What the 17,000 Rulings Actually Mean
AIMA has been condemned in roughly 17,000 court rulings for failing to schedule appointments within the legally required 90 days. Each of those rulings is a court ordering AIMA to give a specific person an appointment it should have provided months earlier. Reporting on the agency's own account describes the position bluntly: "there is nothing to say, naturally, because the organization did not comply with the scheduling within 90 days." In other words, AIMA is not contesting these cases on the merits — it accepts that it broke the deadline.
That single fact is the most useful thing an applicant stuck in the backlog can know. The 17,000 figure is not an abstract statistic about system strain; it is 17,000 concrete demonstrations that when an applicant takes AIMA to the administrative court for missing the deadline, the applicant wins and gets an appointment. The courts have effectively established a routine: AIMA misses the 90-day window, the applicant files, the court orders AIMA to schedule. The delay that feels like an immovable wall from inside the queue is, in legal terms, an open-and-shut breach.
For family reunification applicants specifically, this matters even more, because reunification delays keep families physically separated — a spouse or child abroad waiting for a process that cannot move until AIMA grants a slot. The court route converts an indefinite wait into a dated, enforceable obligation. This guide explains how that works: the deadline AIMA is breaking, the specific legal instrument that forces its hand, the step-by-step process, and how AIMA's own new prioritisation of family reunification appointments stacks on top of it in applicants' favour.
The 90-Day Deadline AIMA Is Breaking
Portuguese law obliges AIMA to schedule appointments within 90 days. That deadline is the linchpin of every one of the 17,000 rulings. Without a legal time limit, "AIMA is slow" is a complaint; with one, exceeding it is an unlawful omission that a court can order the agency to remedy. The 90-day figure is what gives an applicant standing to go to court — you are not asking a judge to sympathise with a long wait, you are asking the judge to enforce a deadline the law already sets.
The clock is important to get right because your case rests on it. The obligation is to schedule the appointment within the period, so the breach crystallises once that window passes without AIMA giving you a slot. This is why documenting the timeline of your process is not busywork: the date you became entitled to an appointment, the date you requested or were due one, and the fact that no appointment has been offered are the facts that prove the breach. Keep every confirmation, portal receipt, email and reference number, because they are the evidence that turns your frustration into a winnable action.
It is worth being precise that the deadline attaches to AIMA's obligation to act, not to your patience running out. Applicants sometimes wait far longer than 90 days assuming the queue will eventually reach them, when the moment the deadline passed they already had grounds to compel a slot. The backlog is real and AIMA is working through it, but you are not required to wait in line indefinitely for an obligation the law says should have been met within three months. Recognising when the deadline has passed is the trigger for everything that follows.
The Legal Tool: Intimação Para Prestação de Facto
The instrument that forces AIMA to act is the intimação para prestação de facto — an urgent administrative court order compelling a public body to perform an act it is legally obliged to perform. It is designed for exactly this situation: the administration has a clear duty, has failed to carry it out, and the applicant needs a court to order it done rather than to award damages after the fact. Against AIMA, it is the standard, well-worn route for applicants left without an appointment or a decision past the legal deadline.
What makes it effective is both its urgency and its bite. Because it is an urgent procedure, it moves faster than ordinary litigation. And when the court grants it, it does not merely declare that AIMA was wrong — it orders AIMA to schedule the appointment, frequently within a fixed number of days, and courts can attach a sanção pecuniária compulsória, a daily financial penalty AIMA incurs for each day it fails to comply. That penalty is what converts a paper order into a real appointment: it makes continued delay actively expensive for the agency. This is the same family of remedy discussed in our guide to forcing a decision when family reunification is delayed, applied specifically to the scheduling of the appointment itself.
The intimação is not the only action available against AIMA, but for the "no appointment" problem it is the sharpest. Where the issue is a missing final decision on a submitted file rather than a missing appointment, a related action targets the decision instead; where the problem is a rejection you want overturned, the route is an appeal rather than an intimação. Matching the right instrument to your specific blockage is where legal advice earns its cost, and our broader guide to filing a lawsuit against AIMA maps the options. But if your blockage is simply that AIMA will not give you an appointment, the intimação para prestação de facto is almost always the answer.
Step-by-Step: Forcing Your Family Reunification Appointment
The process follows a predictable shape, and knowing it in advance removes much of the anxiety. First, confirm the breach: establish that more than 90 days have passed since AIMA became obliged to schedule your family reunification appointment and that no valid slot has been offered. Second, assemble the evidence — your reunification application reference, any portal submission receipts, the dates involved, proof of the family relationship, and any correspondence showing you sought an appointment and did not receive one. This file is the backbone of the action.
