As reported by the project Relocation.com.ua, according to idealista with reference to Banco de Portugal, in 2025, foreigners invested in Portuguese real estate 3.905 billion euros, which is a new record and 10.4% higher than in 2024. Against this background, by contrast, total FDI inflows to Portugal fell by 34.9% to €8.51 billion, while the share of real estate in total FDI rose to 45.9%, i.e. to almost half of all external capital.
The geography of this capital remains fairly predictable. The largest amount of accumulated foreign investment in Portugal is concentrated in greater Lisbon with €113.2bn, followed by the north of the country with €37.2bn and the Algarve with €21.7bn; together these three regions accumulate 80.5% of the total foreign investment stock.
Among the countries from which capital flowed in 2025, the standouts were Luxembourg with €1.1bn, the UK with around €900m and Germany with €800m. Banco de Portugal itself notes that jurisdictions such as Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Spain are often intermediate sites, so the final sources of money may differ from the country of the direct counterparty.
But looking beyond investment capital to actual housing transactions, the picture becomes clearer. INE’s latest detailed official breakdown shows that foreign families bought 38,552 houses and flats in Portugal in 2024, up 6.7 per cent from 2023 and 19.2 per cent above the 2019 level. However, foreigners were still a minority in the market, with a total of 134,540 properties purchased by families, of which 95,988 came from buyers of Portuguese origin. Among foreign buyers, Brazilians led the way with 7,694 transactions, followed by Angolans with 4,054 and the French-4,016. Separately, INE noted the rapid growth in the number of Americans, with their purchases rising from 537 in 2019 to 1,707 in 2024.
If we broaden the picture and look at all the major foreign groups living in Portugal, it becomes clear that the demand market is much broader than just the traditional buyers from Brazil, France or the UK. According to AIMA, there were 1,543,697 foreigners living in Portugal by the end of 2024.
Brazilians were the largest community with 484,596, followed by Indians with 98,616, Ukrainians with 79,232, Nepalis with 58,086 and Brits-48,238.
The mortgage market adds a separate touch to this picture. According to Banco de Portugal, in 2024, 10.1 per cent of people who took out a mortgage on their main home were foreigners. Here again, Brazilians led the way, accounting for 38 per cent of all foreign borrowers; followed by Angolans and Britons. By loan amount, Brazilians accounted for 30 per cent of foreign mortgage volume, the British 7 per cent, the Americans 6 per cent, and the French and Italians 5 per cent each. This shows that in Portugal, foreign demand has long been coming not only through buy-to-let, but also through full-blown lending.
This is why the Portuguese market is now worth considering in two ways. In the first – foreign capital has really set a record and continues to fuel the property market even after the cancellation of “golden visas” for housing. In the second, the composition of real foreign demand is becoming more and more mixed: Brazilians, Angolans, French, British and Americans are still the most active contractors, but Ukrainians, Indians, Nepalese and other new communities are becoming more prominent in the demographic structure of the country. For the market, this means one thing: the foreign presence in the Portuguese housing market is not waning, but changing shape.