Buying a house in Portugal: house and flat prices, land and taxes

Updated: 5 November 2026 · RE/MAX Extra

In Portuguese listings a detached or semi-detached house is a moradia and a flat is an apartamento. This article covers what a square metre of house costs according to INE (Statistics Portugal) bank valuation data, where a house is cheaper than a flat, what's in our catalogue right now and how the tax differs when you buy a house with land. The buying process itself is the same for a flat and a house, and is explained in “How to buy property in Portugal”.

What a house costs: bank valuations for September 2026

INE's quarterly statistics on transaction prices, which our area guides are based on, don't split houses from flats. Another dataset does: the bank valuations of homes carried out when someone applies for a mortgage. In September 2026 the national median valuation of a house was €1,621/m² and of a flat €2,662/m². Over the year, house values rose by 11.1% and flat values by 15.4%.

Houses are most expensive in Greater Lisbon (€2,942/m²) and the Algarve (€2,835/m²), and cheapest in the Centre region (€1,172/m²). Madeira saw the fastest rise in house values over the year (+20.3%).

How to read these figures. They are valuations, not sale prices: banks carry them out for mortgage applications, so cash purchases aren't included. INE counts homes between 35 and 600 m² and calculates each month's figure from valuations made that month and the two before it. The data comes from seven banks that account for about 90% of new mortgage lending. If there are fewer than 33 valuations, INE doesn't publish a figure.

Where a house is cheaper than a flat

Nationally, a square metre of house is more than a third cheaper than a square metre of flat. But that average covers very different places. In Greater Lisbon houses make up 14% of bank valuations, in the Centre 55% and in the Alentejo 66%: houses get valued more often where housing is cheaper anyway. Within a single municipality the gap looks different.

The gap is under 5% in the municipalities of Lisbon, Oeiras, Cascais, Porto, Sintra, Faro, Sesimbra and Palmela: there a square metre of house costs roughly the same as a square metre of flat. In 15 of the municipalities in the table a house is 15% or more cheaper, most of all in Viseu (−36.2%), Aveiro (−35.0%) and Coimbra (−34.5%). The figures are INE medians for September 2026 (valuations from July to September), building types “moradias” (houses) and “apartamentos” (flats).

What's in our catalogue

Our catalogue currently has 10,030 houses for sale and 11,691 flats. The median asking price of a house is €355,000, against €395,000 for a flat. But a house is much bigger: the median floor area is 167 m², against 103 m² for a flat. Plot size is given for 7,417 houses, with a median of 513 m². There are 5,929 T3–T4 houses and 1,715 with five bedrooms or more.

Of these municipalities, the cheapest are Castelo Branco (€70,000), Viseu (€183,500) and Coimbra (€290,000). These are asking prices, not sale prices or bank valuations, which is why they come out higher per square metre than the INE figures: a listing shows what the seller is asking. The same house is often listed by several agencies in the network; those duplicates are counted once, and listings under €30,000 were left out. The plot figure is the median for houses where the plot size is given.

The land: urban, rural or mixed

A house nearly always comes with land, and for tax purposes what matters is how the property is entered in the tax register (matriz predial). There are two registers: one for urban property (urbano) and one for rural property (rústico). A home is urban property of the residential (habitacional) type. Rural property is mainly land outside a built-up area used for farming, forestry or livestock, together with buildings that directly serve that activity.

If a property has both a rural and an urban part, it is classed by its main part. When neither part can be called the main one, the property counts as mixed (misto). A quinta where the house and the farmland matter equally is one example.

• IMT (property transfer tax) on purchase. Rural property: 5% of the price. Residential urban property: the progressive scale, the same as for a flat; a non-resident pays 7.5% on the full amount. If they become a tax resident within two years of the purchase, or within six months let the home at a rent no higher than the legal cap (and keep it let for at least 36 months in the first five years), the tax authority will, at their request, cancel the difference from the normal scale. The request must be made within six months of the day the buyer became resident or signed the lease. You can work it out with our IMT calculator, and there is more detail in “Property taxes in Portugal”.
• IMI (annual municipal property tax). The rural part pays 0.8% of its tax value and the urban part 0.3% to 0.45%, with the municipality choosing the rate within that range. On a mixed property each part is taxed at its own rate.
• AIMI. This additional tax on high-value property applies only to urban property; rural land is not part of its base.
• Empty houses and ruins. For urban property that has stood empty for more than a year, and for ruins, the IMI rate is tripled, unless the condition was caused by a natural disaster or calamity. If only part of a house that is not divided into separate units (frações) stands empty, the higher rate applies only to the tax value of that part. This matters if you buy a house to rebuild and don't start work straight away.

What the register holds is shown on the caderneta predial, the tax register extract: the type of property, its features and its tax value. It is not proof of ownership: the tax register only counts as evidence of title for tax purposes. Ownership and any charges are checked on the land registry certificate (certidão permanente do registo predial). The other documents, such as the use permit and the energy certificate, are the same as for a flat; the list is in our step-by-step guide to buying.

Costs after buying

IMI rates by municipality, insurance and other running costs are covered in “The cost of owning property in Portugal”. If you buy the house with a mortgage, the bank will carry out exactly the kind of valuation described above; the terms for non-residents are in “Mortgages in Portugal for non-residents”.

Where to look

Houses by municipality: Lisbon, Cascais, Sintra, Seixal, Porto, Braga, Loulé. Area guides: Lisbon, Cascais and the coast, Porto, the Algarve. For questions about a particular house, use our contact form.

This article is for information only and is not legal or tax advice. Rates and rules change — always check official sources and a professional before a transaction.