Nearly Two Million Portuguese Households Carry Debt, and Half of Them Hand Over at Least 15 Percent of Their Income to Repay It
About 42 percent of households in Portugal were repaying debt in 2024, most often a mortgage, and the burden peaks between 35 and 44. What the corrected survey shows, and the PARI, PERSI and RACE help available if repayments slip.
About 1.9 million of Portugal's 4.5 million households, or roughly 42 percent, were paying off some kind of debt in 2024, and for half of them the repayments took at least 15 percent of their net income. The figures come from a profile of household money published on Saturday, World Savings Day, by the Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos (FFMS) and its statistics portal Pordata.
The numbers are not new data: they draw on the fifth Inquérito à Situação Financeira das Famílias (ISFF, the Household Finance and Consumption Survey), run by the statistics institute INE and the Banco de Portugal with interviews between March and June 2024. The survey was first released on 28 May and republished on 5 August, when INE corrected the weights used to scale the answers up to the whole population, Lusa reported via RTP. INE said the correction cut 2024 household wealth by about 7 percent on average but did not change the survey's conclusions. The FFMS profile uses the corrected figures, which give the clearest picture yet of who owes what.
Who owes, and how much
- Mortgages lead. A loan on the family home is the most common debt, held by 24.7 percent of households, according to the FFMS figures reported by ECO.
- Other borrowing. 18.7 percent have loans not secured on property, such as car or personal loans, and 10.3 percent owe on credit cards, credit lines or bank overdrafts.
- Fewer borrowers than in 2020. The share of indebted households fell by about five percentage points from the previous survey, mainly because fewer families now have a mortgage, ECO reported.
- The squeeze is in early middle age. Where the head of household is 35 to 44, 64.9 percent have debt and the median repayment takes 17 percent of net income, against 15 percent across all indebted households. Half of indebted families in that age group owe at least 181 percent of a year's income.
INE and the Banco de Portugal note in the survey that, measured against income and assets, the share of heavily indebted households in 2024 was lower than in 2010 and 2013, helped by lower debt, higher incomes and rising house prices. But repayments have grown as a share of income since 2020, when interest rates were exceptionally low.
What it means for you: help if repayments slip
Portuguese law gives borrowers a set route with their bank under Decreto-Lei n.º 227/2012 (Portuguese only). It covers mortgages, consumer credit, credit cards and overdrafts.
- PARI (Plano de Ação para o Risco de Incumprimento, the action plan for risk of default): if you tell your bank you are struggling before you miss a payment, it must assess your situation and, where you can still pay, offer suitable proposals such as renegotiating or consolidating loans.
- PERSI (Procedimento Extrajudicial de Regularização de Situações de Incumprimento, the out-of-court procedure for arrears): once you are behind, the bank must bring you into this procedure between the 31st and 60th day after a missed payment, or earlier if you ask in writing. While it runs, the bank cannot terminate the contract or take you to court to recover the debt.
- RACE (Rede de Apoio ao Cliente Bancário, the bank-customer support network): recognised organisations give free, confidential advice, help you weigh the bank's proposals and go with you to negotiations. The Direção-Geral do Consumidor (consumer directorate) keeps the updated list of RACE offices.
See also our reports on the saving rate slipping to 12.1 percent as household debt topped 187 billion euros, and on mortgage payments resetting this month.
