Banco de Portugal's Q1 Bank Lending Survey Catches Banks Tightening SME Credit Criteria — Risk Perception Drives the Squeeze, Mortgage Demand Is Forecast to Cool in Q2 Even as the Stock Keeps Growing

Banco de Portugal published its quarterly Inquérito aos Bancos sobre o Mercado de Crédito on Tuesday, 28 April 2026, and the headline result is the first directional shift in the corporate-credit pipeline since the 2024 easing cycle began. The five major Portuguese banks — Caixa Geral de Depósitos, Millennium BCP, Novobanco, Santander Totta and BPI — told the central bank's Q1 2026 questionnaire that they had made credit-granting criteria for small and medium-sized enterprises slightly more restrictive in the first three months of the year, even though demand from the SME segment continued to grow.

The survey, distributed by the BdP at the end of March and aggregated through mid-April, is the Portuguese leg of the ECB's eurozone-wide Bank Lending Survey. It is the first reading covered by the new Conselho de Administração under Governor Álvaro Santos Pereira, who took office on 6 October 2025 and whose private trades drew attention earlier this week when Público reported he bought and then unwound shares in Galp and Jerónimo Martins after taking office.

What the banks tightened. SME criteria moved up the restrictiveness scale; large-company criteria stayed flat; consumer-credit criteria stayed flat; mortgage criteria stayed flat in Q1 but are forecast slightly tighter in Q2. The squeeze on SMEs ran through the maturity dimension as well as the spread on higher-risk loans — both SME and large-corporate spreads on higher-risk lending edged up, while medium-risk pricing eased slightly. Banks attributed the move to two factors: perceção de risco associada à situação económica geral — risk perception tied to the macro outlook — and the company-specific or sector-specific risks that have surfaced in the construction and freight verticals over the winter storms and the Iran-Israel oil shock.

What demand did. SMEs asked for more credit in Q1, mostly to finance inventory and working capital. Large companies pulled back slightly. Households kept asking for more mortgages, with INE's €2,151 per square metre March bank-valuation print and the IMI/IMT regulatory and fiscal regime cited by the surveyed banks as the principal drivers. Consumer-credit demand also rose. The Q2 outlook flips that picture for housing: banks expect mortgage demand to fall, while SME demand keeps growing through the spring even with the tighter criteria in place.

Eurozone comparator. The ECB's parallel BLS aggregate, also published this morning, showed slight easing in eurozone-wide criteria and rising volumes — the Portuguese print is the divergent one. Securitisation activity, which the ECB cited as a tail-wind for eurozone banks, has had no measurable impact on Portuguese balance sheets in the quarter.

What This Means for Expats

• If you run a small business in Portugal: Expect longer credit-decisioning timelines, a sharper pricing tier on higher-risk files, and shorter maturity offers in the second quarter. Working-capital lines that priced inside Euribor+2.5% in late 2025 are already being quoted closer to Euribor+3% on B-rated files.
• If you are house-hunting on a mortgage: Q1 criteria did not move, and the BdP stress-test premium and FINE form work the same way they did in March. The April BLS warns that Q2 should bring a slightly tighter mortgage screen — LTV haircuts on second homes and on non-resident files are the most likely lever.
• Buy-to-let investors: The same Q1 print shows business-lending demand for property-development files holding up. Combined with the 6.3% gross yields Idealista reported for Q1, the implication is that bank financing on rental-investment files is getting more selective, not more expensive on average.
• Macro reading: A divergence between Portuguese and eurozone bank-lending dynamics is rare. The driver here is country-specific: storm damage, slower-than-expected PRR drawdown, and the fuel-price spike since February. Watch the July BLS for whether the divergence persists.

The BdP will publish the next BLS reading at the end of July, covering Q2 2026 and the banks' Q3 expectations. The full Q1 questionnaire and aggregated tables are available now on the central bank's publications page.