According to the SPN, kidney transplants are the most common in Portugal, where in 2023, 547 transplants were carried out, of which 71 were from living donors.

The country has the fifth highest rate of kidney transplants in Europe, with 49.01 transplants per million inhabitants, according to the SPN, which reports data from 2022, the most recent year for which comparative information is available.

SPN advocates, particularly with regard to dead donor kidney transplantation, the expansion of harvest promotion teams in most hospitals, and the expansion of donation programs in cardiorespiratory arrest.

National Organ Donation and Transplantation Day, established in 2019, is celebrated annually on July 20th, the date on which the first organ transplant took place in Portugal, in this case, a kidney from a living donor, in 1969, in hospitals from the University of Coimbra.

In the 1980s, the first kidney transplants from a dead donor were carried out, followed by liver, heart, pancreas, lung, tissue and cell transplants.