Welcome to Portugal Long Lets website. We are a national portal of medium and long-term rentals, built on collaboration with individual owners and regional property managers. Our exclusive focus on rentals, with a network of individually owned and agent managed properties nationwide, sets us apart from the rest. We ensure zero fake listings and manually check availability to provide up-to-date information. We provide a range of value-added services and remain the point of contact during the rental term. Our inventory meets the requirements of seniors and retirees, as well as those with pets or requiring care. Discover why we are the regional leader in the Algarve and why Portugal Long Lets is much more than just a listing site.
Properties of which more than 100 are available for full annual rental
Increase in medium and long-term rental properties
Increase in rental volume relative to 2021
Increase in rental contracts of greater than 3 months
Many new residents or visitors to Portugal become familiar with the country via the internet. Increasingly, new residents and visa applicants are moving to Portugal without a physical visit. The Living In, Moving or Retiring to Portugal Survey, compiled from thousands of responses from people who have moved to Portugal or plan to do so, shows that over 40% of those who move to the country, had not visited at all.
Portugal Long Lets is unique for a number of reasons:
If we do not have a suitable option in our portfolio, where appropriate we recommend a search service in a collaboration with Property Finder Portugal.
In the latter years of the last decade, it was unquestionable that Portugal provided Europe’s best investment destination. A growing economy, falling unemployment, a recovering real estate market, an investment surge in real estate driven primarily by the very successful Golden Visa program, a wave of (mostly) wealthy foreign retiree immigration driven by the Non Habitual Resident program, all this fuelled by successive record-breaking years in the tourism industry, and no one could question the underlying fundamentals. Add to this the fact that Portugal had taken a long time to start to recover from the losses caused by the 2008-9 financial crisis, with property values falling as much as 40% in some locations. Even the Covid pandemic did not dampen the appetite for real estate investment in the country.
The result of the perception of an improvement in the investment climate and the many measures intended to stimulate the economy was a jump in foreign investment. No sector felt the impact of this increase in capital inflows like the real estate market. From Chinese Golden Visa investors to French NHR residents, the country’s real estate boomed and in 3 years, Lisbon had seen property growth of 60% and off-plan sales of modern, new-build product were back to full swing as if the recession had never happened. The latest wave of interest, in particular since 2020, from the American market, has further contributed to the price increases and the supply-demand imbalance.
Much of the growth was caused by investors who saw in Portugal not only an opportunity for capital appreciation from a low base, but also the possibility of rental yields. The country’s regulated, but very low tax, regime called the Alojamento Local, meant that early buyers who made their property available to the short-term rental market, were initially paying approximately 4% tax on gross revenues.
Since the early days of the program, changes to the local lodging (Alojamento Local) legislation were implemented, including:
In 2018, with a number of complaints about the effects of excessive tourism and short-term let properties, and the adoption of stricter rules in locations as diverse as Paris, Barcelona, New Zealand, Thailand, and Croatia, meant it was only a matter of time before the government started to change short-term rentals even further. The beginnings of dissatisfaction with over-tourism, including the “expulsion” of local residents by (mostly) foreign owners, and leading to a loss of character of entire neighbourhoods which were the drawcard attracting investors and visitors alike to the country’s authenticity in the first place, started to put pressure on the government to act.
Changes to legislation forced the following changes:
The Golden Visa program, which had been the source of many foreign-owned properties introduced to the short-term rental market, suffered dramatic changes in early 2022, with all residential product in popular, high density areas of the country excluded from the program.
A year later, the government, after several warnings, publish a set of radical proposals under the heading “Mais Habitação” (More Housing) to radically reform the residential housing sector. Proposed measures included:
The result of these proposals, and their implementation, is that:
Investors will need to migrate to using the long-term rental model as the basis for the calculation of yield.
Compare listings
ComparePlease enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.