Host Families for Older and Disabled Adults Will Be Paid 356.24 Euros a Month for 2026, With the 2025 Rise Set Nine Months Late
An order published on Tuesday raises the fee paid to families who take older or disabled adults into their homes, for 2025 and 2026 at once. The fee is up 9.8 percent on 2024, and the 1991 law says it should be updated every year.
Families in Portugal who take older people or adults with disabilities into their own homes will be paid more, for two years at once. Despacho (order) n.º 11880/2026, published in the Diário da República (official gazette) on Tuesday, sets the monthly fee under the acolhimento familiar (family placement) scheme at 356.24 euros per person for 2026, backdated to 1 January. It also sets the 2025 fee, at 340.25 euros, for the whole of last year.
The rates it replaces date from Despacho n.º 15034/2024 of 20 December 2024. The fee rises 4.9 percent for 2025 and a further 4.7 percent for 2026, or 9.8 percent over the two years. The monthly allowance for the person's upkeep rises by the same proportions.
| Monthly amount per person hosted | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fee for the family's services | 324.36 € | 340.25 € | 356.24 € |
| Fee for a person with high dependency | 648.72 € | 680.50 € | 712.48 € |
| Allowance for upkeep | 320.43 € | 336.13 € | 351.93 € |
For 2026, a family hosting one person therefore receives 708.17 euros a month in fee and upkeep together, or 1,064.41 euros if the person is proven to have high dependency (grande dependência).
The 2025 rise comes late, and not for the first time. The decree that created the scheme says the amounts are set by ministerial order and are "subject to annual updating". Yet the 2024 rates were only published on 20 December 2024, backdated to that January. No update came at all during 2025: the 2025 rates were signed on 18 and 21 September 2026, by the Secretaries of State for Social Security and for Social Action and Inclusion. The order does not say when families will receive the difference owed for 2025 and the first nine months of 2026.
How the scheme works
Family placement was created by Decreto-Lei n.º 391/91 (Decree-Law 391/91) as an alternative to care homes. Under the decree as first published, private households take someone into their home, temporarily or permanently, full-time or part-time. The person must be aged 60 or over, or be an adult with a disability, and be in a situation such as dependency, isolation without family support, very precarious housing or abuse. A family should in principle host no more than two people, or three where justified, and the person must agree in writing.
Families are selected, trained and supervised by an instituição de enquadramento (supervising institution): the social security system, Lisbon's Santa Casa da Misericórdia or a charity working with them.
The person hosted pays part of the cost: up to 70 percent of their net monthly income, not counting holiday and Christmas payments, and never more than the fee and upkeep combined. That contribution goes to the supervising institution. Medicines, clothing, footwear and hygiene products are paid separately by the person or their family. If they cannot afford them, the Instituto da Segurança Social (Social Security Institute) district centre can help after assessing the case, including with assistive products.
The order gives no count of families or people in the scheme, and we found no official figure. It adds to the options for relatives weighing care at home, alongside the informal carer status, at a time when continuing-care beds are closing.
Sources: Despacho n.º 11880/2026, Diário da República, 2nd series, no. 189, 29 September 2026; Despacho n.º 15034/2024, 20 December 2024; Decreto-Lei n.º 391/91, 10 October 1991, Articles 1 to 10 and 13 (original text).
Feature image: an older woman's hands crocheting. Photo by Miluša Snidová (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons.
