How to rent out your property yourself in Portugal: the contract, taxes and what to do if the tenant doesn't pay
How to rent a flat is covered separately. This guide is the other side: you are the landlord, letting a flat, a house or a room. Signing the contract is easy, but then come things a newcomer usually doesn't know about: the contract has to be declared to the tax office within a month, with stamp duty of 10% of a month's rent; rent receipts are issued not in a notebook but on the tax portal, every month; you are also supposed to report when a contract has ended — and in August 2026 the tax office sent letters to thirty-three thousand landlords whose old contracts were still showing as active. In 2026 the tax on rent is most often 10%, not 25%, but you need to know about it. And the main thing nobody here expects: you cannot simply show a non-paying tenant the door — eviction goes through a state platform and takes months.
First decide whether you are letting at all — and on what terms
Letting property in Portugal is not a case of ‘found someone and the money comes in’. It is a set of obligations to the tax office, repairs at your expense and a very slow way out of the relationship if the person turns out to be the wrong one. Before you place an advert, it is worth understanding three things.
First: rental income here is modest. Owners in the chats put it at about 6% a year before tax — and that while the flat itself is going up in value faster.
Second: almost everything people think of as ‘their own business’ is already set out in law. Repairs and keeping the home in good order are the landlord's duty unless the contract says otherwise (article 1074 of the Civil Code). Day-to-day bills — water, electricity, gas — are paid by the tenant, while the costs of the building's common parts, that is the condominium fees, are paid by you (article 1078). The bills should be in the name of whoever pays them: otherwise an unpaid electricity bill will stay hanging on the owner.
Third: letting off the books is a bad idea, especially for a newcomer. An undeclared contract denies you the fast eviction procedure (more on this at the end), shuts your tenant out of the rent deduction and causes them problems with AIMA. For an unreported contract the tax office fines you between €150 and €3,750 (article 117 of RGIT).
“Right now property that just sits there earns 20% a year thanks to rising prices. Renting it out rarely gets you more than 6%, plus the headaches — damage to the flat, losses to the neighbours, legal costs, a rising income tax rate and losing the right to social benefits.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkmyptaxes25.09.2025
“I'm looking for a room with registration, that's my main criterion. So far I've only found one near Porto, which isn't very convenient. To me the locals' logic looks strange. Nobody registers rental contracts so they don't have to pay tax, breaking the law in the process. Yet registering a person who doesn't plan to live in the room, says so honestly and is ready to pay all the costs is a risk and a breach of the law.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkPortugal 🇵🇹 TravelAsk Chat29.10.2023
The contract: how many years, what to put in it and what to rewrite before you sign
A written contract is a must. You choose the term yourself, but it is the term that later decides both your tax and how quickly you can part ways with the tenant; a contract with no term stated counts as open-ended, and it is noticeably harder for the landlord to get out of.
What to set out besides the rent and the term: who pays for what (by default day-to-day bills are on the tenant and the condominium on you), whether pets are allowed, whether subletting is permitted — subletting without your written consent is in itself grounds for ending the contract (article 1083(2)(e)) — and, most useful of all, how the rent goes up each year. If the contract says nothing about it, the general rule of the code applies, and it is stricter than yours would be (article 1077).
Separately, draw up a handover report with an inventory and photographs. Without one the law assumes the home was handed over in good condition (article 1043(2)), and it will be you, not the tenant, who has to prove the damage later.
Put the utility bills in the tenant's name straight away. Otherwise you get the story people retell in the chats all the time: the tenant left, the debt stayed on the owner's contract, and the next tenant can't move in until the debt is paid off.
