What a home in Portugal really costs: €400k, €900k and €2m, worked to the last fee

The price in the listing is the start of the bill, not the bill. Most buyers I meet have budgeted the deposit and the price, and only then discover that the Portuguese state, the notary and their own lawyer all take a slice before the keys change hands. The slice is not small. It is also not a mystery: it can be worked out to the euro before you sign anything.

So here it is for three budgets I see every month, €400,000, €900,000 and €2,000,000. Each one is worked twice, as a main home and as a second home, because a Portuguese tax resident pays the transfer tax, IMT, on two different scales depending on which of the two they are buying. Same house, same price, different tax. I check these figures against current sources every time I publish; the tables below are the tax authority's own 2026 tables, checked in October 2026.

One boundary first. These worked examples use the resident scales. If you complete a purchase while you are not a Portuguese tax resident, neither scale applies: since May 2026 your IMT is a flat 7.5%, and I explain that, and the refunds that can claw the difference back, in my full guide to buying costs and taxes. If you are moving to Portugal, the main home column below is the scale your purchase is taxed on once your residency is in place, and it is the column worth planning around.

The moving parts, before the maths

IMT, the transfer tax. Paid by the buyer, before the escritura can be signed, and charged on whichever is higher: the price you agreed, or the property's official tax value, the VPT (valor patrimonial tributário) recorded in its caderneta predial. On older resale homes the VPT usually sits below the price. On new builds it can sit at or above it. Either way, check it before the CPCV is signed, because after that the tax base is locked. The two mainland scales for residents in 2026:

Inside the progressive part, each slice of the value is taxed at its own band's rate. The tax office reaches the same total with a shortcut, multiplying the whole value by the top rate that applies and subtracting a fixed deduction, and the Portal das Finanças has a simulator that does it for you. What matters for a buyer is the shape: the main home scale starts at zero and the second home scale starts at 1%, then the two scales run together, and above €660,982 they merge completely into flat rates. Watch what that does to the examples below.

Stamp duty (imposto do selo). A flat 0.8% on the same base as IMT, the higher of price or VPT. No scales, no deductions, every purchase.

If you borrow, stamp duty again. A mortgage carries its own stamp duty on the amount borrowed: 0.6% for a loan term of five years or more, 0.5% for one to five years. On a €500,000 loan that is €3,000. The worked examples below are cash purchases, so add this line, plus the bank's valuation and arrangement fees, if you are financing. My mortgage guide covers how the banks look at foreign buyers.

Notary and registration. The official Casa Pronta service charges €375 for a process with a single registration act and €700 where there are several acts, for example a purchase with a mortgage. Traditional notaries work to their own schedules. The examples use €700.

Legal fees. Your independent lawyer's due diligence, CPCV and completion work. Market practice is around 1% of the price, and at higher prices the fee is often negotiated down or capped: treat 1% as an indicative planning figure, not a tariff. The examples use 1% so the three budgets compare like with like.

Three budgets, worked to the last fee

Each example assumes an urban home on the mainland, bought by a Portuguese tax resident, with the taxes charged on the price (that is, the VPT is not higher). IMT figures are rounded to the nearest euro.

€400,000. The last of the three budgets that still sits inside the progressive bands, so this is where the two scales genuinely separate.

The main home advantage at this level is worth €1,063 of IMT. Real money, but not life changing, and stamp duty and the fees do not care which column you are in.

€900,000. By now the value has left the progressive bands behind and sits in the flat 6% band, where the two scales are the same scale.

€2,000,000. Above €1,150,853 both scales charge the top flat rate of 7.5% on the whole value.

Two lessons from the three tables. First, the main home versus second home question, which buyers agonise over, settles itself above €660,982: the scales merge and the answer stops mattering for IMT. Second, the number that does keep moving at the top end is your residency. Complete these same three purchases as a non-resident and the IMT lines read €30,000, €67,500 and €150,000. At €2,000,000 there is no gap at all. At €400,000 the gap on a main home is €11,763, which is why the order of a move, purchase first or residency first, is worth more than most price negotiations. My buying timeline sets the steps out in the order they should happen.

The traps that arrive in year one

IMI, the annual tax nobody budgets. IMI is charged every year on the VPT, which is usually well below the price you paid, at a rate each municipality sets between 0.3% and 0.45% for urban homes. For 2026, Lisbon charges the 0.3% minimum and Cascais raised its rate to 0.35%. So a Cascais home with a VPT of €300,000 carries IMI of €1,050 a year. Not a fortune, but it arrives every year, and bills over €500 are collected in three instalments, in May, August and November.

AIMI, the surcharge on high value holdings. If the combined VPT of the Portuguese homes you own passes €600,000 per person, an additional annual tax applies: 0.7% on the slice between €600,000 and €1,000,000, 1% up to €2,000,000 and 1.5% above that. A single owner with a VPT of €800,000 pays AIMI of €1,400 a year on top of IMI. Couples who opt for joint assessment get €1,200,000 of VPT before it starts. At the €900,000 and €2,000,000 budgets above, whether you cross into AIMI depends entirely on the VPT, which is one more reason to read the caderneta before you fall in love with a house.

