confirmed that none of my time spent in the eu since April 10 has counted towards my 90/180.
It seems it may be actually easier to enter/exit from a country other than portugal, ironically, if youâre wanting to preserve your 90/180 days. I think someone mentioned Geneva in a post above.
I am guessing it is all YMMV anywhere you go, with better luck at major ports of entry where the border guards are seeing more flow of people and thus better educated and maybe more rational.
Entering at, say, a Greek cruise ship port is likely to involve an official who has zero clue of anything and thus likely to make an uninformed unpleasant decision, and thus you might want to avoid that.
Entering at, say, Porto, exposes you to agents who are very near the chaotic outputs from AIMA and thus maybe canât even keep up with or make sense of whatâs going on and are probably still confused as to who they report to, for that matter.
Entering at, say, FRA, you have generally rational German border guards who are exposed to Portuguese-bureaucracy refugees on a semi-regular basis but without having the low-signal-to-noise-ratio direct output of AIMA to leave them utterly confuddled, and at this point a sort of third-party perspective on the matter of âPortugal, what do you expectâ. This probably works especially well with visa-waiver countries where itâs sort of âit sorta doesnât matter a lot anywayâ, but the principle applies regardless.
I just took a couple years worth of boarding passes that Iâd been saving, scanned them, and tossed the originals. If you ever have to provide them, they will probably just be uploaded as a PDF anyway. (YMMV - Iâm comfortable with the risk level on this. You can also keep the originals AND scan to preserve against fading).
My wife and I (US passport holders) went through the N gates to exit Europe to the UK at 5AM today. We were in France for 89 days (entry=GVA) + 51 days in PT.
We went through the manual EU line hoping that if we were flagged for overstaying in Europe, our residency card/receipt + proof of entering PT would result in them clearing our EES record.
Result: the border official looked at our info and spent a little time on the computer and sent us through. I did confirm with the official that using the EU line is appropriate for resident card holders. He couldnât have been nicer. The line was not too long at such an early hour but still took 25 mins.
Interesting, I was told firmly and politely by the lady directing traffic at LIS (inbound to Portugal from the states) that my wife and I with valid physical residency Visa cards are required to wait in the âall passportsâ line. I was just opening the thread to comment my experience.
About 4 hours total from landing to leaving the airport. About 3.5 of that being waiting in line at passport control. My understanding of the system was, we are exempt from EES, but not exempt from waiting in the stupidly long line (that only really goes past the EES machines, not through them, so presumably you step out of line to do them and then get back in)
I experienced the same from someone at the entrance of the two lanes, there was little queue at that point in the ESS lane, then when I asked the same are the front of the queue I was told to go straight thruâŚ
Wife and I just went thru departure immigration at Faro on our way to Canada. We were ushered into the All Passports line where we had only a 3 minute wait, which was nice. Border agent took both passports (UK) and expired residence cards. After about 2 minutes he handed them back without stamps and we were on our way, no questions asked.
Many eons ago (about two years), people were strongly recommending that you directly entered the EU in Portugal if you were trying to get your 14 days of visitation necessary for temporary card renewal (likely due to the stamping of your passport at Portugal customs). With the rollout (and potential rollback) of the EES, do people still believe that is a recommended action?
Flying into Lisbon on Sunday morning from Toronto and absolutely dreading it. Any recent data on how long it is taking people at immigration? There are all sorts of news articles mentioning 2h long waits.
@DrNBC I thought you had your residence card - shouldnât that allow you to use the EU line? Seen pictures that residency holders are supposed to use those lines.
See my post above -itâs luck of the draw - I entered from UK a week ago, litte queue ( I was first off my plane) and was thru passport control in less than 5 mins. I have an expired card ( and a QR code that they were uninterested in)
Slightly off-topic: I came in and out via Schiphol a few weeks ago using a valid Portuguese residence permit, and a passport from a non-visa waiver country. No EES, had to stand in âall passportsâ line. Earlier (about half a dozen occasions) showing a residence permit would get you waved past with a cursory check of the permit. This time, both while entering and leaving, they went over every bit of the permit thoroughly with a jewelerâs loupe and a light, both sides. I thought it was a smart card and they would have easier bullet-proof ways to figure that itâs genuine, but apparently not, and apparently there are enough fake cards for them to keep a watch.
Leaving Toronto for Faro later this evening. We have expired cards and UK (plus Canada) passports. I have been successfully registered on the AIMA portal and am in possession of a QR code. Wife is unable to be registered as an error code keeps generating. We changed the flight from Lisbon to Faro in the hope that the border agents in Algarve are better-humoured than their Lisbon counterparts.
Went through the EU passports line in Faro. Machines couldnât scan so we got sent to an agent. Spent only around 2 mins with him. No stamps, no QR code needed, nothing.
Hey everyoneâhas anyone with Dec 2025 or Jan 2026 biometrics flown outside the Schengen zone using the old AIMA receipt (the one without a QR code)? Iâm nervous about flying out of Lisbon if border officers are now trained to look for a QR code. My lawyers told me that those of us caught in the transition window right before the February update simply canât get the QR-coded version. Has anyone actually tested this at the airport recently?
