Casa Pronta in Portugal in 2026 — A Practical Guide to the Property-Transaction One-Stop Counter, the €375 Single-Act and €700 Multi-Act Tariff, the SIGA Booking Portal and the Compra-e-Venda Route That Replaces the Notarial Escritura

Buying property in Portugal does not require a notary. Since the 2007 Justice Ministry reform that created the Casa Pronta service inside the conservatórias do registo predial, foreign-resident and Portuguese-citizen buyers alike can complete the purchase deed, the IMT and Imposto do Selo tax payment, the mortgage signing and the Predial registration in a single counter session, at a fixed administrative tariff a fraction of the parallel notarial route. Casa Pronta has quietly become the default channel for most Portuguese property transactions and is the operational counter that any foreign-resident buyer should learn to navigate before booking an escritura with a cartório.

What Casa Pronta Covers

The official service catalogue inside justica.gov.pt lists the procedures Casa Pronta is competent to process at a single counter:

• Contratos de compra e venda — the standard property purchase-and-sale.
• Contratos de mútuo com hipoteca — purchase combined with the buyer's new mortgage.
• Contratos de crédito de financiamento com hipoteca — pure mortgage signing on an already-owned property.
• Hipotecas — standalone mortgage constitution.
• Sub-rogação nos direitos e garantias do credor hipotecário — the bank-switching transfer of mortgage rights.
• Dação em pagamento — handing over a property in settlement of debt.
• Doações — gift transfers of property.
• Permutas — property swaps.
• Constituição de propriedade horizontal — splitting a building into autonomous apartment-units (the legal step that makes individual flats tradable).
• Divisão de coisa comum — formal partition of co-owned property.
• Compra e venda com locação financeira — sale combined with a financial-leasing structure.

The bank-switching transferência de crédito route under sub-rogação is the most actively used Casa Pronta procedure for current property owners and is a major driver of the mortgage-market churn the Banco de Portugal mortgage-conduct file has been tracking.

The 2026 Tariff Sheet

The administrative-tariff structure on the official portal sits at:

• €375 — single registration act (one procedure, one property).
• €700 — multi-act bundle (typical compra-e-venda plus mortgage plus registration, in a single session).
• +€50 per additional property on the same act.

These figures cover the Casa Pronta administrative service fee only. The tax and registration components — IMT (the property-transfer tax under the IMT Code), Imposto do Selo (0.8 percent on the purchase price plus 0.6 percent on any new mortgage), and any AT-side cadastral or PAR adjustments — are levied separately and paid at the same counter at the close of the session. For a benchmark first-buyer purchase under the €324,000 IMT-exemption ceiling promulgated inside the May 2026 Habitação Fiscal Package, the IMT line is zero and the buyer pays only the €700 Casa Pronta tariff plus the Imposto do Selo levies.

By comparison, the parallel notarial route is typically €800 to €1,500 for the escritura alone (cartório fee, dependent on price), plus a separate €250 to €375 at the conservatória for the registration, plus the €5 selo dos Notários. The Casa Pronta saving on the administrative layer is therefore on the order of €350 to €1,180 per transaction, before counting the time saved by completing the deed, the tax payment and the registration in one session rather than in three sequential appointments.

How to Book a Session

The booking architecture has moved fully digital. The SIGA portal (Sistema de Informação para a Gestão de Atendimento) at siga.justica.gov.pt and its companion sigaApp mobile application handle the marcação for any Casa Pronta counter inside the conservatória network. A typical booking window runs 10 to 25 working days in Lisbon and Porto, shorter in the Algarve and inland conservatórias outside summer peak. The booking confirms the date, time, conservatória location and the list of documents the parties must bring. Walk-in slots remain available for time-sensitive procedures but priority sits with the SIGA-booked sessions.

The Document Stack

The parties must arrive with the documentary package specified in the booking confirmation. For a standard compra-e-venda this typically includes:

• Civil identification — Cartão de Cidadão for Portuguese citizens; passport plus Título de Residência for foreign residents; certified copy of passport for non-residents.
• Tax identification — NIF for all parties; foreign non-residents who do not yet hold a NIF must obtain one through a Loja do Cidadão or appoint a fiscal representative before the session.
• Caderneta predial — the AT-side property tax registry sheet, valid for 12 months.
• Certidão Predial Permanente — the live property-title certificate from the conservatória, valid for 6 months.
• Licença de utilização / habitabilidade — the municipal-issued occupancy permit, for buildings constructed after 1951.
• Certificado energético — the energy-performance certificate under the ADENE framework, mandatory for any compra-e-venda.
• Ficha técnica da habitação — the technical specification sheet for any post-2004 build.
• Bank documentation — if the purchase is mortgage-funded, the bank's signed mortgage contract template, the credit-approval letter, the insurance certificate (mortgage life-insurance plus property-damage cover) and the disbursement-cheque template.

