Bar chart showing the share of expats in Portugal who rate four areas positively: safety 94, income 75, bureaucracy 20 and jobs 19

Immigration 18 August 2026

Portugal ranks 8th in the world for expats (paperwork and pay are the catch)

InterNations places Portugal eighth of 31 destinations in Expat Insider 2026. Some 94% of foreign residents feel safe and 75% say their income stretches far enough — but only 19% rate the job market well.

Every August a version of this survey lands and people forwarding it to a friend get about halfway through. InterNations has put Portugal eighth out of 31 destinations in its Expat Insider 2026 ranking, behind Singapore and ahead of Luxembourg, in a top ten built mostly from Latin America and Southeast Asia.

The half most people stop reading before is the interesting one.

What the country is winning at

Safety is the standout. Ninety-four per cent of foreign residents say they feel safe here, against a global average of 81%. Thirteen points is a lot, and it is the sort of thing nobody puts in a brochure but everybody notices by the second week.

Money holds up too. Three in four respondents say their disposable income covers a comfortable life, ahead of the 71% global figure, and Portugal takes fourth place in the Personal Finance Index — the same front group as Panama, Thailand and Mexico. One in five moved here specifically to retire, and the average age of respondents in Portugal is 58.7.

Housing is the odd one out. Despite everything Portuguese households are living through, expats surveyed here do not flag price and availability the way they do in other destinations. Read that for what it is: a sample heavy with retirees and senior professionals does not meet the same market a couple in their thirties meets.

What it keeps losing at

Only one in five finds dealing with public services easy. Thirty-five per cent named bureaucracy as a worry before they even boarded the plane, second only to the language — and anyone following how long AIMA cases are actually taking will recognise the queue being described.

Work is worse. Just 19% rate the local job situation positively, and Portugal finishes dead last on whether moving here improved career prospects. That is not a freak result: the visa designed specifically to bring qualified professionals in still cannot be applied for almost a year on.

So is it worth it

Thirty-nine per cent say they would stay forever, against 27% globally. That is the survey’s most honest line. Almost nobody picks Portugal for the career, and the sums still work out.

By Juliana Castilho

Chart: Tugadaily · data from InterNations, Expat Insider 2026

Immigration 17 August 2026

AIMA tracker: deadlines, backlog and updates

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Tugadaily chart with three bars: seven provisions sent to the Constitutional Court in 2025, five struck down, and eleven provisions sent in 2026

Immigration 16 August 2026

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Bar chart: 295 days since Portugal's qualified job-seeker visa was created, against the 120 days it would last

Immigration 14 August 2026

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Immigration 10 August 2026

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Immigration 10 August 2026

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Immigration 8 August 2026

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Tugadaily bar chart of AIMA fees in 2026: permanent residence 351 euros, temporary residence 307 euros and filing 133 euros

Immigration 7 August 2026

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Front of a Portuguese Cartão de Cidadão with personal details redacted

Immigration 7 August 2026

Great-grandchildren of Portuguese citizens now have a written route to citizenship

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Immigration 6 August 2026

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Immigration 4 August 2026

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Immigration 3 August 2026

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Immigration 2 August 2026

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Immigration 2 August 2026

Italy is checking passports on arrivals from Spain again, and it changes how you travel

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Immigration 2 August 2026

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