The Short Answer: A Certificate Alone No Longer Wins
If AIMA is questioning whether your marriage or partnership is real, the reason is a genuine shift in the law: since Law 61/2025 came into force in October 2025, a formally valid marriage or partnership certificate is no longer enough on its own to secure family reunification. AIMA and Portuguese consulates now assess whether the relationship is genuine and subsisting — a real, ongoing family life rather than a document — and they have express discretion to demand supplementary evidence such as proof of cohabitation, joint finances, and communication history. The certificate proves your marriage exists in law; the extra evidence proves it exists in fact, and both are now required.
This matters because the failure mode has changed. Families used to be refused for missing an income threshold, a legalisation stamp, or an item on the document list. Now there is a second, separate way a well-documented file can stall or fail: AIMA can accept that every form is complete and still ask you to prove the relationship is not a marriage of convenience. A 2026 practitioner clarification confirms authorities have been given "broader discretion to request supplementary evidence, including joint financial records, proof of cohabitation and communication records" (Global Law Experts). The practical response is to stop treating the certificate as the proof and start treating your shared life as the proof — which is what the rest of this guide helps you assemble. This is distinct from the income requirements and the standard document checklist; it sits on top of both.
What Changed: The "Genuine and Subsisting" Test
The 2025 immigration reform rewrote how relationships are verified in reunification cases. Where the previous approach effectively accepted a valid civil-status document as proof of the family tie, the current framework instructs decision-makers to confirm that the marriage, de facto partnership (união de facto), or parent-child relationship is genuine and subsisting at the time of the decision. In plain terms, AIMA now asks two questions instead of one: does the relationship exist on paper, and is it a real relationship the parties actually live out? Both consulates and AIMA were given latitude to look behind the certificate, and reporting on the 2026 documentation clarifications describes exactly this — supplementary evidence of joint finances, cohabitation, and communication can be requested at their discretion.
The legal target of this test is the casamento de conveniência — the marriage of convenience contracted for the sole purpose of obtaining a residence right. That concept is not new to Portuguese or EU law, but Law 61/2025 sharpened the tools for applying it to the reunification pipeline, and it is being applied more actively as AIMA works through a large volume of family cases. The important nuance for honest applicants is that the standard is not "prove a perfect relationship" — it is to show the relationship is authentic and continuing. Cultural differences, long-distance periods, arranged introductions, and short courtships do not make a marriage a sham. What the test looks for is the absence of any real shared life; your job is to make that absence impossible to allege by documenting the life you actually share. Understanding this also clarifies why the sponsor's own status matters: you must first have cleared the two-year residency rule and any income and housing conditions before the genuineness question is even reached.
The Evidence Bundle That Proves a Real Relationship
The most persuasive evidence shows a shared life across time and independent sources, not a single impressive document. Assemble what applies to your situation from these categories: a joint lease or property deed (or both names on a rental contract); utility, internet, or insurance bills in both names at the same address; a joint bank account or a documented pattern of transfers and shared expenses between you; health insurance listing one partner as the other's dependant; and children's birth certificates naming both parents, which are among the strongest possible proofs. Each item is a fingerprint of a genuine household, and AIMA weighs the picture they form together rather than any one piece.
For couples who have been living apart — common in reunification, where the whole point is that one partner is abroad — the emphasis shifts to continuity of the relationship despite distance. Here the useful evidence is communication records (message threads, call logs across months, not a single week), travel records and boarding passes showing visits in both directions, dated photographs together in different places and years, remittance and money-transfer receipts, and any correspondence addressed to you as a couple. The principle is the same one that governs the rest of an AIMA file: consistency and volume beat a single showpiece. Three independent records pointing to the same history — a joint account opened two years ago, messages spanning that period, and visits stamped in a passport — are far harder to dismiss than one glossy document. Present them organised and dated, ideally with a short cover note mapping each document to the point it proves, so the case officer does not have to reconstruct your relationship from a shuffled pile.
Two procedural cautions carry over from every AIMA submission. First, foreign civil documents such as marriage or birth certificates generally need an apostille or consular legalisation and an official Portuguese translation to be accepted — a genuine relationship can still be delayed by an unlegalised certificate. Second, do not volunteer contradictions: make sure names, dates, and addresses are consistent across everything you file, because an innocent discrepancy (a transliterated surname, a mismatched date format) can be misread as a red flag under a test that is actively looking for inauthenticity. If your file already went in through the online submission process, the same evidence can usually be added to the case, and you can track movement using our guide to checking your reunification status.
Who AIMA Is Most Likely to Question
Genuineness scrutiny does not fall evenly. In practice it clusters on a recognisable set of profiles: recently formalised marriages (especially where the wedding closely preceded the reunification request), couples with little or no documented history of living together, partners who have never resided in the same country, files with large gaps in the shared paper trail, and cases where earlier submissions contained inconsistent information. A significant age difference, a large number of prior refusals in the couple's history, or a relationship formed very shortly before an immigration deadline can also draw a closer look. None of these factors makes a relationship invalid, and many entirely genuine couples tick several boxes — but they raise the evidentiary bar, and knowing you are in a higher-scrutiny group lets you prepare for it rather than be surprised by it.