“Exactly. Either you take care of getting your deposit back in advance by drawing up a proper contract and a handover report for the property, or you accept from the start that you can forget about the deposit. A rental contract is a contract precisely so that it reflects the will of both parties. But nobody wants to get into these details, or into what any contract says, for that matter. The number of times in my practice people have lost not just deposits but property, signing contracts without reading them. Asked ‘Why?!’ they always said ‘Well, they told me to sign here and here. Such a respectable organisation, I didn't think they'd cheat me.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkmyptaxes28.06.2025
“That doesn't answer the question of what happens with the utilities. If the tenant has done a runner and the utilities have been cut off :) So to keep letting, the landlord either has to find people who need absolutely nothing at home, or pay off the debt, let the flat and sort it out with the former tenant privately.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkrefugecard12.03.2024
Deposit and rent in advance: the law allows two months and two months, no more
The rule here is simple, and it is the one broken most often. Article 1076 of the Civil Code allows two things: taking rent in advance — by written agreement and for no more than two months — and taking a deposit (caução), also of no more than two months' rent. Anything asked beyond that has no basis in law; the limit has been in place since 1 January 2023 under budget law 24-D/2022.
Yet adverts and chats still talk of ‘2 + 4’ and ‘2 + 6’, and sometimes a year in advance. On 9 July 2026 the government approved a reform that proposes removing the cap on the deposit and raising rent in advance to three months, and on 12 August the bill went to parliament — but as of 9 September 2026 it is still a bill, and the code still says two and two.
What a landlord should remember: the deposit is not your income and not a penalty. You can keep part of it for real damage, not for normal wear and tear, and you will have to back up any deduction with invoices and the handover report. Delays in returning it are the most common complaint about landlords in the chats, and it ends in court, where whoever has their paperwork in order wins.
One more detail almost nobody knows about: a rent receipt is also issued for sums received as a deposit or advance. This is stated plainly both in the IRS Code (article 115(5)) and in the ministerial order (portaria) on receipts (article 5(1)).
“3 months' deposit means 1. Payment for the first month 2. Payment for the last month 3. Deposit (supposedly returned if the flat is in order, but of course they try to hang on to it). The first two are required by law.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linktaxinportugal26.08.2026
“I've heard about the law too, but here's the thing. The owner can pick whoever completely voluntarily offers a bigger deposit. Overall it depends on how persuasive the estate agent is, your set of documents, how many people want the flat and the landlord's attitude in general. From what people around me say, a first rental is usually 2-4, 2-6 (2 payments + 4 or 6 months' deposit) + 1 month to the agent. 3 months is because you have to give three months' notice before ending the contract. People here are covering themselves in case you just tell everyone to get lost and don't pay those three months.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkPortugal 🇵🇹 TravelAsk Chat24.09.2024
“But the landlord can make up an excuse and put off returning the deposit for as long as he likes. That's exactly our case, the landlord says two spoons, a sheet and other rubbish are missing. Hasn't returned the deposit for 5 months now, claiming he's assessing the losses. And even a lawyer doesn't help, all that's left is court. But you can spend ages in court proving whether the old sofa creaks more than it used to and so on, and I pay for the court as the claimant.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkmyptaxes27.06.2025
Declare the contract to the tax office: Modelo 2 and stamp duty of 10% of a month's rent
This is the first thing the landlord does after signing, and it is the landlord who does it, not the tenant. The contract is reported to the tax office with the Modelo 2 declaration on the Portal das Finanças — ‘Arrendamento → Contratos → Comunicar Início’. There is one deadline: by the end of the month following the start of the tenancy (article 60(2) of the Stamp Duty Code). Changes to the contract and its termination are reported within the same deadline.
Registration carries stamp duty — item 2 of the general table: 10% of one month's rent (or of the amount of the increase, if the contract is being changed). The landlord pays it: the landlord is the one named as holding the economic interest (article 3(3)(b)). The tax office works out the amount itself from your declaration, and it must be paid within the same deadline as the filing (article 44(6)). With rent of €800 a month that is €80, once.
What you will need: the tax numbers of all the parties. The tenant's Portuguese NIF is compulsory — with only a foreign passport the contract won't go into the portal, and this regularly trips up people who sign a contract before the tenant arrives in the country. Enter the NIF correctly: one wrong digit means the tenant will see neither the contract nor the receipts in their account, and won't get the rent deduction.
If the landlord does nothing, the tenant can declare the contract too (article 60(4)). In practice people complain that this doesn't work for them and the tax office branch sends them back to the owner — so don't count on ‘the tenant will register it themselves’.
