The number of Brazilian nationals applying for Portuguese citizenship has seen an increase in recent years, with the Foreigners and Borders Service of Portugal (SEF) revealing that Brazilians represented a high proportion of foreigners in the country by the end of 2022.
According to SEF, from the beginning of 2018 until the end of 2022, which represents a five-year period, the number of citizenship applications filed by Brazilian nationals increased by 81 per cent, with around 89,000 Brazilians filing a citizenship application in these years.
This represents a sharp rise compared to the previous years and suggests that more Brazilians wanted to obtain a Portuguese passport.
Data provided by SEF show that in 2018 alone, around 11,500 nationals of Brazil submitted an application for Portuguese citizenship.
The number continued to remain high in the following years, too. Only two years later, in 2020, the number of citizenship applications filed by Brazilians reached more than 20,900, and by the end of 2022, the total stood at around 89,000.
With the increase in citizenship applications, the number of Brazilians in Portugal increased, too.
As Rádio e Televisão Record SA explains, by the end of 2022, Brazilians represented around 30.7 per cent of the foreigners in Portugal – one of the main foreign nationalities in the country.
The high number of citizenship applications filed by Brazilians not only in Portugal but in the other EU countries is further supported by data from the EU’s statistical office, Eurostat.
Eurostat revealed earlier this year that Brazilians were among the top ten main recipients of an EU Member State citizenship in 2021.
According to data provided by Eurostat, insixth place, Brazilians represented 2.5 per cent of EU citizenship recipients in 2021.
In 2021, about 20,400 Brazilians were granted citizenship in an EU country. While Brazilians applied for citizenship in the other EU countries too, Eurostat notes that 65 per cent of them acquired citizenship in Portugal or Italy. The remaining part acquired citizenship of the other EU Member States.
Differently from Brazilians, Moroccans were the largest group of foreigners who were granted citizenship in an EU Member State in 2021. Back then, 86,200 Moroccans acquired EU citizenship, with 71 per cent of them acquiring Spanish or French citizenship.
The second and third largest groups of foreigners who acquired EU citizenship in 2021 were Syrians and Albanians. In 2021, 83,500 Syrians and 32,300 Albanians obtained citizenship in an EU country.
