Our budget article explains what the proposed 2027 State Budget would change for a buyer, and where it stands: approved in principle on 28 October, amendments until 6 November, final vote on 24 November 2026, effect from 1 January 2027 if it passes. This piece does the part that article deliberately left out. It runs the numbers.
Everything below is worked twice, once on the IMT tables in force today and once on the tables the bill proposes. The proposed figures are marked as proposed every time, because until the law is published they are not yours to spend. Buy on today's law; treat anything in the second column as a small possible bonus.
One scope note before the arithmetic. These examples are for a buyer who is a Portuguese tax resident, buying on the mainland, with the tax charged on the purchase price (IMT is charged on the higher of the price and the property's tax value, the VPT, so if the VPT is higher, every figure rises with it). Since May 2026, a buyer who is not a Portuguese tax resident pays a flat 7.5% IMT with no bands and no exemptions, and the budget's bracket changes do not touch that at all. Our buying costs guide covers that side of the line in full.
How the IMT calculation works
IMT is not a single percentage. For each price there is a marginal rate and a fixed deduction, the parcela a abater: multiply the price by the rate of the band it falls in, then subtract that band's parcela. The parcela is what makes the system progressive in practice; without it, the tax would jump at every band edge. At the top of the table the formula changes: above a ceiling, a single rate of 6% applies to the whole price, and above a higher ceiling, 7.5% on the whole price. Stamp duty of 0.8% sits alongside IMT on the same value, with no bands and no parcela.
Article 65 of the bill lifts every limit in the tables by 2.3%. The rates and the structure stay the same; the parcelas rise with the limits, because each parcela is built to keep the tax continuous at its band edge. For a permanent home (habitação própria e permanente), the two tables are:
| Band top | Today | Proposed |
|---|---|---|
| No IMT up to | €106,346 | €108,792 |
| 2% band up to | €145,470 | €148,816 |
| 5% band up to | €198,347 | €202,909 |
| 7% band up to | €330,539 | €338,141 |
| 8% band up to | €660,982 | €676,185 |
| 6% single rate up to | €1,150,853 | €1,177,323 |
| Above that | 7.5% single rate | 7.5% single rate |
A permanent home at four real prices
| Price | IMT today | IMT proposed | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| €250,000 | €7,042.04 | €6,801.50 | €240.54 less |
| €400,000 | €18,236.65 | €17,920.09 | €316.56 less |
| €650,000 | €38,236.65 | €37,920.09 | €316.56 less |
| €1,000,000 | €60,000 | €60,000 | Nothing |
The pattern is worth seeing plainly. At €400,000 and at €650,000 the saving is identical, €316.56: anywhere inside the 8% band under both tables, the only thing the proposal changes is the parcela, so the saving is flat right across that band. Lower down, at €250,000, the saving is €240.54, simply the difference between the two tables' 7% band parcelas. And at €1,000,000 there is no saving at all, because at that level the tax is a single 6% of the whole price under both tables, and a single rate does not care where the bands below it sit.
So: real money, worth having, and nowhere near a reason to time a purchase, renegotiate a price, or wait for a house. On a €400,000 home the proposed improvement is about 0.08% of the price. Stamp duty is €3,200 on that purchase under both tables; it does not move.
Under 35: the line, worked properly
Buyers aged up to 35, buying their first home to live in, are exempt from both IMT and stamp duty. The regime is already law (it dates from 2024) and the budget only moves its limits. What the worked numbers show, and what is often missed, is how the exemption behaves above its line.
Up to the limit (€330,539 today, a proposed €338,141), the exemption is total: no IMT, no stamp duty. Above the limit, the exemption does not stop. It becomes partial. You pay IMT at 8% and stamp duty at 0.8%, but only on the slice of the price above the limit; the slice below it stays exempt. The benefit then runs on, in that partial form, up to €660,982 today (a proposed €676,185). Only above that top line does the benefit disappear altogether, and there, as the last pair of rows shows, it disappears all at once.
| Price | Today: IMT + stamp duty | Proposed: IMT + stamp duty |
|---|---|---|
| €330,539 | €0 | €0 |
| €335,000 | €356.88 + €35.69 = €392.57 | €0 |
| €338,141 | €608.16 + €60.82 = €668.98 | €0 |
| €340,000 | €756.88 + €75.69 = €832.57 | €148.72 + €14.87 = €163.59 |
| €660,982 (today's top line) | €26,435.44 + €2,643.55 = €29,078.99 | n/a |
| €660,983 (one euro above it) | €39,658.98 + €5,287.86 = €44,946.84 | n/a |
Read the middle rows first, because they are the ones that matter in practice. A 34-year-old buying at €335,000 today is above the total-exemption line, but the bill for crossing it is €392.57, not a lost exemption worth thousands. The tax on the slice above the line is charged at 8.8% combined (8% IMT plus 0.8% stamp duty), which is a steep rate on a small slice. If the budget passes, that same buyer pays nothing, because €335,000 falls inside the proposed €338,141 line: a saving of €392.57. Worth having. Not life-changing, and not the whole IMT bill on the price.
