A new study shared by idealista reveals that although there is greater pressure from foreigners in the residential markets of Lisbon and Porto, their presence has a “limited impact” on house prices.

“The pressure from foreigners on housing prices is greater in the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto, but the impact of this demand on the median value of housing appears to be globally limited”, concludes the 'policy paper' “The housing crisis in large cities – an analysis”, released by Rita Fraque Lourenço, Paulo M. M. Rodrigues and Hugo de Almeida Vilares.

This is because although foreigners buy houses that are much more expensive than the Portuguese in the different regions of the country, their representation in the total volume of housing sales in Portugal is still low (although it is rising significantly). For this reason, its impact on the median house price is more limited.

Now, extra-EU foreigners who resort to the residence permit program for real estate investment activity (ARIs, commonly known as gold visas) in addition to being a “limited universe”, “may eventually not establish residence in Portugal due to permissive legislation at a national level”. Between 2012 and 2022, around 10,600 golden visas were granted, representing a global investment of around six billion euros - 0.2% of GDP in 2022.

As for the visa commonly assigned to digital nomads, it attracted 26,525 citizens between 2018 and April 2023.

“For this phenomenon of attracting non-residents, measures of a fiscal nature contribute, such as the program for non-habitual residents, which give these citizens advantages in the way their income is taxed”, they point out. According to the AT, this program benefited 51,903 citizens between 2009 and 2020, representing a fiscal expenditure in 2021 of 1,210 million euros (about 0.56% of GDP).