Brazilian Visitors Left a Record 657 Million Euros in Portugal in the First Half, and the Traffic Runs Both Ways
Guest numbers rose 5.2 percent and nights 7 percent, but receipts climbed 18.4 percent. Meanwhile the Portuguese have overtaken the French again as the largest European tourist group in Brazil.
Brazilian visitors spent 657.13 million euros in Portugal in the first six months of this year, the most any first half has ever produced from that market. The figure comes from Turismo de Portugal data supplied to the Lusa news agency, and it is rising considerably faster than the number of people behind it.
Portugal took in 534,379 Brazilian guests between January and June, up 5.2 percent on the same period last year. Those guests generated 1.18 million overnight stays, a 7 percent increase. Receipts climbed 18.4 percent. In other words, the spending per visitor went up much more sharply than the visitor count did.
A record that was flagged in advance
The tourism authority describes the 657.13 million euro figure as a historical maximum for a first half. It is not a surprise inside the industry. In April, at the Forum Atlantico de Turismo Portugal and Brasil, staged in Sao Paulo by the Fundacao Luso-Brasileira, the Secretary of State for Tourism, Commerce and Services, Pedro Machado, told Lusa that the data already available pointed "to 2026 beating all records" for Brazilian tourists.
Brazil has been one of the few long-haul markets where Portugal enjoys structural advantages that do not depend on price: a shared language, a dense family network built by decades of migration in both directions, and direct flights from more Brazilian cities than any other European country offers.
The traffic runs both ways, and faster
The reverse flow is growing more quickly still. Portuguese travellers have once again overtaken the French as the largest European tourist group in Brazil, according to Embratur, the Brazilian international tourism promotion agency.
Its president, Bruno Reis, told Lusa last week that between January and July this year Brazil received 5,874,981 foreign tourists, and that 177,956 of them came from Portugal, a rise of 24.9 percent on the same months of 2025. He was speaking at a TAP event.
The full-year comparison is starker. Portugal sent 273,483 tourists to Brazil in 2025, more than 25 percent up on 2024 and the highest annual total since 2007, a year that still holds the record at 280,438. Brazil as a whole received 9.3 million foreign tourists in 2025, a record, and 37.1 percent more than the year before.
What the numbers do not settle
A record half-year in receipts says nothing on its own about where that money lands. Lisbon, Porto and the Algarve absorb the bulk of Brazilian arrivals, and hotel revenue in those three markets has been the subject of steady complaint from residents about what tourism does to rents and to the shape of a neighbourhood.
It is also worth separating two things that often get run together. The 534,379 people counted here are guests in tourist accommodation. They are not the far larger and quite distinct population of Brazilians who live in Portugal, work here and pay into the system, and whose numbers are recorded by an entirely different set of statistics.
What the Turismo de Portugal figures do show is a market that is spending more per head, staying slightly longer, and still growing five years after the pandemic emptied the airports.
