Law 40/2024, published on 7^th November, establishes a new transitional regime for the regularisation of immigrants in Portugal, amending Decree-Law 37-A/2024.

Decree-Law 37-A/2024, of 3^rd June, revoked the mechanism for regularising residence in Portuguese territory through an expression of interest, by exercising a subordinate or independent professional activity, without a valid visa for this purpose.

However, the new law amends the transitional regime, which only safeguarded residence authorisation procedures initiated until Decree-Law 37-A/2024 came into force.

Additionally, people will also continue to be able to benefit from the previous mechanism (regardless of whether or not they have submitted an expression of interest) if they can prove that, before 3^rd June, they were registered with social security and making contributions under a subordinate or independent professional activity, with a view to completing 12 months.

Therefore, the cases which fall into these two situations continue to be governed by Law 23/2007 in its previous wording. 

The new transitional regime for the regularisation of immigrants comes into force on 8^th November.