The National Institute of Statistics of Portugal recorded 574.195 Brazilians residing in the country until December 2025. The number corresponds to 35,9% of the entire foreign population and keeps Brazil in the lead among immigrant nationalities.
Portugal reached a record population of 11.424.031 inhabitants, of which 14% are foreign citizens. Angola comes in second place, with 103.140 people (6,5% of the total immigrants), followed by India, with 93.683 residents.
Cape Verde (76.099), Nepal (56.866), Bangladesh (56.724) and Guinea-Bissau (53.555) complete the group of the main foreign nationalities in the country. Among Europeans, Italy occupies the 12th position, with 32.784 residents.
A community with a majority of women
Professor Ilo Alexandre, a data visualization specialist and researcher at CICANT, Lusófona University, analyzed the INE data at the request of DN Brasil.
According to him, the most recent wave of migration from Brazil to Portugal began in mid-2018. "It coincides with Bolsonaro's election in Brazil. Today, 1 in 3 foreigners in the country is Brazilian," he stated.
The Brazilian community It also differs in gender profile. There are 288.788 women, which guarantees a female majority, unlike the overall immigration population.
"When we look at the foreign population in general, 57% are men and only 43% are women," the researcher explained.
Northern Portugal has a larger Brazilian population than Lisbon.
The geographical distribution also contradicts the pattern of other immigrants. The North region concentrates 27,4% of Brazilians, ahead of the Lisbon region, with 26,7%. The Central region appears in third place, with 15,8%.
Ilo Alexandre notes that the Portuguese government received the data as validation of the changes in migration policies, which ended several possibilities for regularization of residence.
“Because the growth, which was very pronounced from 2021 to 2023, has begun to be more subtle. The number of immigrants in recent years has grown considerably. From 2021 to 2025, it practically doubled. It went from 700 to almost 1,6 million foreigners living in Portugal,” he said.
According to the researcher, the trend is towards stabilization. "The government says there is greater control over immigration and that this is how it will be maintained. In other words, the open-door policy is over, and the trend is for these numbers, which were on a sharp rise, to more or less flatten out," he concluded. (With information from DN Brasil and INE)
