Foreign citizens are now dismissed from getting their criminal record to present to the portuguese immigration authorities (SEF)

Foreign citizens no longer need to request a criminal record certificate or a contumacy certificate to be submitted to the Immigration and Borders Service (SEF), for the purpose of examining an application for or renewal of a residence permit.

SEF will only need an authorisation from the applicant to access the register, which is given at that moment, avoiding the need to go to service desks of criminal record services, namely the Courts and Citizen’s Shops.

Thus, the Directorate General for the Administration of Justice (DGAJ) aims to reduce queue times in service desks of criminal record services.
This initiative resulted from an analysis carried out over three days in July and which promoted the hearing of more than 600 people who were in line at the door of the Citizen’s Shop of Laranjeiras, before its opening time.

According to this analysis, 65% of people were foreign citizens and more than 44% of the total number of people interviewed wanted to obtain the Portuguese criminal record certificate. Of these 44%, 39.7% wanted to request this document for purposes of examining an application or renewal of a residence permit.

According to data provided by DGAJ, 168 459 requests were registered in 2018. In 2019, in the first semester alone, there were 118 004 requests.

The new service was presented on 7 August at the National Immigrant Support Centre in Lisbon, in a ceremony attended by the Deputy Secretary of State and Administrative Modernisation, Luís Goes Pinheiro, the Secretary of State for Citizenship and Equality, Rosa Monteiro, the Deputy Secretary of State and Internal Administration, Isabel Oneto, and the Director General of the Directorate General for Administration of Justice (DGAJ), Luís Borges Freitas representing the Secretary of State for Justice, Anabela Pedroso.

Source: Justice Portal