Portugal Visa
Here's a detailed breakdown for non-EU/non-EEA nationals working in Portugal.
Main visa/permit categories
1. National Work Visa (D1) — standard employment
This is the main route for someone with a firm job offer from a Portuguese employer. It's the employed worker permit, linked to the standard D1 work visa, and covers most regular employment contracts. Employers who don't meet AIMA's criteria can have the employee's application refused or delayed, so the employer's compliance profile matters as much as the candidate's.
2. EU Blue Card — for highly skilled roles requiring a degree. The 2026 salary threshold is roughly €3,480–€3,680/month, about 1.5x the national average.
3. Highly Qualified Activity visa (D3) — for specialist and senior roles with higher education and higher salary thresholds than the standard D1.
4. Intra-Corporate Transferee (ICT) permit — for managers, specialists, or trainees moved from a foreign group company into a Portuguese entity of the same group.
5. Job Seeker Visa — lets someone enter Portugal to look for work without a job offer first, then convert to a work permit once they find one.
6. Seasonal Work visa — for defined sectors only: agriculture, livestock, hunting, forestry and fishing; hospitality and restaurants; food/liquor/tobacco industries; wholesale and retail commerce; construction; and land transport.
Process (employer-sponsored route)
For larger employers, there's also a streamlined Cooperation Protocol for Regulated Labour Migration: employers contact the Directorate-General for Consular Affairs (DGACCP) to schedule visa appointments, DGACCP forwards the request to the relevant consulate, and AIMA plus the border coordination unit give mandatory opinions within three working days to support the visa decision. For a standard individual hire, the typical path is:
Employer issues a formal job offer/contract.
- AIMA authorization request is submitted for the work permit.
- Employee applies for the D-type visa at the Portuguese consulate in their home country (in Tunisia's case, likely Tunis).
- Employee travels to Portugal on the visa.
- Employee applies to AIMA to convert the visa into a residence permit.
Approval is generally expected within around 60 days for compliant applications, though AIMA appointment backlogs and card issuance can add several weeks to a few months on top of that, so realistically you should budget a few months from job offer to full onboarding.
Standard documents typically required
Based on the self-employed/subordinate work visa categories, expect:
- Valid passport (with several months' validity beyond the intended stay)
- Passport photos
- Return/onward travel document
- Valid travel/health insurance covering medical expenses and repatriation
- Consent form authorizing AIMA to access Portuguese criminal records, plus a criminal record certificate from the country of origin or country of residence for over a year Proof of means of subsistence
- The employment contract or job offer letter
- Proof of professional qualifications, where the role requires licensed/regulated qualifications
Duration and path to residency
The initial work visa/permit is typically issued for one year with the possibility of renewal, and after five years of working in Portugal, holders can apply for permanent residency or citizenship.
A note specific to Tunisia
Tunisia isn't in the EU/EEA and isn't part of the CPLP (Community of Portuguese Language Countries), which is the group that gets the streamlined residence route mentioned above — that fast-track exists specifically for talent sourcing from Portuguese-speaking countries. So a Tunisian hire would go through the standard D1 National Work Visa (or EU Blue Card/D3 if the role qualifies as highly skilled), not a shortcut route.
One current wrinkle worth knowing
AIMA has been going through a rocky transition from the old SEF system. Non-EU nationals whose residence cards expired on or before 30 June 2025 have had their legal status automatically extended, currently through 15 April 2026, and residents continue to report technical instability on AIMA's online platform and delays in issuing completed documents. Worth checking AIMA's site or a relocation specialist for the latest status before committing to a timeline.
If this is for a specific hire (like you did for the Malta case with a Tunisian national), I can help think through which visa category fits best once you know the role and salary — that determines whether it's D1, EU Blue Card, or D3.