Portugal Property Prices by Region: What the INE Data Says

Last reviewed: 24 July 2026. Every figure here comes from the INE — Instituto Nacional de Estatística, Portugal's national statistics institute — from the two housing-price releases current at this date: the House Price Index for the 1st quarter of 2026 (published 23 June 2026) and the local-level price statistics to the 4th quarter of 2025 (published 24 April 2026). The INE updates both quarterly, and we update this page on that cadence. Treat any single quarter as a reading, not a rule.

What do homes in Portugal actually cost right now?

Across the whole of 2025, the median price of the family homes sold in Portugal was €2,076 per square metre — 16.8% higher than in 2024 (INE). By the final quarter the national quarterly median price had reached €2,198/m², and the INE's House Price Index was still climbing into 2026: up 17.8% year on year in the 1st quarter. The same release, though, recorded the first deceleration in that annual rate since the 2nd quarter of 2024 — and 8.7% fewer homes changing hands.

Two INE series matter here, and they answer different questions. The House Price Index (IPHab) tracks how prices move — it is the "are prices rising?" series, built quarterly and rebased this year to 2025 = 100. The local-level price statistics tell you what homes actually cost — median €/m² of registered sales, computed from the tax authority's own administrative records, right down to municipality and, in the largest cities, the freguesia (civil parish). When a portal quotes a price per square metre, it is usually quoting what sellers are asking. The INE quotes what buyers actually paid, from real property transactions. The two can sit surprisingly far apart, and the second is the one a budget should be built on.

The pace of the past year deserves one plain paragraph. The index's 12-month average rate stood at 17.9% in the 1st quarter of 2026 — the highest reading in the series so far (INE). At the same time, transactions have gone the other way: 37,745 homes sold between January and March 2026, down 8.7% on a year earlier and down 12.4% on the quarter, while the total value of homes sold still reached €9.9 billion (INE), 3.2% more than a year before. Households made 87% of those purchases. Fewer sales at higher prices is a real pattern, not a paradox — and what it means for a buyer is covered further down.

Which regions cost the most — and which the least?

Five sub-regions traded above the national median price in 2025 (INE): Grande Lisboa (€3,439/m²), the Algarve (€3,139/m²), the Península de Setúbal (€2,596/m²), Madeira (€2,500/m²) and the Porto metropolitan area (€2,305/m²). Everywhere else in the country, the median sale came in under the €2,076/m² national price line — and in the lowest-priced sub-region, Beiras e Serra da Estrela, the 4th-quarter median price was €731/m² (INE).

The regional map in one table — median price of homes sold across 2025, per the INE's local-level release:

Underneath those five headline sub-regions, 56 of Portugal's 308 municipalities recorded a median price above the national figure in 2025 (INE) — and their distribution tells you exactly where the expensive country is: all nine Grande Lisboa municipalities, all nine on the Setúbal peninsula, 14 of the Algarve's 16, and nine of the Porto metro's 17. The expensive Portugal is two metropolitan coasts, the southern coast, and Madeira. Most of the map is not that.

Three textures from inside the 4th-quarter numbers are worth carrying with you. First, the fastest riser among the expensive five was not Lisbon: the Península de Setúbal was up 27.4% year on year (INE), against 18.2% in Grande Lisboa — the ferry-and-bridge belt south of the capital, Almada to Setúbal, has been repricing hard as buyers priced out of the city cross the river. Second, only two of the country's 26 sub-regions posted a falling median price in the quarter: Alto Tâmega e Barroso (−12.1%) and Madeira (−8.3%) — small markets where a handful of sales can swing a median, a caveat that cuts both ways. Third, the cheap interior is not a rounding error: at €731/m², a Beiras e Serra da Estrela median price buys roughly four times the square metres of a Grande Lisboa one. Counter-intuitively, the most interesting pages of the INE release are often the ones nobody quotes.

Weighing regions is easier once you know your route to Portugal. Portugal Compass points you to it in a couple of minutes — find your route →

What do Lisbon, Cascais and Porto actually trade at?

In the 4th quarter of 2025, the highest municipal median prices in the country were Lisboa at €5,198/m², Cascais at €4,654/m² and Oeiras at €4,225/m² (INE). Across the whole of 2025, the Lisbon municipality's median price was €4,875/m² (up 12.3% on 2024) and Porto's was €3,347/m² (up 12.2%) — both rising more slowly than the national 16.8%, because the frontier of repricing has moved to their commuter belts.