You can check yourself in the same place, in the ‘Consultar Contratos’ section: it shows all your contracts and their status.
“The landlord has a month to register the contract with Finanças. I signed the contract without a NIF, they added it later, but I was lucky it was issued within the month”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkkit_pt25.09.2025
“The landlord's position is justified from a legal point of view. As for ‘coming to an arrangement’ — bear in mind that the landlord pays the agency a commission of a month's rent and also stamp duty of 10% of the monthly rent for registering the rental contract with the tax office. So if you live there for 2 weeks, don't like it, then give the landlord a month's notice and leave, for him that letting will bring in zero income. No landlord will agree to that.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkmyptaxes25.02.2026
“Our landlord couldn't register the contract made out on a foreign passport with Finanças, we had to redo it and put the NIF in”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkdigitalnomadportugal20.01.2026
“I honestly get the feeling Finanças ignores every request I send. I applied to register a rental contract (since September the tenant can register it himself by law) — silence. At the branch they told me it actually still doesn't work and it has to be registered from the owner's account.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkbanksdeportugal19.01.2026
Issue a recibo de renda eletrónico every month
A paper receipt doesn't count here. A landlord whose rent falls under category F must issue an electronic receipt on the tax portal for every sum received — including the deposit and the advance (IRS Code, article 115(5)). This is done in ‘Arrendamento → Recibos de Renda → Emitir Recibo de Renda’; the tax office immediately notifies the tenant that a receipt has been issued.
Few people are exempt. First, anyone who had turned 65 by 31 December of the previous year. Second, anyone who both has no obligation to have an electronic mailbox with the tax office and whose rental income for the previous year did not exceed two IAS — in 2026 that is €1,074.26 for the whole year (Portaria n.º 98-A/2015, article 5). Rural leases are exempt separately. But being exempt does not mean ‘filing nothing’: such a landlord files a Modelo 44 declaration once a year — by the end of January for the previous year (article 8 of the same portaria).
Putting off receipts does you no favours. For a receipt not issued or issued late the fine is €150 to €3,750 (article 123 of RGIT), and a tenant who needs the rent deduction or documents for AIMA will remind you about it every month — and they are within their rights.
A receipt issued by mistake can be cancelled, but only until the deadline for filing your IRS return for that year; the tax office will then tell the tenant itself that the receipt has been cancelled (article 7 of the portaria).
“Link rent expenses to your NIF and school to your child's NIF (same as all other expenses to the NIFs). If something doesn't show up, when doing the return you can ask your accountant to enter the expenses manually, but in case the tax office checks the return, having documents to back up the expenses is a great idea.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkmyptaxes27.02.2026
“he can. He can re-register your contract, putting in your Portuguese NIF and Portugal as the country. But if the contract has ended, getting him to do it won't be easy. But much more important is that you have fatura-recibos with your NIF for the rent payments.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkreciboverde25.02.2026
“Hi everyone! A question for those renting in Portugal. Has anyone come across this: the landlord says he's already registered the rental contract on the Portal das Finanças and issued recibos de renda, but nothing shows up in my personal account (the Locatário tab) — neither the contract nor the receipts. I'm trying to work out whether this could be a delay in the AT system and how long you usually have to wait, or whether it almost always means the landlord either didn't do anything or did it with a mistake — for example, entered the tenant's NIF wrong. I need the documents for my AIMA process.”
Translated from Ukrainian; the original is at the linkukrporto20.05.2026
Tax on rent: in 2026 it is more often 10%, not 25%
Residential rent is category F income, and it is taxed at a flat rate, not on the general scale. The basic rate for residential rent is 25% (article 72(2) of the IRS Code); for non-residential property, say a shop or an office, it is 28% (paragraph 1(e)). The 28% figure for flats is still quoted in the chats: that was the rate before the 2023 reform.
