Renovar o passaporte com menos frequência foi a promessa que acompanhou o anúncio do alargamento da validade de cinco para 10 anos. Mais de dois anos depois, porém, quem vai pedir o documento deve ter atenção: a validade geral continua a ser de cinco anos, segundo a confirmação mais recente do Ministério da Justiça ao Polígrafo.

A medida foi anunciada pelo Governo em 16 de julho de 2024, num pacote de simplificação e digitalização dos serviços públicos. Entre as iniciativas apresentadas estava expressamente o aumento do prazo de validade do passaporte eletrónico português.

O que estava previsto para o novo passaporte

O processo avançou com a publicação do Despacho n.º 14284/2024, de 3 de dezembro, que criou um grupo de trabalho para desenvolver e implementar um novo modelo de passaporte.

O documento associava o alargamento da validade ao reforço da segurança, à modernização dos sistemas informáticos e à simplificação dos procedimentos. Um dos objetivos era permitir a reutilização dos dados biométricos recolhidos para o Cartão de Cidadão, reduzindo tarefas repetidas e deslocações dos cidadãos.

O grupo integra representantes de diferentes entidades, incluindo o Instituto dos Registos e do Notariado, a Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, a Polícia Judiciária e os governos regionais.

Calendário apontava para o segundo trimestre de 2026

O despacho estabelecia que os trabalhos deveriam permitir disponibilizar o novo modelo “a partir do segundo trimestre de 2026”.

Essa referência dizia respeito ao desenvolvimento do documento. A criação do grupo de trabalho não alterou, por si só, a validade dos passaportes emitidos.

O diploma previa ainda relatórios trimestrais sobre a execução das atividades, bem como a preparação das alterações legais necessárias à concretização do projeto.

Ministério da Justiça confirma os cinco anos

Questionado pelo Polígrafo, o Ministério da Justiça esclareceu: “O passaporte eletrónico português mantém atualmente o prazo de validade de cinco anos”.

Na resposta acrescentada à verificação em 15 de outubro, a tutela indicou que o grupo de trabalho continua a desenvolver um documento com requisitos elevados de segurança. Referiu também que o eventual alargamento da validade permanece em estudo.

A informação divulgada não apresenta uma nova data para a aplicação dos 10 anos.

Com que validade deve contar quem vai renovar?

Para o passaporte comum, a regra geral mantém-se nos cinco anos. O artigo 24.º do regime legal, na redação introduzida pelo Decreto-Lei n.º 138/2006, estabelece esse prazo.

Assim, o anúncio dos 10 anos não prolonga a validade do documento que já tem. Para organizar uma viagem ou decidir quando pedir um novo passaporte, deve considerar a data de caducidade nele inscrita e as regras atualmente aplicáveis.

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Several winters ago, a few weeks before Christmas, I went to confession. The parish close to work was hosting a reconciliation service, meant to prepare the faithful to celebrate the birth of Christ. A dozen or so priests were scattered across the cathedral. Penitents lined the aisles. Whispers of contrition and pardon filled the air.

The Catholic Church counsels believers to seek confession regularly—at the very least, once a year. I hadn’t been back in a few. So in addition to feeling spiritually unmoored, I was worried about how the priest would react to hearing about my hiatus. But when I told him, he simply smiled and said, “Welcome back.” His response put me at ease then, and it helped change how I approach the sacrament now: less as a nerve-racking ordeal, more as a moment of mercy.

Sacraments such as confession are central to Catholicism. Through them, the Church teaches that simple actions—having a conversation with a priest, eating bread and drinking wine—are, with grace, tangible encounters with God. For the past year, the Trump administration has been making it harder for Catholics at migrant-detention centers to have those encounters.

The most recent example came to light this month, when the Archdiocese of St. Louis filed a federal lawsuit over the visitation policy at Saint Genevieve County Jail in eastern Missouri. According to the claim, the 10 priests who minister at the jail aren’t allowed to celebrate Mass. The suit also alleges that priests are permitted to visit migrant detainees just once a week, during a four-hour period, and that the jail’s “no contact” security policy lets the clergy speak with detainees only over the phone, through a glass partition. As a result, the approximately 150 migrants at the jail at a given time—most of whom are Catholic, according to the archdiocese—have been going without their religious needs for weeks. Since the middle of 2025, according to the lawsuit, Saint Genevieve has housed approximately 3,000 people.

