Applied August 2023. My (primary applicant) biometric appointment is today (27 February 2026) in Lisboa. No appointment for family members yet.
FYI, only 6179.40 EUR charged by AIMA, at an exchange rate on 2/24 of 1.1838. I didn’t see any additional charges.
Regarding your other details:
- My lawyer did NOT ask for an updated background check, just the original. Note that I applied in Sept 2025.
- Since I flew in through Amsterdam, I had to keep my paper boarding pass from AMS to LIS also.
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Any news about family and dependents biometric appointments?
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I received a reality check from my lawyers. I did my biometrics in October 2025. AIMA contacted them to say they are backlogged and processing Q1 2024 biometrics. Just when I was starting to believe I may receive my card by the end of the year- AIMA finds a way to keep me humble.
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The government doesn’t want you to have a card and isn’t moving quickly to issue them. Coincidentally, the government is debating a law that would make your residency counting start from the date you receive a card. I hope this clears things up.
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Dependent spouse came to biometrics appointment; no opportunity there.
I’m not sure how literally to take that. Looking at the NG timeline database, I can see a number of people who have received their cards with biometrics appointments as late as June 2025.
It seems like AIMA cannot be trusted to give a consistent account of what it is doing - surprise, surprise 
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I think biometrics doesn’t tell the whole story. Under the old scheme, biometrics happened, and then weeks, months, or often years later, the applicant paid the visa fee (DUC), and the application moved into the final stage of issuing a card. Under the new plan, biometrics and fee happen at once. So I think it’s more useful to look at the gap between payment and card issuance than to look at the gap between biometrics and card issuance.
Oh good point. When was the new scheme rolled out?
I could be misremembering, but I believe anyone who applied before Dec 31, 2024 is on the old plan, as of Jan 1, 2025, applicants went on the new plan. But I yield to anyone who has better information!
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There were some fits and starts with the “New AIMA process” in Jan. '25 (some people reported having to pay the old way via DUC, even in January). But the “New process” did work for a few weeks, with some people getting cards within 6-12 weeks of early 2025 Bios.
Then like everything at AIMA, the process fell apart by about… March 2025? And of course the Government was looking to make a show of ‘irregular’ deportations in time for the election, so AIMA staff were pulled off to rustle-up some irregulars.
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I applied way before 31 December 2024 and paid at my biometrics appointment last year.
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I mean having appointments scheduled for family as earlier AIMA promised to schedule appointments for dependents in the second half of 2026 ,does any one have information about this?
Has anyone had their biometrics in Faro? If yes, what was the experience like? Any tips? I have mine in Faro in April.
I had my biometrics in Lisbon on Thursday, March 12. I arrived 30 minutes before the appointment. In messages sent to all applicants before the meeting, the lawyers said to wait out front and they’d find me. I’m not sure what they were looking for, but I guess I didn’t fit their stereotype. I mean, I wore a dress shirt and jeans like most of the other ARI investors I saw. Maybe it was the backpack that threw them. Anyway, I found them. They seemed surprised that I was able to get myself a number (by showing the letter from AIMA for my appointment). They then said I wasn’t on their list of appointments for the day. They had my middle name as my family name on their spreadsheet. After fixing that, they took my passport, criminal record report (January 2025), and copy of my Social Security card that was notarized and apostilled. After about a 30-minute wait, the associate called me back to sign some papers updating what we had signed back when we applied in October 2023. Everything was very friendly. We made a few jokes about how well the associate knew the AIMA employee after being there every day for several months already. I did the biometrics on their machine – photo, fingerprints, and signature. I then used my American credit card to pay with no drama. I was given a receipt and was on my way.
I was quite nervous that the computers would go down as they had several times this past month, but it all went well.
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Somebody in one of the whatsapp group reported that their dependents got an appointment for July. They were part of the massive biometrics and had their appointment in Jan. Anybody else?
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I asked my attorney over the weekend and they haven’t received anything yet for my dependent biometric appointment. I was a mid-January biometric appointment. Hopefully soon.
Did they say when they applied?
Summer 2023
Same here, January 13, Lisbon. Applied June, 2022.