Third, engage a lawyer to file the intimação para prestação de facto at the competent administrative court. The lawyer will draft the petition setting out the legal obligation, the deadline, and AIMA's failure to meet it, and will request that the court order AIMA to schedule the appointment within a short fixed period, ideally with a daily penalty for non-compliance. Fourth, the court processes it as an urgent matter and, in the overwhelming majority of these cases, orders AIMA to schedule. Fifth, AIMA complies by providing the appointment; once you have it, your family reunification process resumes its normal course through biometrics and decision.
A practical note on venue and timing: cases are not confined to the overwhelmed Lisbon court, and where a case is filed can affect how quickly it resolves. An experienced immigration lawyer will know which competent court is moving fastest for AIMA intimações, and filing in a less congested venue can shave weeks off the timeline. Once you have a judge and an order, our post on what happens after a judge is assigned to your AIMA case walks through the enforcement stage — the point at which the daily penalty starts concentrating AIMA's attention on your file.
AIMA Is Now Prioritising Family Reunification — Use It
There is a second development working in applicants' favour, and it is specific to family reunification. Alongside the wave of court orders, AIMA has signalled that it is prioritising family reunification appointments to speed the integration of already-regularised immigrants. Reporting indicates that from October the agency will extend scheduling availability and let immigrants with minor children request appointments through the portal, with wider age coverage for minors approaching 18. In the agency's own framing, the aim is "the true integration and fulfillment of the migrant in the national space."
This changes the tactical calculation slightly. For some applicants — particularly those with minor children — a portal slot may now open up faster than before without going to court, and it is worth checking the portal actively rather than assuming nothing will move. The renewed prioritisation and the court pressure are not alternatives so much as two forces pushing the same way: AIMA is being ordered by courts to schedule overdue appointments and is simultaneously reorganising to schedule family reunification faster on its own initiative.
The sensible approach is to pursue both tracks with awareness of your own timeline. If you are close to or past the 90-day deadline and your family is separated, the intimação gives you an enforceable, dated outcome you control. If you are earlier in the process or have minor children, monitor the portal closely as the new prioritisation rolls out, because a slot offered voluntarily is faster and cheaper than one won in court. Whichever route delivers first, the underlying point stands: the era in which applicants simply had to wait indefinitely for AIMA is over.
What It Costs, and When It Is Worth It
An intimação against AIMA is a court action, so it carries lawyer's fees and court costs, but because these cases are now highly standardised, many immigration lawyers handle them efficiently at a predictable, relatively contained price. Weigh that against what the delay is costing you: a family reunification process frozen for months means a spouse or child remaining abroad, with all the personal and financial cost that separation carries. For most families, a one-off cost that converts an indefinite wait into a dated appointment is straightforwardly worth it.
Cost should not be the barrier that keeps a family separated. Portugal's legal aid scheme, apoio judiciário, can cover legal representation and court costs for those who meet the means test, and it is available to foreign nationals — including those whose residence status is precisely what is stuck at AIMA. If paying privately is not realistic, applying for legal aid before filing is the route, and it does not require you to already hold a settled permit. The combination of a near-certain legal outcome and available means-tested funding is what makes this remedy genuinely accessible rather than theoretical.
The honest bottom line is that the intimação para prestação de facto is one of the few points in the AIMA system where an ordinary applicant holds real leverage. The law is clear, AIMA concedes the breach, the courts order compliance, and a financial penalty enforces it. If you have been left without a family reunification appointment past the deadline, this is not a desperate long shot — it is the established, high-success route that 17,000 rulings have already paved. The main mistake applicants make is waiting far longer than they need to before using it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the 17,000 court-ordered AIMA appointments?
They are around 17,000 court rulings condemning AIMA for failing to schedule appointments within the legally required 90 days. Each is a court ordering AIMA to give a specific applicant an appointment. Together they show that when applicants take AIMA to the administrative courts over missed deadlines, they routinely win and obtain a scheduled slot.
What is an intimação para prestação de facto?
It is an urgent administrative court order compelling a public body to perform an act it is legally obliged to perform. Against AIMA it is used to force the scheduling of an appointment or the making of a decision: the court orders AIMA to act within a fixed period, often with a daily financial penalty for each day of non-compliance.
How long does AIMA legally have to schedule my appointment?
Ninety days. Portuguese law requires AIMA to schedule appointments within that window, and missing it is the unlawful omission on which the courts have condemned the agency in tens of thousands of cases. The 90-day deadline is what turns a long wait into an enforceable legal breach.
Can I force an AIMA family reunification appointment through the courts?
Yes. If AIMA has left you without a family reunification appointment past the 90-day deadline, an intimação para prestação de facto asks the administrative court to order AIMA to schedule it. These actions have a very high success rate, and AIMA is now also prioritising family reunification scheduling on its own initiative.
Do I need a lawyer, and can I afford it?
The intimação is a court procedure normally run by a lawyer, but it is well-established and standardised, so it is handled efficiently at predictable cost. If paying privately is not realistic, Portugal's legal aid scheme (apoio judiciário) can cover representation and court costs for those who qualify, including foreign nationals whose status is stuck at AIMA.