The number of foreign residents in Portugal increased exponentially in recent years.
75% confidence
MigrationPortugal
Omissions
The annual growth rate of the foreign resident population has been decelerating, not accelerating (about 31.4% in 2023 and 18.3% in 2024, with a more moderate increase in 2025), so the growth is very rapid but not strictly 'exponential' in the technical sense.
The claim presents the increase as inherently 'unsustainable', which is a normative/political assessment, not a statistical fact.
The most recent figures available before the session date concern the end of 2025 (published 2026-09-22); the MEP could have known these, and they show a continued but slowing increase.
Sources
PrimaryAIMA (Agência para a Integração, Migrações e Asilo) — Relatório de Migrações e Asilo 2024Official Portuguese government report on migration and asylum; it states that 'A população estrangeira residente inclui os cidadãos estrangeiros com títulos de residência válidos, processos de regularização em curso e autorizações emitidas' and documents the foreign resident population of Portugal, which by end-2024 exceeded 1.5 million.
SecondaryEuropean Commission — Key integration developments and research in Portugal'In 2024, Portugal registered 138 000 new long-term or permanent' residents; 'The OECD's International Migration Outlook 2025 reports that Portugal's foreign-born population reached 1.2 million people in 2023, representing 11.7% of the total population'.
TertiaryImmigrant Invest — Portugal AIMA statistics'Growth of the foreign population in Portugal slowed down. In 2024, the number of residents increased by 18.3%, and in 2023, by 31.4%.'