According to a presentation made by the Foreigners and Borders Service, which will be abolished on Sunday, there are 292,000 expressions of interest which have been formalised with SEF by foreign citizens in order to obtain a residence permit in Portugal.

SEF states that the daily average for submitting an expression of interest on the SAPA portal is 1,000 requests.

The data were presented with the Agency for Integration, Migrations and Asylum (AIMA) being just days away from taking office, which will succeed SEF in the administrative functions of issuing documents for foreigners.

SEF director, Paulo Batista, acknowledged SEF's "heavy legacy", but highlighted the work done this year, stressing that "there have been as many new residence permits issued".

This year, SEF issued 306,000 new residence permits to foreigners.

According to data, the most representative foreign community in Portugal is Brazilian (400,759), followed by Ukrainian (77,680), the United Kingdom (56,921), Angola (55,983), Cape Verde (54,335), India (47,558 ) and Italy (39,914).

In September, SEF informed Lusa that almost one million foreign citizens with residence permits reside in the country.