For scale, an otherwise identical buyer over 35 pays €15,716.65 in IMT and stamp duty on that same €335,000 purchase today. The young buyer regime itself, the part that is already law, is where the serious money sits. The budget moves its edges by a few hundred euros either way.
The genuine cliff edge in this regime is the top one. At €660,982 a young buyer today pays €29,078.99 across both taxes. At €660,983, one euro more, the benefit is gone entirely and the ordinary table applies to the whole price: €44,946.84. One euro of price, €15,867.85 of tax. If the budget passes, that cliff moves to €676,185, with a step of about €16,233. Almost nobody buys within a euro of the line, but anyone buying a first home in the €600,000s should know the line exists and which side of it their price sits on, because a small negotiated reduction near it is worth far more than its face value.
A second home, briefly
The second-home table (a holiday home, or a home bought to let) has no zero band: it starts at 1% from the first euro, and its 8% band ends earlier, at €633,931 rather than €660,982. The bill lifts its limits by the same 2.3%. At €400,000:
| Price | IMT today | IMT proposed | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| €400,000 second home | €19,300.11 | €19,008.01 | €292.10 less |
Stamp duty is €3,200 under both. The same lesson as the main table: a few hundred euros, in the buyer's favour, and no basis for changing a decision.
What is not in these numbers
- IMI is unchanged. The bill does not amend the annual municipal tax. A temporary IMI exemption was being negotiated between parties in October; as of 1 November there is still no published text for it, and nothing in these examples assumes one.
- Stamp duty is unchanged. The 0.8% on a purchase stays 0.8%, outside the young buyer exemption described above. The bill does not amend the stamp duty code.
- The May measures are already law, not budget promises. The 6% VAT on eligible construction and the 10% IRS rate on moderate rents were set by Decree-Law 97/2026 and stand whatever happens on 24 November. The same decree is the source of the flat 7.5% IMT for non-resident buyers. Our budget article covers these; they are not re-argued here.
- Nothing tabled changes this arithmetic yet. Parties can table amendments until 6 November and the detail is voted between 18 and 23 November. As of today, no published amendment text alters the purchase taxes in these examples. If one does, we will update both articles when the final law is published.
The timing question, as mechanics only
IMT is assessed on the law in force at the escritura, the completion deed, and it is paid before the deed can be signed. If the budget passes as drafted, the new tables take effect on 1 January 2027. It follows, mechanically, that a completion on 30 December and a completion on 2 January could be taxed under different tables, and for a young buyer near the exemption line the difference is the few hundred euros shown above; near the top line of the partial zone, it could be much larger. What nobody can tell you today is the transitional detail: whether the published law will carry any rule for purchases already under a promissory contract (CPCV) when the tables change. That text does not exist yet, and any answer given before it does is a guess. This is mechanics, not advice: the right completion date for a given purchase depends on the contract, the finance and the parties, and it is a question for your lawyer once the law is published, not for a newspaper column in November.
If you are weighing a purchase against these lines, the useful exercise is to model it both ways, on today's tables and on the proposed ones, and to know exactly which line your price sits near. That modelling is part of how we build a buyer brief: the life you want, the areas that fit it, and the numbers run honestly underneath. If that would help, send us the shape of the search and we will build the brief around it.
Sources
- The current IMT tables (mainland): article 17 of the Código do IMT as updated for 2026 by Lei 73-A/2025 (the 2026 State Budget), practical tables in the Autoridade Tributária's Ofício Circulado n.º 40129/2026 of 6 January 2026. Permanent home: 0% to €106,346; 2% to €145,470 (parcela €2,126.92); 5% to €198,347 (parcela €6,491.02); 7% to €330,539 (parcela €10,457.96); 8% to €660,982 (parcela €13,763.35); 6% single rate to €1,150,853; 7.5% above. Second home: 1% to €106,346; 2% (parcela €1,063.46); 5% (parcela €5,427.56); 7% (parcela €9,394.50); 8% to €633,931 (parcela €12,699.89); 6% single rate to €1,150,853; 7.5% above. Tables read in full at Kinvest and at simula.pt, which reproduce the AT circular.
- The proposed tables: article 65 of Proposta de Lei n.º 110/XVII/2.ª (OE2027) raises every IMT limit by 2.3%. The proposed limits used here are the current limits multiplied by 1.023 and rounded to the euro: €108,792; €148,816; €202,909; €338,141; €676,185; €648,511 (second home, top of the 8% band); €1,177,323. The published anchor values (€108,792, the young buyer limit €338,141, the 6% single rate from €676,185) match the analysis of the bill published by Kinvest; Link in Portugal confirms €108,792 and €338,141 against the bill's updated tables. The proposed parcelas (€2,175.84; €6,640.32; €10,698.50; €14,079.91 for a permanent home; €1,087.92; €5,552.40; €9,610.58; €12,991.99 for a second home) are derived by the same continuity construction the AT's tables use, under which each parcela makes the tax continuous at its band edge; the same construction reproduces every current parcela exactly. Kinvest notes that the remaining limits and parcelas are only certain when the law is published, and so do we.
