The Short Answer: Check the Sender Domain
Before you do anything with an email that claims to offer you an AIMA appointment, look at the address it actually came from. Genuine AIMA emails are sent from the aima.gov.pt domain, and AIMA has confirmed that appointment communications originate there, with a small number of legacy messages still arriving from the old sef.pt domain. Anything else — and in particular the look-alike saf-aima.pt, which AIMA has flagged as fraudulent — means the message is a scam, no matter how convincing the logo, the Portuguese, or the process number inside it look.
This single check matters because you are caught between two real risks right now. AIMA's backlog task force has genuinely started emailing appointment and interview convocations to people who have been stuck waiting, so an unexpected AIMA email may well be the message you have wanted for months. At the same time, AIMA has publicly warned that fraudulent emails impersonating it are in circulation. The sender domain is the one piece of a message that criminals cannot easily fake to match the real thing, which is why it is the first and most reliable thing to verify.
So resist the two instinctive mistakes: do not delete a real convocation in panic because you have heard scams exist, and do not trust a message simply because it is well written and uses AIMA's branding. Judge by the address, not the appearance. The sections below explain why these emails are arriving now, how to run the full authenticity check beyond the domain, the specific fakes to watch for, and precisely what to do next whether the message turns out to be genuine or fraudulent.
Why You Are Getting an Appointment Email Now
An unexpected AIMA appointment email is, in 2026, a plausible and even expected event rather than an automatic warning sign. As AIMA works through the enormous backlog it inherited from SEF, its task force has begun emailing biometric and interview convocations to applicants whose files had been sitting without movement. If your case has been in limbo — a pending first permit, a renewal with no appointment, a family reunification waiting on an interview — then being contacted out of the blue is exactly what the clearing effort is designed to produce.
Knowing this changes how you should react. A year ago, an unsolicited "here is your AIMA appointment" email would have been suspicious on its face, because AIMA was not generally reaching out that way. Now the opposite is true: the agency is actively pushing out convocations, including for Saturday card-collection sessions and backlog interviews, so a genuine message landing without warning fits the current pattern. The task force's whole purpose is to contact people who were told to wait, which means the email you half-stopped expecting may finally be real.
That is also precisely why scammers have moved in. Fraud thrives on expectation: criminals know that hundreds of thousands of people in Portugal are desperate for an AIMA communication and primed to act the moment one arrives. An impersonation email that mimics a convocation exploits that hope, counting on you to click or pay before you think. The solution is not to distrust every message — that would make you miss the genuine ones the task force is sending — but to run a quick, disciplined verification on each, so your hope does not become the lever a scam uses against you.
How to Tell a Genuine AIMA Email From a Scam
Start with the sender address, expanded in full. On a phone, tap the sender name to reveal the actual email address behind it, because a scam often displays a friendly name like "AIMA Agendamentos" while the underlying address is something unrelated. Confirm it ends in aima.gov.pt (or, for some legacy system mail, sef.pt). A mismatch between a reassuring display name and a foreign domain is the clearest single tell of a fake, and it takes five seconds to check.
Next, examine the links and the ask rather than the prose. Hover over or long-press any link to preview the real destination before tapping — a genuine AIMA message points to aima.gov.pt addresses, not to shortened links or unfamiliar domains. Be especially wary of any message that pressures you to act within hours, asks you to pay a fee by entering card details on a linked page, or requests your bank information, passwords, or full identity documents by reply. Real appointment convocations tell you a date, time and place and list documents to bring; they do not harvest your banking details through a web form reached from the email.
Finally, verify out of band — through a channel you reach independently, not through the email. If a message claims you have an appointment, confirm it by logging in directly to the official AIMA portal yourself (typing the address, not clicking the email's link) and checking your process status there, or by contacting AIMA through its published channels. Our guide to checking your AIMA process status online shows how to see your real case state, and our breakdown of the AIMA phone number, email and contact form that get a reply gives you an independent way to ask "did you actually schedule me?" without trusting anything inside the suspicious message.
The Known Fakes: saf-aima.pt and aimapt.com
AIMA has named specific fraudulent assets, and recognising them lets you dismiss a scam instantly. The agency warned that fraudulent emails were being sent from the address noreplyportalsef@saf-aima.pt, falsely claiming that an appointment exists. The domain saf-aima.pt is engineered to resemble a legitimate SEF/AIMA address at a glance, which is exactly why you must read it in full: it is not aima.gov.pt, so any message from it is fake, whatever it says about your case.
