LISBON, May 27 (Xinhua) -- Portugal's foreign resident population has surpassed the 1 million mark for the first time, announced the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) on Monday. This historic milestone reflects a 33 percent increase in foreign residents between 2022 and 2023.
According to the Portuguese newspaper Jornal de Noticias, 329,000 residence permits were issued during this period. Of these, 38,000 were issued to citizens from other European Union countries, accounting for 12 percent of the total.
Over the past five years, the number of foreign residents in Portugal has more than doubled, increasing from 480,000 at the end of 2018 to 1.4 million in 2023. As a result, nearly 10 percent of the population is now composed of foreigners, with 858,000 being citizens from non-European Union countries, representing 8 percent of the population.
The largest foreign community in Portugal continues to be the Brazilian one, comprising 31 percent of the foreign resident population. ■