- The young buyer regime: Decreto-Lei n.º 48-A/2024 of 25 July 2024 (articles 9 and 11 of the Código do IMT; article 7.º-A of the Código do Imposto do Selo). Exemption from IMT and stamp duty for buyers aged up to 35 buying a first home for their own permanent residence, who have not owned a residential property at the purchase date or in the previous three years and are not IRS dependents. Total exemption to €330,539; partial exemption to €660,982, in which IMT is charged at 8% on the excess only (equivalently, 8% of the price less a parcela of €26,443.12) and stamp duty is charged at 0.8% on the excess only (a deduction to the stamp duty bill capped at €2,644.31); no benefit above €660,982. Under the proposal the limits become €338,141 and €676,185, the parcela €27,051.28 and the stamp duty deduction cap €2,705.13, by the same construction. Mechanics read in full at simula.pt and Kinvest.
- Workings for every example (price × marginal rate − parcela, rounded to cents):
- €250,000 permanent home: today 7% band, €250,000 × 7% − €10,457.96 = €7,042.04. Proposed: €250,000 × 7% − €10,698.50 = €6,801.50.
- €400,000 permanent home: today 8% band, €400,000 × 8% − €13,763.35 = €18,236.65. Proposed: €400,000 × 8% − €14,079.91 = €17,920.09.
- €650,000 permanent home: today €650,000 × 8% − €13,763.35 = €38,236.65. Proposed: €650,000 × 8% − €14,079.91 = €37,920.09.
- €1,000,000 permanent home: inside the 6% single-rate band under both tables, €1,000,000 × 6% = €60,000. No parcela, no difference.
- Under 35 at €330,539: at the total-exemption limit under today's law, €0 IMT and €0 stamp duty; also €0 under the proposal.
- Under 35 at €335,000: today, partial zone: IMT €335,000 × 8% − €26,443.12 = €356.88; stamp duty €335,000 × 0.8% − €2,644.31 = €35.69. Proposed: inside the €338,141 total-exemption limit, €0 and €0.
- Under 35 at €338,141: today: IMT €338,141 × 8% − €26,443.12 = €608.16; stamp duty €338,141 × 0.8% − €2,644.31 = €60.82. Proposed: at the proposed limit, €0 and €0.
- Under 35 at €340,000: today: IMT €340,000 × 8% − €26,443.12 = €756.88; stamp duty €340,000 × 0.8% − €2,644.31 = €75.69. Proposed: IMT €340,000 × 8% − €27,051.28 = €148.72; stamp duty €340,000 × 0.8% − €2,705.13 = €14.87.
- Under 35 at €660,982: today, top of the partial zone: IMT €660,982 × 8% − €26,443.12 = €26,435.44; stamp duty €660,982 × 0.8% − €2,644.31 = €2,643.55. At €660,983 the benefit ends: IMT €660,983 × 6% = €39,658.98; stamp duty €660,983 × 0.8% = €5,287.86. Combined step for €1 of price: €15,867.85. Proposed equivalent: at €676,185, IMT €27,043.52 and stamp duty €2,704.35 (total €29,747.87); at €676,186, IMT €40,571.16 and stamp duty €5,409.49 (total €45,980.65); step €16,232.78.
- Over-35 comparison at €335,000: ordinary permanent-home table: IMT €335,000 × 8% − €13,763.35 = €13,036.65; stamp duty €2,680; total €15,716.65.
- €400,000 second home: today €400,000 × 8% − €12,699.89 = €19,300.11. Proposed: €400,000 × 8% − €12,991.99 = €19,008.01.
- Cross-checks: the same current tables give €26,236.65 of IMT on a €500,000 permanent home (our buying costs guide says about €26,237), €10,542.04 on a €300,000 permanent home and €11,605.50 on a €300,000 second home, matching the worked examples published by Kinvest.
- Status of the budget and amendments: Proposta de Lei n.º 110/XVII/2.ª, delivered 8 October 2026, approved in principle 28 October 2026; amendment deadline 6 November; committee votes 18 to 23 November; final vote 24 November 2026 (parlamento.pt; Kinvest; Link in Portugal). The bill does not amend the IMI code or the stamp duty code (Kinvest). The temporary IMI exemption was reported by Lusa (19 October) as under negotiation between Chega and the government, with no published text (Kinvest).
- Related reading on this site: Portugal's 2027 budget and your house purchase (the proposal explained); the buying costs and taxes guide (the current-law figures, including the flat 7.5% IMT for non-resident buyers under Decree-Law 97/2026).
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