[Read: The Catholic Church’s new schism]

This isn’t the first time that Catholic clergy have complained that the government is preventing them from ministering to detained migrants. Last year, the Florida detention facility known as “Alligator Alcatraz” kept priests from visiting or offering Mass to detainees for a month, until an agreement was reached between the Archdiocese of Miami and state authorities. In May, after a six-month legal fight, a Catholic nonprofit won a preliminary injunction to let Catholic priests celebrate Mass and administer sacraments at the Broadview ICE processing center outside Chicago. And the administration’s immigration crackdowns seem to be hurting the Church more broadly. Dioceses across the country have reported decreased Mass attendance among Spanish-speaking parishioners who fear detention. ICE has reportedly conducted raids near Catholic churches during Mass hours.

The Department of Homeland Security has denied allegations of wrongdoing at Saint Genevieve. In a statement to multiple outlets, the agency said that the jail is not an ICE facility—although Saint Genevieve is listed as a detention facility on ICE’s website—and that it “ensures detainees are accommodated with religious services.” As described in the lawsuit, however, those accommodations disregard the religious significance of the Catholic sacraments.

Consider confession. The suit claims that at Saint Genevieve, conversations between detainees and priests are not private, and the phone lines that they use to talk may be monitored. These policies may be in place for security reasons, but confession is meant to be a private exchange between penitent and priest, who acts in persona Christi—in the person of Christ. Confession is “one of the most intimate, profound acts that someone can do,” David Inczauskis, a Jesuit priest who ministers at the Broadview ICE facility, told me. He added, “To state very specifically the sins that they have committed and to ask humbly for pardon and for peace” requires a “level of vulnerability” that is “very high.”

An even bigger problem comes up with the sacrament of the Eucharist, or Communion. The complaint includes an email from a deputy at the local sheriff’s office suggesting that priests “provide an unopened, individually wrapped Communion wafer” to a member of the detention center staff, who could then hand it to a detainee. This way of distributing the Eucharist would be “sacrilegious,” as Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski of St. Louis recently told Reuters. The Church teaches that the Eucharist is the “Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity” of Christ—not a symbol, but God’s real presence. For that reason, Inczauskis said, the Church distributes the Eucharist through either ordained ministers or specially trained laypeople.

[Read: The Catholic Church and the Trump administration are not getting along]

For much of the past quarter century, many conservative figures have taken up religious liberty as an essential cause. The Trump administration purported to continue these efforts when it established a commission last year meant to identify “emerging threats” to the exercise of faith. In June, the commission released a draft report claiming that “in recent years, Americans from all religious backgrounds have faced increasing persecution for their religious beliefs.” Some of the issues discussed in the report include rising anti-Semitism, how gender and sexuality is taught in schools, and conscience protections for health-care workers who object to participating in abortions or assisted suicides. The report said nothing about the administration’s migrant-detention practices.

When the commission was announced, my colleague Elizabeth Bruenig wrote that “Christians shouldn’t conclude” that it would “necessarily defend their interests.” That warning seems prescient a year and a half later. At Alligator Alcatraz, Broadview, and Saint Genevieve, the Catholic Church has shown that it believes that detainee access to the sacraments matters deeply. Given the choice between restricting immigration and protecting the religious liberty of migrants, the administration, too, has demonstrated where its values lie.

Catarina Nicolau Campos, jurista no Banco de Portugal e chefe de gabinete do Grupo Parlamentar do CDS-PP é a convidada de Teresa Nogueira Pinto neste episódio do podcast‌ À Direita

There is still over an hour before the protagonist appears, but the line already wraps around the block. Dozens of people wait patiently for their turn to see the man who has become the great hope of the Democratic left wing. When he begins to speak, pandemonium breaks out: “My name is Abdul El‑Sayed and I am going to be your next senator in Washington.” Over the next hour, the hundreds gathered in this venue will applaud, laugh, and cheer every word from the mouth of the new star of American politics, who has already made a fitted black T‑shirt and jeans his trademark look. We are in Lansing, Michigan’s capital, where one of the most gripping battles of the midterm elections — just over two weeks away — is being fought.

