Portugal's Median Bank Valuation of Housing Hits a Record 2,254 Euros per Square Metre
Portugal's median bank valuation of housing reached a record €2,254 per square metre in August, up 14.7% on the year but slowing from July's 15.2%.
The median bank valuation of housing in Portugal reached €2,254 per square metre in August 2026, the highest figure on record. That is 14.7% above August 2025 and €14 more than in July, a monthly step of 0.6%. The annual pace eased: in July the year-on-year rise had been 15.2%, so the deceleration is half a percentage point. The release is the monthly bank valuation series published by Portugal's national statistics institute on 24 September 2026, and it measures what lenders' appraisers put on properties going through mortgage applications, not what buyers actually paid.
Figures from the Instituto Nacional de Estatistica as reported by ECO and by Dinheiro Vivo; the primary release could not be accessed at the time of writing, because the institute's own publication path is closed to automated readers. Both newsrooms carry the story under their own named authors and their own text, and their figures match to the decimal.
Apartments are pulling away from houses
The two halves of the market are moving at different speeds. Apartments were valued at a median €2,655 per square metre, 17.0% above a year earlier and 1.1% above July. Houses came in at €1,610 per square metre, up 12.6% over the year and only 0.2% over the month. The gap between the two is €1,045 per square metre, and it widened again in August.
Grande Lisboa sets the ceiling, the interior sets the floor
Grande Lisboa carries the highest valuations in both segments, at €3,487 per square metre for apartments and €2,918 for houses. Measured against the national median, Grande Lisboa sits 51.5% above it, the Algarve 30.2% above and the Península de Setúbal 25.3% above. At the other end, Alto Alentejo is 54.1% below the national median.
Month to month the ranking reshuffles. The Península de Setúbal recorded the largest rise, 1.6%, and it also led the annual table at 20.2%. The Algarve was the only region where the valuation fell, by 1.2%. That is worth noting because the Algarve is the region most exposed to foreign demand, and it is the one that stepped back in August.
Fewer valuations, more expensive ones
Banks carried out 32,650 valuations in August, of which 20,198 were apartments and 12,452 were houses. That is 3.1% more than in August 2025, but 1,403 fewer than in July, a monthly drop of 4.1%. The count reflects mortgage pipeline activity rather than completed sales, so a single month of it should not be read as a turn in transaction volumes.
How this sits next to our own Portugal numbers
Glopra's Portugal row, dated 22 September 2026, shows a national asking price of $3,718 per square metre and a national asking rent of $20.98 per square metre per month from the same listings publisher for the same month, which works out at a gross rental yield of roughly 6.8%. The twelve-month asking-price trend is +17.8% in euro terms and +14.6% in dollars; over five years prices are up 72.3% and over ten years 171.6%. Our bubble score of 84 places Portugal in the high band, the only one of our four risk bands that sits above elevated. Transaction costs run to 11.2% of the purchase price and the standardised non-resident effective tax on rental income is 10%, within a 10% to 25% range. For Lisbon specifically our city row shows $7,218 per square metre and $28.40 per square metre per month, a gross yield closer to 4.7%, with a bubble score of 68.
The two figures are not the same measurement and should not be set against each other. A bank valuation is an appraiser's opinion of collateral value in euro, produced inside a lending process; our number is an aggregate of advertised asking prices in dollars from a property portal. They can move apart for reasons that have nothing to do with the market, starting with the currency. We also carry our Portugal row at Low confidence, which is the honest label for a pair built on listings data. None of this is advice on whether to buy; it is what the two sources say, and where they differ.
Sources: Instituto Nacional de Estatistica (INE), Avaliacao bancaria de habitacao, August 2026, released 24 September 2026, as reported by ECO (Tiago Alexandre Pereira) https://eco.sapo.pt/2026/09/24/preco-do-metro-quadrado-abranda-em-agosto-mas-atinge-novo-recorde-de-2-254-euros/; Dinheiro Vivo (Nuno Braga), 24 September 2026 https://dinheirovivo.dn.pt/economia/habitao-custa-mais-14-euros-por-metro-quadrado-em-agosto-e-fixa-novo-recorde-nacional