The main change of 2026 went almost unnoticed. Decree-Law 97/2026 of 20 May added article 45.º-C to the Tax Benefits Statute: if the property is let solely as a home and the monthly rent is ‘moderate’, the rate is 10%. ‘Moderate’ in 2026 means no more than €2,300 a month: that is 2.5 times the minimum wage, which is €920. The relief runs until 31 December 2029, covers contracts already in force, applies retroactively from 1 January 2026 and works even for a non-resident landlord. It does not require any minimum contract term. Almost any ordinary flat qualifies.
There is a second half to the same change: when the rent is paid to you by a company or another entity with organised accounts, it must withhold tax at source, and the withholding has also come down from 25% to 10% (article 101(1)(f) of the IRS Code). If the tenant is an ordinary individual, they withhold nothing: they pay you the full amount, and you pay the tax through your return. That is why contracts say next to the amount either ‘sem retenção’ or refer to article 101.
Instead of the flat rate you can choose englobamento — adding the rent to your other income and working out the tax on the general scale. This only pays off with very small incomes; with ordinary ones it works out more expensive.
“Yes, letting a mortgaged flat is doable, but in Lisbon and Porto in 2026 it's more often not about a steady monthly profit but about the long horizon and capital growth. I mean, with the usual high share of borrowing the mortgage payment already almost eats up the gross rent, and after taxes and costs you more often end up breaking even or in the red. On taxes you also need to leave a margin: income from long-term residential letting in Portugal is taxed at 25%. It also depends on the amount of rent (for 2026 we don't know for sure, but before the tax was a bit lower for rents up to 2500€ and higher for rents over 2500€).”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkRussosEmPortugal10.06.2026
“couldn't find anything by searching, but maybe someone has already dealt with this this year. I have a new rental contract and in previous contracts landlords always put Sem retenção - artigo 101.º, n.º 1, do CIRS, but the new one has withholding at source Retenção de IRS À taxa de 10% - artigo 101.º, n.º 1, al. f) do CIRS (a partir de 1-01-2026). And I've started to wonder whether that's correct or not.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkru_Portugal_pt04.08.2026
“In short, tax on long-term rental is from 28% and regressive, you don't need a management company or a licence. Short-term rental: you need a licence, management (if you're not going to do it yourself) and the tax is lower.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkreciboverde26.11.2024
A long contract lowers the rate — but you have to report it separately
The state rewards you for letting long-term with a lower rate. The starting point is 25%: a contract for permanent residence for five to ten years takes off 10 percentage points, i.e. 15%; ten to twenty years — 15 points, i.e. 10%; twenty years or more — 20 points, i.e. 5% (article 72(3)–(5)). For five-year contracts, each renewal for the same term takes off another two points, but in total renewals give no more than ten.
There is also a bonus for lowering the rent: if a new contract on the same flat is at least 5% cheaper than the previous one, the rate is cut by another five points (paragraph 24).
Two caveats worth knowing in advance. The reductions are not given to contracts signed from 1 January 2024 if the rent is more than one and a half times the general rent caps for the type of property and municipality (paragraph 23). And if the contract ends early through the landlord's fault, the reduction is taken away retroactively — from the start of the contract, with the difference to pay plus interest (paragraph 20).
Simply writing ‘for ten years’ in the contract will not lower the rate: the portal has a separate form for this — ‘Contratos Longa Duração → Comunicar Duração Contrato Longa Duração’. Declare the term, get the rate.
The reduction for length has to be compared with the new 10% rate case by case: the law lets you apply whichever is more favourable and doesn't make you choose between them.
“Adding to what Anastasia said. There are loads of ways to be taxed ) 1. Through category F: - flat rate (art. 72 CIRS) - from 25% to 5%, depending on how long you let for. But I don't recommend aiming for the 5% rate ). Tax deductions don't apply to flat rates, but the income isn't aggregated either. - progressive scale, tax deductions apply, and to work out the final rate the income is aggregated with other categories (if there are any). 2. Through category B - the taxable base is worked out under the rules of art. 31 CIRS, progressive scale.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkmyptaxes17.07.2025
What can be deducted from the income and what can't
Tax is not paid on the whole amount received. From the rent you deduct the expenses you actually incurred and paid for this particular property (article 41 of the IRS Code): maintenance and repairs, insurance against unpaid rent, compulsory condominium fees, IMI property tax and stamp duty — but only for the year in which this property brought in income.
