Buying a Home in Portugal

We bought our home in 2024 and first wrote this story in November 2025. The experiences and prices below are ours; official resources were reviewed in November 2026.

Buying a home in Portugal requires patience. I’ve got none. Strap in.

We moved to Portugal in 2022 and purchased our home in 2024. Here’s what we experienced, what drove me up the wall, and what I wish someone had explained before we started. If you’re still organizing the wider move, my free Moving-to-Portugal Checklist gives you somewhere to keep the housing questions alongside everything else.

In this article

1. Finding a home and choosing representation
2. Offers, contracts and the waiting
3. Mortgages, paperwork and insurance
4. Bank accounts, moving money and closing
5. Everything else going on in our lives
6. Useful official resources

Finding a home

Agent representation: one, two or none at all

• Seller’s agent: A property can be listed through more than one agency, but exclusive agreements exist too. So, yes, you may see duplicate listings. No, that doesn’t tell you the whole story about who is owed a commission. Ask about the actual agreement.
• Buyer’s agent: I didn’t want to rely on the seller’s agent to look after our interests. Conflict of interest much?! Before you agree to work with anyone, ask who their client is, who pays them, whether they’ll show other agencies’ properties, and what you’re signing. I wanted someone in our corner.
• Our attorney: Because I’m a tenacious, stubborn badass, I insisted that we explore buying directly from the builder. The selling agent had ghosted us before we could arrange a tour. The builder reviewed the agency contract, agreed that we could proceed directly, and we negotiated the price down. That arrangement depended on the contracts involved. Simply touring without an agent doesn’t magically wipe out anyone’s fee. Our attorney reviewed contracts, helped negotiate terms and pricing, gathered mortgage documents, visited the site with us, translated, attended the deed signing and helped with the paperwork afterward. Her service cost us around €5,000. Money well spent, in my opinion.

Finding a property

I didn’t find one place with every property listing in Portugal. If you want to find a home, you’ll have to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. Here’s where I looked.

• Idealista: This was my starting point. The search was easier to use than many individual brokerage websites, and it helped me learn the market. But I missed Zillow and Redfin. A lot. I saw duplicate listings and plenty of gorgeous 3D renderings. Sometimes the home was under construction, sometimes it hadn’t been started, and sometimes the image showed what an existing property could become. Please show me what I’m actually buying! Ask which photos are real, what stage the property is at, and what’s included. And once an agent has your contact information, get ready for the calls, emails and WhatsApp messages.
• Brokerage Websites: I highly recommend visiting each of the major brokerages’ websites to search their listings.
• Off-Market Listings: We didn’t need this, but it might be worth establishing a relationship with a few agents from different brokerages so that they can send you the latest on off-market or upcoming listings.
• Drive Around: Yep, once you’ve selected your target neighborhood, hit the streets and take note of new developments or for-sale signs and follow up.

Touring

This part is very similar to our experience in the US. You find a property, reach out to the listing agent, schedule a time to tour, meet the agent there, walk around, have small talk, leave. Not every agent you meet will speak English. If you have a lot of questions, ask whether someone can translate. Otherwise, get good with your favorite translation app and prepare some questions ahead of time.

I found our home on Idealista and contacted the listing agent for more information. After a few days of radio silence, I said “fuck it!” and went to visit the property myself. The apartment complex was still under construction, and I hoped someone would be on site. Lucky for us, someone was able to show us around that day. We fell in love. The agency arrangement was sorted out afterward, with our attorney involved.

From offer to keys

The offer

We put in an offer. It was declined by the seller. We sulked away for a couple of months and continued our search. After touring a few more places, we realized this property was the one for us. We made a new offer, and it was accepted.

Once the builder agreed to proceed directly, we factored the avoided commission into our offer and asked for a little more off the price. The builder required a 10% deposit; we paid 20%. We also paid a 50% deposit on the alterations we requested. Those were our agreed terms, not a deposit schedule everyone has to follow. Since we found the place while it was under construction, we could make changes to suit our life:

• Moving the clothes washer from the kitchen to the upstairs hall closet and adding a clothes dryer
• Replacing the clothes washer in the kitchen with a wine fridge
• Adding a garbage disposal in the kitchen sink
• An American-sized fridge with water and ice in the door
• Outdoor ceiling fans with lights on the terrace
• Privacy glass on our lower-floor terrace and balconies
• Converting the huge storage space on the other side of the entryway wall into an office space that connects to the rest of the flat
• Adding an electronic door
• And making the terrace ready for a jacuzzi, meaning adding a drain, water and electrical hookups

The alterations came to €12,000 and were billed separately from the home purchase. Yes, a wine fridge was on the list. Just don’t take separate billing as a tax strategy: your lawyer and tax adviser need to confirm how the price, works and invoices should be documented and taxed.

Contracts

There were contracts to sign and deposits to pay. In our transaction, that meant several in-person meetings with our attorney. I would’ve loved fewer meetings. I would not have loved signing something I didn’t understand.

