Landlords can raise rents 2.5% next year. The number behind it is already set
Portugal's rent update coefficient tracks inflation excluding housing, which came in at 2.51% for July. That is up from the 2.24% applied this year. The official figure lands at the end of August.
If you rent in Portugal, you can already do next year’s arithmetic. Average price growth excluding housing came in at 2.51% for July, and that specific measure — not the headline inflation rate everyone quotes — is what the law uses to cap how much landlords may add to a rent the following year.
In money: a €1,000 rent becomes €1,025. On €600, you are looking at roughly €15 more a month. Not a shock. Still more than last year.
What the increase was this year
The 2026 coefficient landed at 2.24%. July’s 2.51% points slightly above that, which snaps the downward run that had followed the high-inflation years. Worth keeping the scale in mind: at the 2023 peak, the coefficient was above 5%.
It is not official yet
The binding figure comes from INE at the end of August and is confirmed in early September. Only then does the government publish the coefficient in the Diário da República. Until that happens, 2.51% is the best available estimate, not a decision.
Nor is it automatic. A landlord has to give written notice within the period the law sets, and the increase follows your contract’s anniversary date rather than 1 January. Contracts with their own rules — supported-rent tenancies, or leases with negotiated escalation clauses — follow whatever is written into them.
What it says about the market
A 2.5% bump on existing tenancies sits awkwardly beside asking prices on new contracts, which are playing an entirely different game. That is the familiar split in Portuguese renting: sitting tenants move up gently, while anyone searching today pays the market rate. We covered the rents that cooled in June, and the gap has only widened since the rent brake ended on new contracts.
The price indices this calculation rests on are published by Statistics Portugal, which is where the confirmed number will surface first.
For now the practical advice is dull and useful: check which month your lease renews. That, not January, is when the increase reaches you.
Image: Philip Mallis / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