None of the following is deductible: mortgage interest and any other financial costs, depreciation, furniture, household appliances and anything ‘for comfort and looks’, and also AIMI, the surcharge on property tax. Furniture is what people ask about most — no, a sofa and a fridge are not deductible.
A separate option few people know about: repair and maintenance costs incurred in the 24 months before the tenancy starts can be deducted — as long as the property was not used for anything else during that time (paragraph 7). So if you did up the flat and then let it, keep the invoices.
All expenses must be backed up by documents (paragraph 9), so receipts and invoices with your NIF should be collected from day one, not in April before the return. They are entered in Annex F of the IRS return; how the return itself works is covered in our guide How to file your first IRS return in Portugal.
To be honest about the archive: in the chats deductions are almost always discussed from the tenant's side — the 15% of rent paid that they get back. Landlords' expenses are not discussed in the chats, so there is nobody else's experience to quote here, and this step is written from the code.
Let for less and pay no tax at all: the RSAA scheme
Since 1 September 2026 the RSAA has been in force — the simplified affordable rent scheme, Annex III to Decree-Law 97/2026. It replaced the earlier rent support programme (Decree-Law 68/2019), which over all its years attracted just over a thousand contracts.
The condition for the landlord: let for no more than the cap, for permanent residence and for at least three years. In return the income from that letting is not subject to IRS or IRC at all — not a reduced rate but a full exemption (article 6(1)). The exemption also covers renewals and stays in place if the property changes hands while the contract is in force.
The procedure is as follows: you sign the contract, report it to the tax office as usual, and then by 15 January of the following year upload a copy of the contract and the confirmation from the tax office to the platform of IHRU, the housing institute. IHRU then passes the contract on to the tax office itself by the end of February, and the exemption applies from the day of signing. If the conditions are broken, the relief is withdrawn from the moment of the breach and the tax is charged with interest (article 7).
What doesn't exist yet: the caps themselves. They are to be set by an order of the finance and housing ministers, based on 80% of the median rent in each municipality, and the decree required it to be issued within 30 days. As of 9 September 2026 there is no such order in Diário da República, which means you cannot check whether your flat fits the scheme. More on the scheme in our guide How to rent a home in Portugal, in the step on affordable rent.
In the Russian-speaking chats there is nothing on the RSAA yet: in more than two years of archive the words ‘affordable rent’ come up only a handful of times, and there is not a single story from a landlord who has used the scheme.
A room rather than the whole flat: what changes
Nothing changes on the tax side. Letting a room is the same lease, the same category F income, the same contract, the same registration with the tax office and the same monthly receipts. Stamp duty is worked out on the rent for the room, so the amount is small.
The differences are practical. The contract is written for a specific room, not ‘for the flat’, and it should say what the tenant shares — kitchen, bathroom, living room. If you yourself live in the flat under a rental contract rather than owning it, you can let a room only with your own landlord's written consent: this is subletting, and without consent it gives them the right to end their contract with you.
Usually only one active contract can be held per property on the portal, so when rooms are let they are registered as separate contracts for parts of the home. If the portal won't let you add a second contract, sort it out there rather than giving up on registration.
And the request a room landlord hears most often: the person needs a registered contract for AIMA or to change their tax address, has no intention of living in the room and offers to cover your tax on top of the rent. Before agreeing, remember: a contract for a room nobody lives in is your signature under information you give to the state, and you will be the one answerable for it.
Meanwhile demand is such that the landlord chooses, not the tenant: a single room in Lisbon draws a dozen applicants in one day of viewings.