We asked for a financing contingency so we could back out if we couldn’t get a loan. The answer in our negotiation? Nope. That doesn’t mean financing conditions are impossible in Portugal; it means we didn’t get the one we wanted. If you need a mortgage, have your lawyer negotiate what happens if financing falls through before you sign the CPCV (the promissory purchase agreement) or hand over a deposit. Know exactly what money you’re putting at risk.

The wait

Because our flat was under construction, we had to wait. We signed the contract in September 2023 and wired the deposit in October. Construction finished in February 2024, and the builder submitted paperwork to city hall (the câmara) in March. Our contract said that if the home wasn’t delivered by April 30, we could back out and get our money back. April 30 came and went. But we still wanted the flat, so we waited. In late June, the câmara told the builder they needed to plant some trees and install a spotlight in the garage. Within two weeks of fixing those issues, we had the final documentation we’d been waiting for.

Trees. And a spotlight. After all that waiting. Why couldn’t those issues have been flagged earlier? I know our builder wanted to get this finished too. Meanwhile, we had a deposit tied up, a mortgage process to keep moving, and absolutely no control over the speed of any of it. Fun.

New builds

Portuguese bureaucracy is no joke. If you have a tight timeline, I’d think very carefully before buying a place that isn’t finished. Friends have told us about long waits with their money tied up too. That doesn’t give me a reliable timetable for your purchase, but it does make me suspicious of any breezy “construction ends in February, move in during March” promise.

Also, the urban planning and sale documentation rules changed in 2024. The approval process for our flat isn’t a template for every new build today. Ask your lawyer, builder and lender what this particular property needs before you can close and move in. Get the delivery dates, delay provisions and exit terms explained in plain language. Preferably before you’ve mentally arranged the terrace furniture.

Getting a mortgage

Mortgage brokers

Our mortgage broker was a dream come true in an otherwise frustrating process. We dealt directly with Millennium and Abanca, while our broker contacted other banks and helped coordinate the paperwork. Ask which lenders an intermediary works with; you may still want to approach others yourself. You can check their registration with Banco de Portugal.

Qualifying for a mortgage

I can only speak from our experience, but this part was the most frustrating. I can see why so many people complain about the home buying process. Getting a mortgage here was confusing and stressful. 

Our income came from investments in the US. In 2023, my husband also took a job with a UK/Portuguese company because he wanted a new challenge. We hoped to qualify using our US income alone. His job was getting weird, and we didn’t want our home purchase depending on it. More on that in a minute.

But the bankers and broker we spoke to told us it would be difficult to get the loan we wanted without including his local salary. WHY? I wanted a clear answer and never felt we got one. That was our experience with those lenders, not a rule that everyone needs a Portuguese job. Banks assess income, expenses and credit obligations, and their treatment of overseas investment income can differ. Ask how they’ll assess your income before you fall in love with a flat.

US paperwork

We were asked for our US credit information, the previous year’s tax return, three months of bank statements and payslips. We supplied an employer letter confirming my husband’s employment and a record of recurring withdrawals from our US brokerage. The banks also wanted details about the property. Your document list may differ, so ask for it early. And keep the files somewhere you can find them again. You may become very well acquainted with them.

Mortgage pre-approval and approval

The first numbers you receive may be a simulation of what could be approved. They aren’t necessarily the final loan offer. Don’t get excited yet. I know. I wanted to get excited too.

The bank still needed more documents and a valuation of the property before giving us the final terms. Then the construction delays meant we had to send updated statements and go through approval again. Ask how long each stage of your approval is valid and what will happen if closing slips.

For the approved offer, look for the FINE (the standardised European mortgage information sheet) and draft loan contract. Banco de Portugal says the lender must keep the approved offer available for at least 30 days, and there’s a minimum seven-day reflection period before the credit agreement can be signed. Your banker and attorney should walk you through what’s final and what still needs to happen.

At first we decided to go with Abanca, our bank at the time. But once we got past the preliminary stage and they actually reviewed our information, they wouldn’t lend the amount we’d requested. We had to push to find out whether they would approve a smaller loan. Eventually, they did, but by then we’d found a bank willing to lend the amount we wanted. Bye-bye, Abanca!

Types of mortgages and discounts

• Variable: Your rate changes with the agreed index, usually Euribor, plus the lender’s spread. The reset schedule is in your contract. Rates go up, your payment can go up. Rates go down, your payment can go down. Make sure the first scenario fits your budget too.
• Fixed: The rate is set for the agreed fixed period. Check whether that means the whole term or only the first part of it. Insurance, account fees and other costs still deserve a look.
• Mixed/hybrid: The loan starts with a fixed-rate period and later becomes variable under the contract terms. Ask what the payment could look like after the switch.
• Discounts: A bank may offer a lower spread if you also take an account, insurance or other products. Great, maybe. Compare the total cost with and without the extras and find out what happens if you cancel one later.
• Loan term: Your age and the lender’s criteria affect the term available. Ask what applies to you rather than assuming every bank has the same age limit.

