Key takeaways

  • 162,252 migrant workers stopped social security contributions in 2025
  • That's a 66% jump from 2024, signalling departures or irregular status
  • Brazilians made up the largest group, nearly 60,000 in 2025 alone
  • South Asian workers saw the fastest growth in disappearances, nearly tripling

New data from Portugal’s Social Security Institute (ISS) shows that 162,252 foreign workers stopped contributing to the system in 2025 and never resumed active registration, a 66 percent jump from the previous year. The trend suggests a growing number of migrants are either leaving Portugal entirely or staying on without legal employment.

ISS figures show accelerating drop-offs

The ISS tracks contributions made by employees and self-employed workers, which is the main way authorities monitor who is legally working in Portugal. When someone stops paying in and doesn’t reappear on another employer’s payroll, it typically means they’ve either left the country, become unemployed without registering, or moved into undeclared work.

The scale of the shift is notable: the system lost an average of 267 foreign contributors per day in 2023, a figure that rose to roughly 455 per day by 2025. That steady acceleration points to a structural change rather than a one-off blip.

Brazilian and South Asian communities most affected

Brazilian nationals make up the single largest group vanishing from the records, with close to 60,000 dropping off in 2025 alone and around 100,000 over the past two years combined. Brazil remains by far the largest source of immigration to Portugal, so shifts in that community’s registration patterns carry outsized weight in the national totals.

Proportionally, though, the sharpest change came from workers from the Indian subcontinent — India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal — whose numbers leaving the system almost tripled during the year, the fastest growth rate among all major migrant groups.

Why registration status matters for residency

For foreign residents, an active social security contribution history is often tied directly to maintaining legal residency, renewing permits, and eventually qualifying for benefits or citizenship. A gap in contributions can complicate dealings with AIMA, Portugal’s immigration and asylum agency, which has separately reported tens of thousands of pending cases.

The figures arrive as Portugal debates changes to nationality law and immigration policy more broadly, with ongoing disputes over benefits eligibility and residency rules. Whether the drop reflects people genuinely leaving the country, moving into informal work, or simply falling through administrative gaps remains unclear, but it is likely to feed into wider political debate over immigration enforcement and labour market oversight.