“If the contract is registered with the tax office then the landlord has to pay tax on the rent and can't let that same room to other people as well, so as not to break the legal requirements. That's why the prices are what they are.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkdigitalnomadportugal27.02.2025
“As far as I remember, only one rental contract can be registered on one property at a time. So if nobody's beaten you to it and you're the only one who needs it, in theory it's fine. Maybe if you register them as separate rooms (or shares of the flat), then it can be split.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkdigitalnomadportugal30.12.2024
“Nothing's really coming down in central Lisbon. We rented a room for our son on the uni's portal. Only just managed it. The landlord picks who to let to himself. Assesses the landlord. My son's room had 9 applicants on the viewing day. 500 euros, a room with air conditioning. On the plus side, there are decent people in the flat: a British girl, a Finnish girl, etc. And they all work/study, speak English, keep the place clean and quiet.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkRussosEmPortugal10.08.2023
You can raise the rent once a year, by the official coefficient
If the contract does not say how the rent goes up, the general rule applies (article 1077 of the Civil Code): the rent is raised no more than once a year, by a coefficient set by the state, the first time a year after the contract starts. You must give notice in writing at least 30 days in advance, stating both the coefficient and the new amount in the letter.
The coefficient itself is calculated by INE: it is inflation over 12 months excluding housing, based on figures as at 31 August, and it is published in a separate notice in Diário da República by 30 October (article 24 of NRAU). The notice for 2027 has not come out yet; going by INE's flash inflation estimate of 31 August 2026 it comes to about 2.56%, but the final figure is the one in the notice.
A missed increase is not lost straight away: if you didn't raise the rent for a year or two, the coefficients can be applied later, but no later than three years after it first became possible (paragraph 2(d)).
What you must not do: raise the rent ‘because the market has gone up’, backdate it, or get round the coefficient with a second contract for the furniture. A second contract is not a clever trick but undeclared income and grounds for a dispute in which the landlord is plainly the weaker side.
If you raised the rent by agreement between you, report the change of contract to the tax office within the same deadline as the start: by the end of the following month. The same 10% stamp duty is charged on the amount of the increase.
“The contract's for a year, under its terms I now have to write a letter about renewal (3 months before the end). Not a word about increases in the contract. The landlady told me verbally she wants +100 a month for the new term.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkchatalgarve15.08.2024
“I think the terms in that contract are equal for both sides. Plans can change for the tenant as well as for the landlord. We discussed the point that they can't evict me with a child in the middle of the school year. Everything else suited me. Not all laws are followed in practice by a long way. Plus laws shouldn't be tilted towards one side. If they weren't tilted, maybe there wouldn't be this pile of documents for checking out the tenant and huge deposits. They do 2 contracts - one for the flat, and the second for the furniture or the TV.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkru_Portugal_pt11.02.2026
End the contract — and be sure to tell the tax office
Parting with a tenant at your own wish is harder in Portugal than it looks. With a fixed-term contract the landlord can object to automatic renewal by giving notice in advance: 240 days for a term of six years or more, 120 days for a term of one to six years, 60 days for a term of six months to a year (article 1097). But there is a rule that turns the picture on its head: the landlord's first objection to renewal only takes effect three years after the contract was signed. A one-year contract is not ‘for a year’: the tenant has the right to stay for three years unless they leave of their own accord. There is one exception — you need the home for yourself or your children.
With an open-ended contract the landlord has three grounds for ending it (article 1101): needing the home for themselves or a child, demolition or major rebuilding, and simply giving five years' notice. The first two require six months' notice, and ‘for yourself’ also means paying the tenant a year's rent and proving that you have owned the home for more than two years and have no other suitable one (articles 1102 and 1103).
And the reason this guide was written in the first place. When the contract has ended, tell the tax office — ‘Arrendamento → Comunicar Cessação’ — by the end of the following month. Otherwise the contract stays alive in the system, and the tax office keeps expecting income from you that doesn't exist. In August 2026 it sent letters to landlords whose non-renewable contract was still showing as active: according to the Lusa news agency, about 33,400 letters went out, and landlords are asked to reply by 30 September through a notification on the Portal das Finanças — confirming the termination or correcting the details if the contract is in fact renewable. The letter itself does not mean you have done anything wrong: the tax office admitted that time passed between selecting the cases and sending the letters, and some people had long since sorted everything out.
