Portugal to fast-track evictions: two missed payments will be enough

Portugal overhauls rental rules to allow eviction after two missed payments

Portugal is making a move to bring housing onto the market, and the chosen mechanism is not construction: it is earlier eviction. Next Wednesday, Parliament will debate a legislative authorisation that would allow Luís Zain’s conservative government to amend by decree-law the lease regime, the Civil Code and other related rules. The package reduces from three to two months the non-payment that opens the door to ending a contract, removes the three-year minimum in certain automatic renewals — an annual contract may be extended for another year — and allows up to three months’ rent to be demanded in advance, with the deposit no longer subject to the specific two-month limit. Home sale prices are up 16,5% year-on-year, after 17,8% the previous quarter. The rental market is no exception: the median rent on new contracts reached 9,46 euros per square metre in the first quarter of 2026, up 9,1%, and as high as 17,42 euros in Lisboa.

What Portugal’s rental reform changes

The text goes beyond eviction. It pre-emptively removes a restriction introduced by the previous socialist government that limited rent increases between certain contracts, although the government assures that the current annual update is not being touched. The three-year minimum period that currently applies to some automatic renewals also disappears. As a counterweight, the government proposes an Emergency Housing Fund aimed at those who lose their home due to financial difficulties and other vulnerable groups. The argument is that protection should fall to the state, not to the private landlord.

The official argument: restoring landlords’ confidence

The Minister for Infrastructure and Housing, Miguel Pinto Luz, sums up the purpose in one sentence: “restoring confidence in the market to increase housing supply”. The government’s diagnosis is that many landlords keep their homes off the rental market for antiestéticar of non-payment and endless lawsuits, and that giving them legal certainty and contractual freedom will multiply the available homes. The opposition Partido Socialista, led by José Luís Carneiro, reads it exactly the other way around: it accuses the government of making evictions easier and argues that supply must first be increased and only then should the rules be changed. The government responds that fast-track procedures will only be applied when there is a legal cause.

The 723.000 empty homes that fail to fill the gap

There is an inconvenient fact for the narrative that the stock exists and merely needs to be unlocked. The 2021 census identified more than 723.000 empty homes, around 12% of the national housing stock. The problem is not the quantity but the location: much of it is in inland areas with no demand, while pressure is concentrated in Lisboa, Oporto and the coastal strip. Estimates in circulation put the deficit at around 293.000 homes, after being revised upwards due to demographic growth. And that demand is no small detail: Portugal went from 10,4 million inhabitants in 2021 to 11,4 million.

The business that flourishes when eviction drags on forever

Outside the law, some argue that the slow pace of eviction has created a niche of its own. The scheme described is always similar: an occupied house loses value, the owner becomes desperate, a third party appears who buys it at a discount and, before paying, has already negotiated the occupants’ departure in exchange for a few thousand euros. He cleans up the property, renovates it and resells it well above what he paid. It is argued that the reform, instead of shutting down that business, could feed it if fast eviction becomes a mere formality.

With these ingredients, the question is not whether eviction will be faster. It is who will pay the bill for that estimulante ilegal: the landlord who does not rent today, the tenant who hands over three months’ rent in advance, or the taxpayer who sustains the emergency fund.