Yes, you can buy here
Portugal does not care what passport you hold. EU or not, the rules for buying an ordinary home are the same. That is the good news, and it is genuinely good.
The rest is housekeeping, not barriers. Buying a home does not grant you permission to live in Portugal: it buys you a home, nothing more. And if your eye drifts to rural land, know it plays by stricter rules, with pre-emption rights, planning limits and environmental restrictions that can sink a deal you already love.
The paperwork, in order
Every purchase runs the same route. Skip a step and it will find you later.
Get your Portuguese tax number
The NIF comes first. Everything else queues behind it.
Set up a clean money trail
Your funds must travel a route the bank can trace from source to closing. If the trail breaks, the bank stops, and so does your purchase.
Run your own checks
Independent legal and technical checks, by people who work for you. This is not the step to hand to the seller's lawyer.
Sign the CPCV only when it protects you
The promissory contract is binding. Sign it only when its protections are clear to you, in writing. An assumption is not a clause.
Pay, deed, register
Pay the applicable taxes, sign the deed, register the title. Until the registration is done, the job is not.
Taxes: the bill on top of the price
The purchase price is not the purchase cost. A non-resident buyer should budget on top for purchase taxes, stamp duty, legal work and registration. These are not footnotes; they are part of the price of entry.
Confirm the tax position early, not at closing. The applicable position, including IMT and annual IMI, must be confirmed for both the buyer and the property at the time of purchase. Rates and rules move; what a friend paid two years ago is not your figure.
The mortgage: banks will lend, but they will examine you
Portuguese banks do lend to non-residents. That is the headline. The fine print: lower loan-to-value limits than residents get, and a thicker file of documentation.
Everything must agree. Income, tax returns, bank statements, debt, the property valuation and the source of funds: the bank reads them as one story, and any chapter that contradicts the others stalls the loan.
Line up finance before the CPCV. Once that binding contract is signed, the clock is the seller's. If you need a finance condition, make it explicit in the contract.
Golden Visa: dead for property since October 2023
Portugal removed real-estate investment routes from the Golden Visa programme on 7 October 2023. If someone is selling you a purchase as a visa route, they are selling you 2022. A property purchase and an immigration plan are separate projects; run them that way.
Sources
- Portugal's tax authority on the taxes due when buying a property (IMT and Imposto do Selo): info.portaldasfinancas.gov.pt
- The real-estate route to the Golden Visa, revoked on 7 October 2023 by Lei n.º 56/2023 (summary by a Portuguese law firm): pmcm.pt
- Banco de Portugal's macroprudential caps on new housing loans: up to 90% LTV for own permanent residence, 80% for other purposes: bportugal.pt