“Go on then, cite the provision that lets a landlord end the contract early without a reason. If the rent is paid on time. The tenant, yes, can, after 1/3 with proper notice. What's more, the landlord's objections to renewal can only take effect after 3 years, if I'm reading the civil code right: Art. 1097, paragraph 3 A oposição à primeira renovação do contrato, por parte do senhorio, apenas produz efeitos decorridos três anos da celebração do mesmo, mantendo-se o contrato em vigor até essa data, sem prejuízo do disposto no número seguinte.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkru_Portugal_pt10.02.2026
“Threats of eviction should be rolled up and taken to the police, they have no place in communication between the parties to a lease, what there can be is the landlord's objection to the automatic renewal of the contract, the grounds are set out in articles 1097 and 1098 of the Portuguese Civil Code”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkmyptaxes28.06.2025
The tenant has stopped paying: what the law allows and how long it drags on
First and foremost: you must not change the locks, cut off the electricity or take out the tenant's belongings. You can enter an occupied home without the tenant's consent only by court order. All of the above is a criminal offence on your part, not a way to get the flat back.
What the law gives you. From the first day of arrears you are entitled to claim not only the debt but also 20% on top as compensation — if the tenant does not pay off the debt within eight days (article 1041). If there is a guarantor, you must tell them about the arrears within 90 days, otherwise you will not be able to claim from them.
The landlord can end the contract for non-payment in two cases (article 1083): arrears of three months or more — or four or more payments more than eight days late within 12 months, and in that case after the third late payment you must send a registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt stating plainly that you intend to end the tenancy. Without that letter the fourth late payment gets you nothing.
Even after termination the tenant can turn it all around: by paying off the debt within a month, they keep the contract in force. But they can only do this once per contract (article 1084).
Next comes the special eviction procedure. The application goes not to a court but to BAS — Balcão do Arrendatário e do Senhorio, a one-stop office under the justice administration, based in Porto and serving the whole country. In the same case you can also claim the debt. And this is where it turns out why registration mattered: the procedure is only available if stamp duty has been paid on the contract or the rent has been shown in tax returns (article 15(5) of NRAU). If you let off the books, all that's left is an ordinary court.
How long it actually takes, the law does not promise. In the chats people say six months or more, and that is if you are lucky.
As for the promised tougher rules. The government approved the rental reform on 9 July 2026, and on 12 August the bill went to parliament; among other things, it cuts the arrears needed for eviction from three months to two. As of 9 September 2026 the Civil Code still says three months — checked against the consolidated text in Diário da República.
“To rent a home in Portugal the owner always asked for a guarantor, a rental contract gets drawn up. And if the tenant can't pay, the money is taken from the guarantor. It's so complicated because of Portuguese laws. There were lots of cases where people carried on living in the place and didn't pay. They couldn't get them evicted through the courts. Nobody will talk to emigrants directly, on the phone they don't understand the non-Portuguese accent and say no. Ordinary home owners don't understand English. With the sharp rise in the number of emigrants, housing prices went up and some people paid the whole year's rent up front.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkRussosEmPortugal17.08.2026
“You still can, the current laws provide for an eviction procedure, but in practice the process takes six months or more.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkchatlisboa07.10.2025
“I think these are two different questions. After 3 missed payments you can demand eviction. And after any number of missed payments you can demand the debt is paid.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkleft4portugal02.04.2026
Short-term letting is a different world: alojamento local
Letting to tourists for a few nights is not a lease but a business activity called alojamento local (AL). The rules are set out in Decree-Law 128/2014.
It all starts with registration: a prior notice to the mayor (presidente da câmara), filed only through the Balcão Único Eletrónico. The registration number is assigned if the câmara (town council) does not object within 60 days, or 90 in containment areas (articles 5 and 6). The document with this number is the only legal basis for opening and advertising; the number must appear in the listing and in any advertising (article 17), and platforms such as Booking and Airbnb are obliged to ask for it and display it. Advertising unregistered accommodation is a serious economic offence, which for a private individual means €650 to €1,500 (article 23 of the decree and article 18 of the economic offences regime).
