General Daily Briefing — Sunday, 28 June 2026
Selling Property in Portugal in 2026 — A Practical Guide to Capital-Gains Tax (Mais-Valias), the 50% Rule, the Principal-Residence Reinvestment Exemption and the Anexo G Filing
A practical guide to capital-gains tax on selling a home in Portugal: how the mais-valia is calculated, the 50% rule that now applies to residents and non-residents alike, the principal-residence reinvestment exemption, the over-65 route, t…
Importing and Legalising a Foreign Car in Portugal in 2026 — A Practical Guide to the ISV, the Transfer-of-Residence Exemption, the DAV and Getting Your Matrícula Nacional
A practical guide to legalising a foreign-registered car in Portugal: the ISV vehicle tax, the transfer-of-residence exemption, the DAV customs declaration, the Category B inspection and the real 2026 costs of getting Portuguese plates.
Getting Your NIF and Opening a Portuguese Bank Account in 2026 — A Practical Guide to the Tax Number, Fiscal Representation, and the Documents Banks Actually Ask For
Almost nothing in Portugal happens without a NIF and a bank account. This guide explains how to get your tax number, when non-EU arrivals still need a fiscal representative, the resident-versus-non-resident distinction, and which documents…
📋 In This Edition
- Portugal Braces for a 40°C Heatwave as Forecasters Warn of Tropical Nights and Rising Fire Risk
- Portugal Bets Its Below-EU Electricity Prices Will Attract Green Industry Under a New 2040 Strategy
- Back Pain Tops Portugal's Chronic-Illness League as INE Finds One in Three Adults Affected and a Majority Overweight
- Portugal's VAT-Group Regime Goes Live on 1 July, but the Tax Portal Isn't Ready to Enrol Companies
Portugal Braces for a 40°C Heatwave as Forecasters Warn of Tropical Nights and Rising Fire Risk
Portugal's weather service IPMA (Instituto Português do Mar e da Atmosfera, the Portuguese Institute for Sea and Atmosphere) expects a fresh heatwave to build from Thursday 2 July, ending a brief cool spell. Lisbon is forecast to reach around 40°C on Thursday and 39°C on Friday, with tropical nights that stay between 23°C and 26°C; Porto sits near 35°C with 22°C nights, while inland Ribatejo and the Alentejo could touch 40–42°C from 3 July. IPMA classifies an onda de calor (heatwave) as six or more consecutive days running at least 5°C above the seasonal norm, graded yellow, orange and red. Civil-protection authorities are weighing a situação de alerta (alert status) with rural burning bans, and the health directorate DGS (Direção-Geral da Saúde, Directorate-General of Health) has activated its summer heat contingency plan.
Portugal Bets Its Below-EU Electricity Prices Will Attract Green Industry Under a New 2040 Strategy
A despacho (ministerial order) that took effect on 25 June, signed by Economy Minister Pedro Reis, instructs the state to draft an Estratégia Industrial Verde (Green Industrial Strategy) running to 2040 — Portugal's first formal industrial framework since early 2024. The pitch to investors is electricity that runs roughly 30% below the EU average, with agencies including ADENE, IAPMEI, LNEG and the investment body AICEP tasked with capturing the economic value of the energy transition. The strategy is meant to anchor flagship projects such as the €200 million artificial-intelligence gigafactory and an up-to-€10 billion data centre planned for Sines. Officials acknowledge the obstacles — slow licensing, grid bottlenecks, scarce industrial land and skills shortages — against tight PRR and Portugal 2030 funding deadlines.
Back Pain Tops Portugal's Chronic-Illness League as INE Finds One in Three Adults Affected and a Majority Overweight
A new Inquérito Nacional de Saúde (National Health Survey) from the statistics office INE (Instituto Nacional de Estatística, National Statistics Institute) finds low back pain (lombalgia) is the country's most common chronic complaint, affecting roughly 3.2 million adults — about one in three people aged 15 and over. High blood pressure follows at 25.6%, high cholesterol at 23.8% and neck pain at 21.6%, while 57.1% of adults are overweight or obese. The data also expose a sharp gender gap: 37.1% of women report back pain against 26.1% of men, with similar divides for arthritis and neck pain. The survey reframes Portugal's health debate around chronic conditions and primary care rather than emergency-room pressure.
Portugal's VAT-Group Regime Goes Live on 1 July, but the Tax Portal Isn't Ready to Enrol Companies
Portugal's new Regime do Grupo de IVA (VAT Group Regime), created by Law 62/2025, takes effect for VAT periods starting on or after 1 July, letting corporate groups consolidate their VAT into a single net position to pay or recover. To qualify, a dominant company must hold at least 75% of another's capital — enough to command more than half its voting rights — alongside financial and organisational ties. But the rollout hits a snag: the tax authority AT (Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira, Tax and Customs Authority) concedes the Portal das Finanças (Finance Portal) will not be ready in time to process the enrolment declarations, so first-period opt-ins must instead be filed through the e-balcão help desk by the group's certified accountant.