The correct response to being in a flagged profile is to over-document from the outset rather than submit the minimum and hope. If you married recently, lead with the evidence of the relationship before the wedding — the courtship, the visits, the messages — because the concern is precisely that the marriage was manufactured for papers. If you have always lived in different countries, build the continuity narrative that distance cases rely on: sustained communication, repeated travel, financial support. If a previous application contained an error, address it head-on with a short explanation and corrected documents rather than leaving AIMA to infer bad faith. The families who struggle are usually not the ones with unusual circumstances; they are the ones who let an unusual circumstance sit unexplained in the file. De facto partnerships (união de facto) deserve particular care, since they lack a single defining certificate and therefore lean almost entirely on cohabitation and shared-life evidence to establish that the partnership is real.
If AIMA Has Already Flagged Your Relationship
If AIMA has already raised a doubt, the most important thing to know is that it generally cannot refuse you without first letting you respond. Before issuing a negative decision, AIMA is required to give a prior hearing — the audiência prévia — or a formal request for additional documents, which sets out the concern and gives you a deadline (frequently around 10 working days) to reply. Receiving this notification is not the refusal; it is the opening to prevent one. Treat it as the single most urgent item in your immigration file, because the evidence bundle described above lands with far more weight when it is filed as a direct, point-by-point answer to a stated doubt than when it is buried in the original application.
Answer the prior hearing completely and specifically. Read exactly what AIMA is questioning — is it the lack of cohabitation evidence, the short duration of the marriage, an inconsistency between documents? — and respond to that precise point with organised proof and a brief written explanation. Do not send a generic dump of documents; map your evidence to AIMA's concern. Keep copies of everything, note the date you submit, and retain proof of submission. The failure that most often converts a survivable doubt into a refusal is a missed or thin prior-hearing response: applicants who under-answer, answer late, or ignore the notification hand AIMA the uncontested record it needs to conclude the relationship is not genuine. The mechanics of responding to an adverse AIMA notice are covered in more depth in our guide to responding to an intenção de indeferimento and the prior hearing. If the doubt is serious, the marriage is genuinely being treated as suspected convenience, or you are unsure how to frame the response, this is the point at which involving a lawyer most changes the outcome.
The Genuineness Interview and a "Convenience" Refusal
In some cases the genuineness assessment goes beyond paper. AIMA or a consulate may conduct an interview — sometimes with the partners separately — to test whether their accounts of the relationship are consistent on the kind of details a real couple would share: how and when they met, daily routines, family members, the layout of their home, recent shared events. This is uncomfortable but not a trap for honest couples; the goal is to expose fabricated relationships, not to catch spouses who forget a date. The preparation that helps is simply reviewing your own shared history together beforehand so that ordinary nervousness does not produce contradictions that look like deception. Answer honestly and specifically; vague or evasive answers do more damage than admitting you do not remember a minor detail.
If AIMA nonetheless refuses on the basis of an alleged marriage of convenience, that decision is challengeable, and it is challengeable on strong legal ground when it rests on suspicion rather than concrete findings. A refusal must be reasoned; a decision that ignores the cohabitation and communication evidence you submitted, or that infers a sham from nothing more than a short marriage or a distance relationship, is exactly the kind of inadequately reasoned decision the administrative courts can annul. The route runs first through an administrative complaint or appeal to AIMA and then, if necessary, before the administrative courts — the same path set out in our guide to appealing a refused reunification. The decisive factor on appeal is almost always the record you built earlier: if you answered the prior hearing in full and AIMA refused anyway, you appeal from a position of strength; if you let the prior hearing pass, you are trying to introduce your evidence for the first time on appeal, which is far harder. That asymmetry is the whole reason this guide pushes you to document the relationship early and answer any doubt in full — the genuineness test is winnable, but it is won with evidence assembled before the refusal, not after.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does AIMA now require proof that my marriage is genuine for family reunification?
Yes. Under Law 61/2025 (in force since October 2025) and AIMA's 2026 documentation clarifications, a formally valid marriage or partnership certificate is no longer sufficient on its own. AIMA and Portuguese consulates assess whether the relationship is genuine and subsisting and can request supplementary evidence such as proof of cohabitation, joint financial records, and communication history. The certificate proves the marriage exists in law; the extra evidence proves it exists in fact.
What evidence proves a genuine relationship to AIMA?
The strongest evidence shows a shared life over time: a joint lease or property deed, both names on utility bills, a joint bank account or regular transfers, health insurance listing one partner as the other's dependant, and children's birth certificates naming both parents. For couples who have lived apart, add communication records, travel records and boarding passes, dated photographs, and money-transfer receipts. Consistency across independent sources matters more than any single document.
Who is most likely to have their relationship questioned by AIMA?
Scrutiny tends to fall on recently formalised marriages, couples with little documented history of living together, partners who have never resided in the same country, files with large gaps in the shared paper trail, and cases with earlier inconsistent information. None of these makes a relationship invalid, but they raise the evidentiary bar — so those applicants should over-document their shared-life history rather than rely on the certificate alone.
What happens if AIMA doubts my marriage is real?
AIMA generally cannot refuse without first giving you a chance to respond. Before a negative decision it issues a prior hearing (audiência prévia) or a request for additional documents, stating its doubt and a deadline — often around 10 working days — to reply. This is the moment to submit the full cohabitation and shared-life evidence bundle. Missing or under-answering the prior hearing is the most common avoidable cause of a convenience-marriage refusal.
Can I appeal if AIMA refuses reunification as a marriage of convenience?
Yes. A refusal based on an alleged marriage of convenience (casamento de conveniência) can be challenged, first through an administrative complaint or appeal to AIMA and then, if needed, before the administrative courts, which can annul a decision that ignored your evidence or reasoned inadequately. A refusal resting on suspicion rather than concrete findings is often vulnerable on appeal — but you must have built the evidentiary record at the prior-hearing stage first.