A related warning concerns a fake website. In March 2026, AIMA alerted the public that the site aimapt.com has no connection with AIMA, and stressed that it will not request personal or banking information nor ask for payments to be made on such a website. Scam emails frequently funnel victims to a convincing-looking site like this to capture logins, card numbers, or document scans. If a link in an email leads anywhere other than an official aima.gov.pt page, stop — the destination, not the email's wording, is where the theft happens.
Treat these named fakes as examples of a pattern rather than an exhaustive list, because fraudulent addresses and sites change. The migration authority has issued formal warnings about fraudulent communications impersonating it, and new look-alike domains can appear at any time. The durable defence is the rule, not the specific name: genuine means the aima.gov.pt domain and official payment channels; anything else — a near-miss domain, an external payment page, an unsolicited request for your data — is to be treated as fraud by default.
If the Email Is Real: Confirm the Slot and What to Bring
Once you have confirmed a convocation is genuine, act on it promptly, because a backlog appointment is hard-won and missing it can send you to the back of a very long queue. Read the message for the three essentials it should contain: the date, the time, and the place (which AIMA delegation or service point). Note any instruction to confirm attendance, and do so through the method the genuine email specifies or through the official portal — appointments can be missed simply because a required confirmation step was overlooked.
Prepare your documents against the list the convocation provides, and do not improvise. A genuine appointment email or interview notice usually states what to bring; at minimum, expect to need the convocation itself (printed and on your phone), your passport, your current or expired residence card, your NIF and NISS, and the evidence specific to your process — proof of income and accommodation, tax and social-security no-debt certificates, and originals accompanied by photocopies. Our AIMA appointment guide sets out the standard document set and what actually happens at the counter, so you arrive with nothing missing.
Plan the logistics with the same seriousness. Arrive early, bring more documentation than you think you need rather than less, and if you cannot attend in person, arrange for a representative with a proper power of attorney (procuração) — AIMA has run convocations, including Saturday card-collection sessions, where attendance by proxy with a procuração is accepted, as covered in our guide to the força-tarefa email convocations. If any detail in the genuine email is unclear, confirm it through AIMA's official contact channels rather than guessing, and keep a copy of everything you submit.
If the Email Is a Scam: Do Not Click, Then Report It
If your checks point to fraud, the safest response is to disengage completely. AIMA's own advice is unambiguous: do not click any links, do not reply, mark the message as junk or spam, delete it, and block the sender. Every interaction — even opening a link to "see what it is" or replying to say "stop" — confirms your address is active and can expose you to tracking or further attacks. The single most protective thing you can do with a scam email is nothing that the email asks of you.
If you want to report it, Portugal has clear channels. You can submit a report through the online cybercrime forms of the Polícia Judiciária and the Ministério Público, or report in person at a PSP station or a GNR post. Reporting helps the authorities track and shut down the fraudulent infrastructure, and if you have already clicked a link or, worse, entered any personal or banking details, reporting quickly — and contacting your bank at once if card or account data was exposed — limits the damage. Keep a screenshot of the scam message as evidence before you delete it, if you intend to report.
Crucially, deleting a scam does not resolve your actual case, so close the loop separately. The fake email told you nothing true about where your real file stands, so verify that independently: log in to the official AIMA portal yourself and check your genuine process status, or ask through AIMA's published contact routes. Do not let a fraudster's message become the reason you either panic about your case or assume an appointment exists when it does not — treat the scam and your real status as two entirely separate things.
What AIMA Will Never Ask You For
A short list of "AIMA will never do this" rules will catch most scams even before you check the domain. AIMA will not request your personal or banking information by email, and it will not ask you to make a payment by entering card details into a website reached through an email link. Legitimate fees are paid against an official DUC reference through standard Portuguese payment methods, not by handing card numbers to a page you were sent to. Any message that asks for bank details, card numbers, passwords, or full document scans by reply is fraudulent on that basis alone.
AIMA also will not threaten you with immediate deportation or demand a payment within hours to "keep" an appointment. Urgency and fear are the standard tools of a scam, designed to stop you thinking and checking. A genuine convocation gives you a scheduled date and clear instructions; it does not manufacture a same-day crisis. If a message's emotional pressure is doing more work than its actual content, that imbalance is itself a warning sign, independent of anything technical.
The bottom line is that you do not have to choose between hope and caution — you can hold both. The appointment email you have waited for may finally be genuine, and the task force is sending real ones; but a parallel wave of impersonation is exploiting exactly that hope. Check the sender domain, verify the ask and the links, confirm your status independently through the official portal, and act promptly on the real ones while reporting the fakes. That discipline is what lets you seize a long-awaited slot without ever becoming a scam's next victim.