Landlords can also move existing leases into the affordable renting scheme and pay no tax on rent from 1 September
Since 1 September 2026 a simplified affordable renting scheme (RSAA) has been in force: if a flat is let as a permanent home for at least three years at no more than the cap set for its municipality, the landlord pays no income tax at all on that rent. Until now it was unclear whether leases signed before then qualified. On 8 November the Secretary of State for Housing, Patrícia Gonçalves Costa, told Antena 1 radio and the newspaper Jornal de Negócios that they do: if an existing lease meets the scheme's requirements, the landlord can move it into the scheme and will be exempt from the tax from 1 September (Jornal Económico, Jornal de Negócios).
Landlords are already doing so. According to the Secretary of State, about a thousand applications to join the new scheme have been filed, and only about 200 of them are for leases signed after 1 September. The rest are for leases that were already in force.
You can check whether a rent is within the cap with the IHRU calculator — IHRU is the state housing institute. For example, for a T2 (a two-bedroom flat) in Lisbon the cap is €1,309 a month.
To join, the landlord uploads the lease to the IHRU platform together with proof that it is registered on the Portal das Finanças, as required by Decree-Law 97/2026. On 13 October we wrote about how the scheme works and how the cap is calculated.
If you rent, this is a reason to talk to your landlord: if your rent is within the cap, it pays the landlord to move the lease into the scheme, and to do that the lease has to be registered. You need it registered too — for your residence permit and for your tax deduction.
Separately from this scheme, a smaller tax break has applied since 1 January 2026: landlords pay 10% tax instead of 25% on rent of up to €2,300 a month. It runs until the end of 2029 and covers existing leases too. The Secretary of State said the €2,300 threshold still needs to be "checked" and adjusted if necessary. She also called the limit on rent increases in new leases for the same flat, which the Socialists (PS) want to keep, a "dead letter" — a rule that does not work in practice (Jornal de Negócios).