Condominium fees. In Lisbon and Cascais apartment buildings, the monthly condominium charge is a real cost of ownership, and it varies so much by building, lift, pool, concierge, parking, that any average I quoted you would be a guess. What I do instead, and what you should ask for on any apartment: the last two years of condominium budgets and the minutes of the owners' meetings. That is where the other trap hides, the extraordinary assessment for the roof or the façade that the owners voted for last spring and that lands in your first year.

Insurance, utilities and the small print. A lender will require buildings insurance, and you will want a proper multi-risk policy either way. Water, electricity and gas contracts have to be transferred or set up in your name, sometimes with deposits. None of it is expensive next to the taxes above. All of it is forgotten in the completion week budget. My piece on the first month after the escritura walks through it.

The exchange rate moves between the two signatures. The CPCV is usually signed with a deposit of around 10%, and the balance is paid weeks or months later at the escritura. If your money sits in another currency, a 3% move between those two dates changes the real cost of a €900,000 home by €27,000, more than the lawyer and the notary combined. Having a plan for the rate, or locking it, is part of the budget, not an afterthought.

Buying from Brazil: the transfer is a cost line of its own

I was born in Brazil, and this is the section I wish someone had written for my own family. If your money starts in reais, getting it to Portugal in the right order matters as much as the Portuguese taxes.

The order. NIF first, with a fiscal representative if you are not yet resident. Then a Portuguese bank account in your name. Then move the money in tranches that match the purchase: the deposit at the CPCV, the balance at the escritura. If you are buying from abroad and cannot be here for each signature, a power of attorney lets your lawyer act for you. Keep every exchange contract and every document showing where the money came from: Portuguese banks run source of funds checks, and a missing document can stall a completion date.

The IOF is now 3.5%, and the old rates are gone. Brazil taxes money on the way out. Since the May 2025 reform (Decreto 12.466/2025, consolidated by Decreto 12.499/2025 and kept in force by the Supreme Court after Congress tried to annul it), an individual sending money abroad pays IOF of 3.5% on the amount converted. That is the rate whether the money goes to your own account in Portugal or straight to the seller's side, and it replaced the 1.1% and 0.38% rates that still fill older guides and older advice. The 1.1% rate you may still see advertised applies to investment accounts with foreign brokers. Buying a house is not that.

What that means in money. At the Banco Central's PTAX rate of 16 October 2026, about R$5.71 to the euro, the €400,000 example above means converting roughly R$2,283,000. The IOF at 3.5% takes about R$79,900 of it, roughly €14,000, before your bank or platform adds any spread at all. On the €900,000 example the IOF alone is €31,500. Budget it as part of the purchase, because that is what it is.

The spread is the negotiable part. Brazilian institutions have to disclose a total effective value, the VET, for an exchange, and quotes for the same amount on the same morning differ by more than most people expect. At these values, 1% of spread on the €400,000 example is €4,000. Get two or three quotes for the full amount, on the day, and compare the VET, not the headline rate.

One declaration Brazilians forget. If what you end up holding outside Brazil passes one million US dollars, the house included, Brazil expects an annual declaration of assets abroad, the CBE, to the Banco Central. And a small mercy to end on: if you sell one day and bring the proceeds back into Brazil, the exchange coming in is taxed at 0.38%. The expensive direction is leaving.

How I help

The tables above are public. What I do with my buyers is run them before the CPCV, not after: I pull the property's VPT and check whether it sits above the price you are about to agree, because if it does, every tax in this article is charged on the VPT instead. I check which IMT position your residency timeline puts you in, and whether a refund route is open to you. And I make sure the money you move for completion is the all-in figure, taxes included, not the headline price. Finding any of that out after the promissory contract is signed is finding it out too late.

Sources

• 2026 mainland IMT tables (Table I, main home; Table III, other housing) from the Autoridade Tributária's practical tables in force from 1 January 2026, Ofício Circulado 40129/2026, following Lei 73-A/2025 (Orçamento do Estado para 2026) (cfa.pt, AT circular; portaldasfinancas.gov.pt)
• Flat 7.5% IMT for buyers who are not Portuguese tax residents since 25 May 2026 (Decreto-Lei 97/2026), with refund routes on becoming tax resident within two years or a qualifying moderate-rent long-term lease (portugalmortgage.pt)
• Stamp duty of 0.8% on the acquisition, and on a mortgage 0.6% of the loan for terms of five years or more and 0.5% for one to five years (portugalmortgage.pt)
• Casa Pronta official service charges of €375 for a single act and €700 for several acts (acps-real-estate.com)
• IMI urban rates of 0.3% to 0.45% set by each municipality; Cascais at 0.35% and Lisbon at the 0.3% minimum for 2026 (doutorfinancas.pt)
• AIMI: 0.7% on total VPT between €600,000 and €1,000,000, 1% to €2,000,000 and 1.5% above, per person, with the joint option doubling the starting threshold to €1,200,000 (theportugalbrief.pt)
• Brazil IOF on exchange: 3.5% on transfers abroad by individuals under article 15-B of Decreto 6.306/2007 as amended by Decreto 12.466/2025 and consolidated by Decreto 12.499/2025, in force after the Supreme Court's July 2025 decision; 0.38% on exchange bringing funds into Brazil (camara.leg.br, decree text; serasa.com.br)
• Euro to real rate: Banco Central PTAX of 16 October 2026, €1 = R$5.7076 (portalbrasil.net, BCB PTAX series). Indicative only; your bank's rate on the day will differ

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