We chose a fixed-rate loan because we wanted to project our expenses into the future. We didn’t want rising interest rates to send us scrambling for work or trying to qualify for another mortgage. We got a 33-year fixed-rate loan at 3.65% in 2024. That was close to the rate on our first home in Washington back in 2012. We were happy. Predictability is sexy when you’re trying to stay retired.

Early repayment fees

Here’s a cost I hadn’t paid much attention to before: early repayment. Paying down or moving a Portuguese mortgage can come with a fee. Read this part before you make an ambitious payoff spreadsheet.

• During a fixed-rate period: The usual statutory cap is 2% of the amount you repay early. That includes the fixed part of a mixed loan.
• During a variable-rate period: The usual cap is 0.5% of the amount you repay early.
• Check the actual charge: These are caps, not guaranteed fees. Contracts can charge less, and exemptions or temporary measures can apply. Ask for a written calculation when you plan to repay or transfer the mortgage. Banco de Portugal explains the rules.

Mortgage insurance

Our lender required life insurance and home insurance. More things to arrange! Here’s how that went for us.

• Life insurance: Our policy was arranged to repay the covered mortgage balance if an insured borrower died. We chose MetLife because the coverage and price suited us at the time, and our application didn’t require a physical. Our existing US policy wasn’t accepted for this loan. Coverage, exclusions, insured amounts and premiums depend on the policy, so read them. “We have life insurance” is not the same as knowing what it will pay.
• Multirriscos / home insurance: Check the cover your lender requires and compare the price and exclusions. You don’t automatically have to buy the bank’s preferred policy: lenders must accept equivalent cover from another insurer, although your mortgage pricing may change. Compare the whole bill, not just the insurance premium.

Portuguese bank accounts and moving money

Our USD account: When we chose BPI, we opened a USD account alongside the euro account because we expected to convert more dollars in the future. There was a monthly fee. That arrangement worked for us; compare it with other ways to transfer money rather than opening one just because we did.

Getting the money here: We sold stock in the US, wired dollars from our brokerage to our BPI USD account, and then had BPI convert them to euros. We didn’t like the conversion quote from our US brokerage. The wire arrived in less than 48 hours; our brokerage charged no wire fee, while BPI charged €17 to receive it. Those were our charges and timing, not a promise for your transfer.

Converting USD to EUR: For our large conversion, we had to go to the branch and sign in person. Boo. The conversion took another two days. Compare the actual euros you’ll receive after the exchange rate and fees, and leave enough time before closing. A cheap-looking fee can hide an expensive exchange rate.

Closing payments: Ask about transfer limits and how the seller, taxes and fees will be paid. We signed at our BPI branch, with our banker arranging the checks. I was very happy to have him handling that part.

Taxes and fees: We budgeted for these separately from our deposit. Ask your lender and lawyer for a full closing estimate, including IMT, stamp duty, registration or deed costs, legal fees and bank charges. Confirm any exemptions rather than assuming you qualify. The tax authority’s home-buying page is the place to check current IMT and stamp duty information.

On closing day, around the table were…

• Our BPI banker – he had the checks ready to pay the seller and our taxes/fees to the government
• Notary –  the professional handling the deed, with our identification and the transaction documents
• Seller – the builder, in our case
• Our attorney – who also translated, because the transaction was completed in Portuguese

Complicating life factors

My husband hated his job. We needed him to keep it until the deal closed in case the bank asked to verify his salary again. Whenever we’ve wanted to do something with real estate, there’s always some shit going on. When we bought our first home in Washington, he hated his job. When we bought our rental property, I was leaving mine. Apparently, buying a home while everyone is feeling calm and professionally fulfilled is not our thing.

I also had some strong feelings about the company’s management and HR practices. Strong. Feelings. My husband was trying to get through the home purchase, and I was trying very hard to keep those feelings to myself.

Then, while we were in the final stages and could close any day, his manager asked him to drop everything and go to the UK. OH MAN. I could not wait for him to give notice. Remember Obama’s anger translator, Luther? I’m Luther. I wanted so badly to be on that call and give the man a piece of my mind.

Ok. I’m done now.

We’d been in our new home for over a year when I first wrote this, and we absolutely loved it. Would we go through all this madness again? Yes. But I definitely would’ve appreciated a crash course in the differences between US and Portuguese real estate transactions, especially the timelines.

Now, will we keep this home forever? Sell it? Rent it out? I can see us staying in this home for as long as our Tiny Humans are going to their current school because it is just so convenient. If their academic needs send us to another school and the commute worsens, maybe. If we decide to move outside of Portugal, we’d probably explore turning it into a long-term rental. BUT WHO FUCKIN’ KNOWS!? Not me.

More of the story

Before we bought, we did a scouting trip and spent time renting in Lisbon. If you’re working through the money side, there’s also our FIRE story, why we sold our US properties, and our budgeting and investing approach.

This post shares personal experience and general information, not professional legal, tax, mortgage or financial advice. Check current requirements for your own purchase.