Then come obligations that ordinary letting does not have: civil liability insurance of at least €75,000 per claim (article 13-A) — without a valid policy the registration is cancelled; a complaints book; a plaque at the entrance; an information book for guests in Portuguese, English and two other languages.
The neighbours have a say too. The condominium meeting can ban AL in the building by changing the building rules with two thirds of the shares — but only for the future, for applications filed after the decision. And against an AL that is already operating it can act by a majority of the shares if it proves repeated noise and disturbance, and then the mayor decides. The condominium can also demand an extra payment for the extra wear on the common areas — up to 30% of the annual fee.
In some places new AL is simply not allowed: the câmara itself declares containment areas by parish and neighbourhood (article 15-A), and Lisbon has such areas.
The taxes are different here. This is no longer category F but category B: you register an activity, and under the simplified regime 35% of turnover is treated as taxable, or 50% in a containment area (article 31 of the IRS Code). Add contributions to Segurança Social and the tourist tax where the town has introduced one. Before deciding that short-term letting pays better than long-term, add all this up together with cleaning, empty periods and management.
“For short-term rental like Airbnb you need to get a licence, buy a fire extinguisher and so on. And it'll probably work out better as a sole trader.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkreciboverde21.08.2024
“yeah and the Lisbon authorities are now happy to cancel AL licences if there are even the slightest grounds”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkleft4portugal01.07.2026
“There was a law like that just a year ago, that to let short-term you needed the condominium's permission, it was decided by a vote and you needed more than 70% of residents voting ‘for’. But they scrapped it.. It's a problem in every town, not just Albufeira. Lisbon, Porto - same thing..”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkchatalgarve26.06.2025
What it costs, according to community conversations
| stamp duty for registering a rental contract | 10% of the monthly rent | source |
| the usual tax rate on residential rent | 25% | source |
| what they ask for up front: payments in advance plus deposit | 2 + 4 or 2 + 6 months' rent | source |
| a room in central Lisbon, nine applicants on the viewing day | €500 a month | source |
| rental yield on a home, before tax | about 6% a year | source |
What to bring
- Caderneta predial for the property — the property details for the Modelo 2 declaration come from it
- The tenant's Portuguese NIF — without it the contract won't go into the tax portal
- A written contract with the term, how the rent goes up and who pays which bills
- A handover report with an inventory and photographs — otherwise the home is deemed to have been handed over in good condition
- A separate receipt for the deposit with the word caução
- Access to the Portal das Finanças: password or Chave Móvel Digital
- Receipts and invoices with your NIF for repairs, the condominium, IMI and insurance — these are your future deductions
- For short-term letting: a licence to use the premises, a €75,000 liability policy and an AL registration number
Where people most often trip up
- The contract must be declared by the end of the following month — and changes and termination reported within the same deadline; keeping quiet means a fine from €150
- The 10% stamp duty is paid by the landlord, not the tenant
- A receipt is issued for the deposit and the advance too, not just for the monthly rent
- One mistake in the tenant's NIF and they will see neither the contract nor the receipts: it comes to light at AIMA, and you will be the one to blame
- The 10% rate from 2026 isn't announced or applied automatically: you have to know about it yourself, and the threshold is €2,300 a month
- The reduction for a long contract is only given if you have reported the term on a separate form on the portal
- End a long contract early through your own fault and the reduction is taken away retroactively, with interest
- The first objection to renewal only takes effect three years after signing: a ‘one-year contract’ does not mean the tenant will leave after a year
- Furniture, appliances and mortgage interest are not deductible from rental income, but repairs in the 24 months before letting are
- The special eviction procedure is only available for a contract on which stamp duty has been paid or whose rent has been declared in a tax return
- You must not change the locks or cut off the electricity on a tenant who isn't paying: you can only enter the home by court order
- Short-term letting without a registration number is a serious offence, €650 to €1,500 for a private individual, and platforms are obliged to ask for the number