For non-resident or non-Portuguese-speaking parties, the conservatória requires a certified translation of any document not issued in Portuguese — the same authentication chain documented in the Certified Translations guide and the Apostille and Consular Legalisation guide. A linguistic mediator (oral interpreter) is also required where any party does not speak Portuguese; the cost is borne by the requesting party.

The Procedure on the Day

A standard Casa Pronta session runs 45 to 75 minutes for a compra-e-venda plus mortgage. The conservadora reads the document stack, confirms all parties' identities, walks the buyers and the seller through the deed clauses, witnesses the signatures, accepts payment of the IMT and Imposto do Selo at the counter (cartão de débito or bank transfer in real time), processes the registration at the same counter, and issues the buyer with a title certificate showing the property is now registered in their name. The mortgage signing happens in the same session if applicable, with the bank's representative attending in person or by delegation.

The keys typically change hands at the end of the session or by separate arrangement between the parties; the deed itself is the legal transfer of ownership. Funds flow either through a banker's cheque presented at the counter (the seller's preferred channel) or by SEPA Instant Credit Transfer with the confirmation message displayed to the conservadora.

Casa Pronta vs the Solicitador, the Notário and the Advogado

The Casa Pronta route is the fastest and cheapest administrative channel but it does not include legal advice. The decision tree for any foreign-resident buyer:

• For the deed itself: Casa Pronta is the default. The notarial cartório route remains available and is sometimes preferred when the transaction includes non-standard clauses (escrow, deferred payment, third-party guarantee) that the conservadora may decline to process inside the templated Casa Pronta engine.
• For pre-deed legal advice: an solicitador is the cheaper option for standard purchases (€200-€500 typical retainer); an advogado is the right call for complex transactions, off-plan purchases or any property with a contested chain of title.
• For ancillary acts: certified translation, apostille of foreign documents and authentication of contracts can all be handled outside the Casa Pronta session through a solicitador or directly at the notarial cartório for any documento autêntico requirement that falls outside the Casa Pronta templated catalogue.

Where Casa Pronta Counters Operate

Most conservatórias do registo predial in district capitals operate a Casa Pronta counter, and the SIGA portal lists the network on the booking page. The Lisbon metro carries multiple counters — Avenidas Novas, Lumiar, Olivais, Alfragide, Cascais, Sintra, Loures, Setúbal — and the Porto metro mirrors the density at Aliados, Bonfim, Matosinhos, Vila Nova de Gaia and Maia. The Algarve carries counters at Faro, Portimão, Albufeira and Tavira. Inland and northern conservatórias serve the lower-density transaction volumes through smaller-footprint counters.

The Casa Pronta service complements the broader Loja do Cidadão and Espaço Cidadão network: some Loja do Cidadão sites carry a conservatória predial counter that runs Casa Pronta sessions; others carry only an IRN civil-and-commercial counter, with the predial counter sitting in a separate building.

What This Means for Expats

• If you are buying a first property in Portugal, default to Casa Pronta unless your transaction has non-standard clauses. The administrative cost saving versus the notarial route is €350-€1,180; the time saving versus the three-step notário-AT-conservatória route is two to three weeks.
• If you are refinancing or switching your mortgage to a different bank, the sub-rogação procedure at Casa Pronta is the operationally simplest path, with the receiving bank typically handling the SIGA booking on the borrower's behalf at a tariff covered inside the bank's switching-incentive offer.
• If you do not speak Portuguese, book a linguistic-mediator interpreter for the session and ensure all foreign documents are translated and authenticated through the certified-translations chain before the appointment. The conservadora cannot proceed without the linguistic-mediator confirmation that all parties understand the deed.
• If you are buying off-plan, in a contested-title chain, or with deferred-payment clauses, engage an advogado before the Casa Pronta session; in some cases the cartório-notarial route will be the safer channel for the deed itself, with Casa Pronta reserved for the post-completion registration.
• If you are gifting property to a family member, swapping property with a related party or constituting propriedade horizontal on a building you own, the Casa Pronta tariff sheet covers each procedure at the standard €375 single-act rate, often the cheapest available channel.

The Casa Pronta service has been live since 2007 and is now the operational default for the bulk of the Portuguese residential-property transaction market. For foreign-resident buyers, the combination of the templated counter, the digital SIGA booking and the flat-fee tariff makes it the most predictable channel inside the Portuguese property-paperwork stack — provided the documentary package is complete and the linguistic mediator is in place before the session opens.