Inside Lisbon, the freguesia table is where the INE data starts earning its keep. The fastest-rising parish in 2025 was Parque das Nações, up 22.2% (INE) — the riverfront grid built for Expo 98, still the city's tidiest supply of lift-served, garage-under building stock. The most-traded parish was Arroios, with 673 sales — which matches what we see on the ground: it is the neighbourhood where renovated one- and two-beds meet metro lines and actual Lisbon life, so it is where liquidity lives. In Porto, the central parish cluster (Cedofeita, Santo Ildefonso, Sé, Miragaia, São Nicolau and Vitória, taken together) was the only unit to beat the citywide 2025 figures on both price level and pace, while Campanhã — the eastern district around the intermodal station — was the value door at €2,857/m² (INE). We walked through what that east–west gradient means block by block in where to buy in Porto.

Volume is its own signal. The municipalities with the most home sales in 2025 were Sintra (6,363), Vila Nova de Gaia (5,494) and Porto (4,503) (INE) — not Lisbon proper. Sintra and Gaia are where the two metros' price-to-space trade actually clears: more homes change hands in the commuter ring than in the postcard centre. If you are choosing between the two cities themselves, the decision is rarely settled by €/m² alone — we compared them properly in Lisbon vs Porto as a buying decision.

For orientation, the 13 of 24 large municipalities where prices accelerated into the 4th quarter included both Lisboa (+2.2 p.p.) and Porto (+3.8 p.p.) — while the sharpest slowdowns were Matosinhos (−27.6 p.p.) and Coimbra (−25.7 p.p.) (INE). Momentum is local. The municipal average hides it; the freguesia table shows it.

Do buyers from abroad pay more?

The medians say yes — and the reason is mostly what and where those buyers buy, not a different price list for the same door. In the 4th quarter of 2025, buyers with a tax domicile abroad paid a median €5,305/m² in Grande Lisboa against €3,561/m² for domestic-domicile buyers — 49.0% more — and €3,307/m² against €2,439/m² in the Porto metro, 35.6% more (INE). Across 2025 in the Lisbon municipality, the split was €6,026/m² versus €4,813/m² (INE).

Read that gap for what it is: composition. Buyers arriving from abroad concentrate in the central freguesias, in renovated or new stock, in homes bought ready rather than projects — the dearer end of every table above. The gap is a description of shopping patterns, not a surcharge printed for foreign passports. Which is precisely why it is useful: it tells you what the default path costs. A buyer from abroad who searches the way a well-informed local does — across the whole market, including the streets the default path never reaches — is shopping the other column. That is the point of a buyer-side property search: MOL carries no properties of its own for sale or rent, so in the buyer-advisory engagement the search can run across the entire open market — any agency's listings, either column of that table.

Two companion facts complete the picture. Scale: purchases by buyers with a tax domicile outside Portugal came to 1,770 homes in the 1st quarter of 2026 — fewer than one in twenty sales nationally, and 15.6% fewer than a year earlier (INE). And tax: since 25 May 2026, a non-resident buying urban housing pays IMT at a flat 7.5% under Decreto-Lei 97/2026 — with meaningful exceptions, including buyers already tax-resident here and buyers who become tax resident within two years, who can claim the difference back on request. The exceptions are the story, and we unpacked them line by line in the 7.5% IMT for non-resident buyers, alongside the full costs of buying.

New build or existing — which is rising faster?

Existing homes. In the 1st quarter of 2026, prices of existing dwellings rose 19.7% year on year against 12.6% for new ones — a 7.1-point gap (INE) — and the quarter-on-quarter split ran the same way, 4.2% against 2.7%. The heat in this market is in the second-hand stock: the renovated Arroios two-bed, the Gaia flat with the bridge view, the Cascais 1980s block — because that is where the supply is, and where most of the demand can actually transact.

New build carries a higher sticker but a slower climb — and it is not uniformly metropolitan-priced: among the 24 largest municipalities, Guimarães posted the lowest new-build median price of 2025 at €1,695/m² (INE), under the national all-homes median. Whether the premium for new is worth paying — warranty, energy class, zero-works certainty, against location compromise and delivery timing — is a decision with its own logic, and we set the trade-offs out in new build vs resale in Portugal.

How to read the numbers before you set a budget

A regional median is a starting line, not a price list. Five reading rules keep it useful:

1. Medians are not asking prices. The INE figures are computed from registered sales — the tax authority's own records of actual property transactions. Portal search results are seller ambitions. Build the budget on the first; treat the second as an opening position. (It is also why no portal price index appears anywhere on this page — by policy, we cite the INE and only the INE for Portuguese price data.)
2. The region is not your street. Grande Lisboa's €3,439/m² median price contains both €6,000-plus riverfront parishes and municipalities where family flats trade under €3,000. For the seven largest cities the INE publishes an interactive map of median prices down to 500 m × 500 m squares — city-block resolution, free, official. Use it before you anchor on any citywide number.
3. Small markets are noisy markets. Madeira's −8.3% quarter and Alto Tâmega's −12.1% are medians moved by thin volume, not necessarily repricing you can buy into. The thinner the market, the longer the averaging window you should trust.
4. Prices up, volume down is a negotiating fact. 8.7% fewer sales with prices still rising means dearer stock is transacting while more of the ordinary stock waits. In practice: well-priced homes still move fast, and ambitiously priced ones sit — which restores room to negotiate that 2024's market rarely offered. That is a texture, not a forecast; we make no predictions here.
5. The price is not the cost. IMT, stamp duty, notary and registration sit on top of any purchase price — and for non-residents the IMT line changed materially this year. Run the whole completion budget with the full costs of buying before falling for anything, and the wider journey with the complete guide to buying property in Portugal as a foreigner.

We've seen this play out across every profile we work with: the pure investor reads the Setúbal acceleration one way, the family moving next spring reads it another, and the buyer furnishing a future retirement reads it a third — same table, three different decisions. The data is common ground; the move it implies is personal.

Frequently asked questions

What is the average property price in Portugal in 2026? The best official measure is the median price of homes actually sold: €2,076/m² across 2025, rising to €2,198/m² in the final quarter (INE, local-level housing price statistics). Portugal's House Price Index was still rising 17.8% year on year in the 1st quarter of 2026, so the running level in mid-2026 sits above those figures.

Which region of Portugal is the most expensive? Grande Lisboa, with a median price of €3,439/m² across 2025 (INE), followed by the Algarve at €3,139/m². At municipal level the peaks are Lisboa (€5,198/m²), Cascais (€4,654/m²) and Oeiras (€4,225/m²) in the 4th quarter of 2025 (INE).

Where is property cheapest in Portugal? The interior. In the 4th quarter of 2025 the lowest sub-regional median price was Beiras e Serra da Estrela at €731/m² (INE), and most municipalities outside the two metropolitan areas, the Algarve and Madeira traded below the €2,076/m² national median price. Low medians reflect thin markets — check volume before reading them as bargains.

Are property prices in Portugal rising or falling in 2026? Rising, but decelerating for the first time in nearly two years: the INE House Price Index rose 17.8% year on year in the 1st quarter of 2026, 1.1 points less than the previous quarter — while the number of homes sold fell 8.7%. Existing homes (+19.7%) are rising faster than new builds (+12.6%).

Do foreign buyers pay more for property in Portugal? Foreign-domicile buyers' medians run well above domestic ones — 49.0% higher in Grande Lisboa in the 4th quarter of 2025 (INE) — but that reflects what and where they buy: central parishes, renovated and new stock. Separately, since 25 May 2026 non-residents pay a flat 7.5% IMT on urban housing under DL 97/2026, with exceptions — including becoming tax resident within two years — that carry a refund on request.

Where does this price data come from? From the INE, Portugal's national statistics institute: the quarterly House Price Index (IPHab) and the local-level housing price statistics, which compute median €/m² of registered sales from the tax authority's administrative records — actual property transactions, not asking prices, published down to municipality and, in the largest cities, freguesia level.

Final thought

Portugal publishes better housing-price data than most countries buyers arrive from — official, transaction-based, free, and granular to the city block. The 2026 picture it paints is legible: a market still rising but no longer accelerating, volume thinning, the strongest repricing in the commuter belts rather than the postcard centres, existing stock outrunning new, and a price map whose expensive squares are two metropolitan coasts, the south coast and Madeira. None of that requires anyone's opinion — it is all in the tables, and the tables update every quarter. So will this page.

What the tables can't settle for you

What no national table can tell you is what your number is: which freguesia fits the way you plan to live or let, what your budget actually buys on those specific streets this quarter, how the 7.5% IMT line and its exceptions land on your timeline, and how the answer changes if you are buying as an investment, buying ahead of a move, or moving now. That is what a Portugal Path Session is for: a private hour with Mia & Rafael on your situation, and your Personal Path Plan in writing within 48 hours — regions shortlisted against your real budget, the cost lines run for your case, and the next three moves in order. If the data says your plan needs a different quarter — or a different region — we will say so plainly. That is part of the session.

Book your Path Session → You leave with your bespoke Path Plan — in writing, within 48 hours.

Not ready? Tell us where you are → — and we will point you in the right direction.

Sources & Verification

All price figures on this page are medians of registered transactions or official index readings published by the INE; no portal, aggregator or agency price index is cited, by policy. Regional medians describe whole distributions — individual streets, buildings and property types vary widely, and thin markets swing on few sales. Nothing here is a forecast. The INE publishes both series quarterly; this page is reviewed against each new release.