Retirement Life in Portugal

How do you picture your Golden Years?

If there’s friendly people, sunshine and amazing wine in your mind, consider Portugal.

It’s almost a no-brainer to conjure up the sun and wine when people talk about Portugal. The weather boasts 300 days of sunshine annually, particularly in the southern province of Algarve. The renown wine region of Douro Valley, where the only legitimate Port wine grapes comes from. The spectacular beaches up and down the coast, the vast and calming nature of the interior, are day trips at your finger tips. However, apply this picture with a lens of your future self, will this be different when you are in your golden years?

In this post, we would like to try to take a different look. We will exclude the obvious from our perspective such as the amazing weather, the delicious food and wine, and excellent health care. We will even exclude all of the amazing financial benefits such as the NHR tax regime, tax treaties with many other countries or dual citizenships to keep your investment and pensions, to describe why seniors and retirees should consider Portugal as a place of residence.

This may come as a surprise but we believe that the culture and people’s attitudes towards seniors is what makes Portugal a great place for retirees.

There are lots of concessions and programs made for seniors, special government sponsored activities and trips, affordable and prioritized healthcare and local discounts. Regarding real estate and housing, the government weighed the benefits of all the economic boom generated from tourism in Portugal, and still set in place laws to prevent the elderly from getting evicted or priced out after age 65 or for those who have been living in their homes for more than 25 years.

Although most seniors stay with families even in their later years, there are facilities and services like nursing homes, public and private seniors living, day time care centres as well as specific services such as cooking and cleaning. These services can be pricey, depending on the level and specificity of care, however, they are a fraction of the cost compared to similar services in North America.

Being an expat from China, where elderly respect forms the foundation of our culture, I have been pleasantly surprised and impressed with how the Portuguese have blended their laws and societal norms to be very considerate for seniors. As we are both adult children to our senior parents, we deeply appreciate the cultural respect and care the Portuguese have for seniors that are different from many parts of the world as well as many other countries in Europe.

Até já,

Mia and Rafael