Portugal news – Who are the digital nomads coming to Portugal?
Just in the last 4 years, 27,000 wealthy foreigners settled in Portugal, among whom are digital nomads and remote workers who are renting accommodation in large urban centres.
Temporary residency visas for Portugal were issued under various regimes, including the non-habitual resident regime, to foreigners coming mainly from North America, the UK and Brazil.
Temporary visas for living and working in Portugal were issued through various popular routes including the D7 visa and the Digital Nomad visa.
Since 2018, 26,525 D7 visas were issued to foreigners having proof of passive income in their country of origin. Meanwhile, since October 30th, Portugal’s new Digital Nomad visa was already issued to 800 foreigners, according to Dinheiro Vivo.
In 2022, foreigners have bought nearly 11,000 homes, spending a total of EUR 3.6 billion, according to Portugal’s Statistics Office. Foreign investments in the real estate market were mainly in the Algarve and in the Greater Lisbon area, while housing prices rose by 12.6%.
For Lisbon only, the share of foreign real estate investment reached 37%, that amounts to nearly EUR 900 million. Lisbon is a hotspot for foreign rentals and prices have increased by 10.6% with demand being so high that would-be renters are fighting for the available accommodation. Foreigners are the main market for rentals in central Lisbon and landlords are renting for the medium term, for periods of over 30 days, to accommodate digital nomads and remote workers.
Between 2016 and 2021, the number of foreigners in Lisbon increased nearly twofold, to reach 108,000 individuals, mostly from Brazil, France and Italy.
Medium-term rentals, that are usually for between 1-to-5-month periods, are rented by digital nomads and students on popular online platforms such as Spotahome and Flatio. There is a strong demand from clients from Spain, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Brazil and North America, that are mainly interested in Lisbon, Porto and Madeira, since these are hubs for digital nomads.