In 2016, just over 30,500 Portuguese nationals applied for a British Social Security number, which is down by more than 1,700 on numbers from the year before.
Early figures, the first released following Brexit, show an across-the-board drop in immigration from other European countries, including Poland, Hungary and Ireland.
Portugal is still, nonetheless, the sixth biggest source of immigrants to the UK.
The year before, the British department of work and pensions said that 34,145 Portuguese nationals asked for a national insurance number, which they need to be able to work, over those 12 months.
This number is a 6,099 increase compared with the 28,046 Portuguese who registered in the 12 months up until September 2014.
The National Insurance Number is mandatory for anyone who wants to work full-time or part-time in the UK, such as students or to claim welfare support and for those who register as self-employed.
Around 110,000 Portuguese nationals emigrated from Portugal in 2015, research published in January has indicated.
The figures were released to Parliament and are in line with those recorded in 2013 and 2014.
The number of Portuguese leaving the country started rising considerably following the start of the economic crisis in 2008, with strong spikes in 2011 and 2012.
The United Kingdom remains the most popular destination for Portugal’s economic migrants followed by Switzerland and France.
Portuguese emigration to the UK rose 22 percent between September 2014 and September 2015 compared with the same period in the 12 months before, according to latest available official figures, but in line with new numbers, the Portuguese exodus to Britain is showing signs of slowing down.
In related news, Portugal’s foreign minister, Augusto Santos Silva, last week visited the UK to meet his British counterpart, to debate the consequences of Brexit and bilateral relations.
Santos Silva recalled that the secretaries of state of European affairs and of Portuguese communities were the “first” European officials to visit Great Britain and contact the Portuguese emigrants there after the country’s decision to leave the European Union last June.
Santos Silva was quoted as telling the Lusa News Agency he believes “now is the time” to hold contacts between the two countries’ foreign ministers.