Thursday, 12 November 2026

Representatives from housing protest encampments in Lisbon and Porto are scheduled to meet with the President of the Republic at Belém Palace on Friday to present demands over the country's housing crisis. The meeting, arranged alongside the Home to Live platform (Casa Para Viver), was moved from Thursday because of bad weather caused by Storm Charles.

The activist network, which organized public camp-ins under the Acampada banner in Porto and Lisbon, previously planned actions targeting the Web Summit tech conference at Parque das Nações. Campaigners continue to demand nationwide rent caps and stricter limits on luxury property developments, while solidarity rallies also took place outside Portugal, including a gathering of Portuguese emigrants in Berlin.

Portuguese electronics retailer Worten was hit by a cyberattack that allowed unauthorized access to customer and service provider data. The company said that the security vulnerability has been corrected, confirming that no passwords, credit card numbers, or financial details were compromised. Worten began contacting affected customers directly while an internal forensic investigation remains underway.

Health Minister Ana Paula Martins stated that she reappointed the president of the Algarve Local Health Unit (Unidade Local de Saúde do Algarve) in September only after receiving personal assurances that emergency services at Portimão Hospital would be improved. The comments follow an extraordinary inspection ordered by the Ministry of Health (Ministério da Saúde) into the hospital's emergency unit after the deaths of two elderly patients.

The Inspectorate-General of Health Activities (Inspeção-Geral das Atividades em Saúde or IGAS) is investigating triage protocols, waiting times, and medical staffing levels at the facility. IGAS has also incorporated wider patient complaints into the inquiry as regional healthcare conditions face growing political scrutiny.

Portugal expects to collect an additional €14 million per day in taxes and social security contributions in 2027, according to State Budget (Orçamento do Estado) projections. The estimates point to an extra €5.1 billion in annual revenue, driven by economic growth, higher private consumption, wage gains, and inflation. The projected increase comes despite government pledges to reduce overall tax pressure on households and businesses.

Portuguese town halls are relying more heavily on revenue from the municipal property transfer tax (Imposto Municipal sobre as Transmissões Onerosas de Imóveis or IMT) as housing prices rise. Municipalities with high real estate demand, such as Loulé in the Algarve and Grândola in the Alentejo, have seen transaction taxes make up an expanding portion of local municipal budgets. The tax applies to real estate transactions exceeding statutory thresholds, currently set above €108,792 for residential properties.

The Technical Budget Support Unit (Unidade Técnica de Apoio Orçamental or UTAO) warned that financial pressures in the National Health Service (Serviço Nacional de Saúde or SNS) could jeopardize the government's projected budget surplus for 2027. UTAO coordinator Sofia Terlica said the planned 0.1% surplus relies heavily on controlling hospital spending and tackling fuel tax evasion. The parliamentary body raised concerns following substantial spending deviations recorded in the healthcare sector throughout the current fiscal year.

Portugal's state of alert (situação de alerta) will expire at midnight on Wednesday and will not be extended, the government confirmed following a Council of Ministers meeting. Officials stated that preventive preparations for Storm Charles were sufficient and that public services should return to normal on Thursday. Authorities had placed Civil Protection resources on high alert, particularly in coastal and southern districts, ahead of heavy rainfall and high winds.

The National Federation of Doctors (Federação Nacional dos Médicos or FNAM) announced it will join the nationwide public sector strike scheduled for 20 November. The union is demanding a 15% salary increase, the repeal of the public administration performance evaluation system (Sistema Integrado de Gestão e Avaliação do Desempenho na Administração Pública or SIADAP), and increased support for the National Health Service. The walkout follows a call from the Frente Comum union confederation in opposition to the government's proposed state budget.

Banco de Portugal proposed increasing mandatory contributions paid by commercial lenders to the Deposit Guarantee Fund (Fundo de Garantia de Depósitos or FGD) for 2027. The draft instruction would raise the contributory rate from 0.0009% to 0.0011%, marking the first rate hike since 2024. The proposal is currently under review by the fund's management committee and the Portuguese Banking Association (Associação Portuguesa de Bancos).

The Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (Agência para a Integração, Migrações e Asilo) added two options to its online contact form to request family reunification appointments. The new mechanism allows immigrants with a valid residence permit or an in-progress renewal to apply regardless of whether their relatives are currently in Portugal or abroad. The contact form replaces the previous family reunification portal for registering new requests.

Annual inflation in Portugal hit 3.8% in October, according to data from the National Statistics Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estatística or INE). Rising prices for transportation, restaurants, accommodation, and food accounted for nearly 70% of the overall increase. Transportation costs contributed 1.2 percentage points to the figure, driven primarily by fuel prices.

The Portuguese Business Association (Associação Empresarial de Portugal or AEP) proposed a 50% corporate income tax (Imposto sobre o Rendimento das Pessoas Coletivas or IRC) deduction for companies funding worker accommodation. The business lobby presented the measure for the state budget, arguing that the country's housing shortage has become a barrier to recruitment, economic growth, and talent retention. The proposal aims to incentivize private firms to build or secure housing for employees facing steep rental costs.

Portugal moved up one position to 11th in the 2027 Climate Change Performance Index presented at the United Nations COP31 conference in Antalya, Turkey. The report by Germanwatch and the NewClimate Institute noted that Portugal's greenhouse gas emissions per capita dropped 15.1% over the past five years to 4.81 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. Denmark ranked highest in the assessment of 64 countries, while several major industrial nations received very low scores.

Property owners registering rustic and mixed-use land through the Integrated Land Registry Office (Balcão Único do Prédio or BUPi) no longer benefit from a temporary fee exemption, with costs now reaching up to €250. The end of the exceptional free scheme means owners must pay standard registration fees and administrative charges to formalize boundaries. The platform was created to map property boundaries and address millions of unregistered rural plots across the country.