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El Gobierno de Aragón mantuvo en 600 euros el tope de alquiler del Bono Alquiler Joven pese a que la normativa estatal le permitía elevarlo hasta 900, y a la última convocatoria se presentaron menos de la mitad de jóvenes que a la anterior: 2.935 frente a 6.531. Catorce meses después de cerrarse el plazo, la ayuda ha empezado a llegar a sus beneficiarios, según un informe del Departamento de Vivienda al que ha tenido acceso este medio.

La propia Consejería atribuye la caída de solicitudes a ese límite de 600 euros mensuales que fija el real decreto estatal para acceder a la ayuda. Según su explicación, la fuerte subida de los precios en los últimos años ha dejado fuera a muchas personas con alquileres por encima de ese tope, “pese a encontrarse en situación de necesidad” y aunque sus contratos respondan a precios de mercado.

El decreto que regula el bono, sin embargo, permite a las comunidades autónomas elevarlo hasta 900 euros en zonas donde los estudios del mercado del alquiler lo justifiquen, con el acuerdo del Ministerio. Otras autonomías lo hicieron en la misma etapa del programa: la Comunidad de Madrid, por ejemplo, fijó en su convocatoria de 2025 un tope de 900 euros para familias numerosas y determinados municipios.

Pero el Gobierno de Aragón no lo solicitó. Fuentes del Departamento explican que, al preparar la convocatoria, “no se previó una caída de solicitudes de esa magnitud” en el tramo de alquileres de hasta 600 euros. Las mismas fuentes indican que se consideró el “riesgo de que elevar el umbral pudiera favorecer un encarecimiento de los nuevos contratos”, de forma que el aumento de los alquileres absorbiera parte de la ayuda.

Ese argumento no le impide ahora ir más allá: según el Departamento, las futuras convocatorias cubrirán rentas de hasta 1.000 euros. Este año, en todo caso, no habrá nueva convocatoria. La Consejería prevé una bianual en 2027, cuando se firme el convenio con el Ministerio para aplicar el nuevo Plan Estatal de Vivienda 2026-2030.

Más de un año sin cobrar

Según el informe, 1.217 jóvenes tienen ya la ayuda concedida y pagada, por un importe de 2,8 millones de euros, mientras que otros 2 millones están en fase de pago. Pese a esto, casi un tercio de las solicitudes continúa sin resolverse.

La convocatoria, correspondiente a 2024-2025, se abrió en julio del año pasado y se cerró mes y medio más tarde. Durante más de un año ninguno de los solicitantes cobró: a 31 de julio de 2026, según el dato público de ejecución presupuestaria del Gobierno de Aragón, el gasto reconocido con cargo al fondo del bono era de 48.620 euros, a pesar de que el Ministerio había ingresado en diciembre –medio año antes– los primeros 7,6 millones. El retraso llevó a la Justicia de Aragón, Concepción Gimeno, a pedir que se agilizara la tramitación, y el consejero de Fomento, Octavio López, atribuyó en las Cortes la demora a que el proceso estaba condicionado a la llegada de los fondos.

Además de las 1.217 ayudas concedidas, el informe recoge 583 solicitudes denegadas por no cumplir los requisitos y 250 cerradas por renuncia o desistimiento. Quedan pendientes 596 expedientes en los que se ha pedido al solicitante que subsane defectos o aporte documentación, con otros 289 aún en trámite.

El Departamento advierte de que el importe abonado no refleja el total de la ayuda: el bono se concede hasta un máximo de 24 meses, pero se paga a medida que el beneficiario presenta los recibos de las mensualidades ya pagadas, por lo que no puede abonarse de una vez. Hasta ahora, lo transferido o en fase de pago suma 4,8 millones, menos de un tercio de los 15,2 millones que el Ministerio ha destinado a Aragón para esta convocatoria tras duplicar en julio la dotación inicial.