One in Seven Crime Victims in Portugal Is Now Over 65, With 44,161 Elderly Targeted in 2025

Crime against Portugal's oldest residents is rising faster than crime against everyone else. New figures show that the number of people aged 65 and over recorded as crime victims climbed to 44,161 in 2025, up from 33,850 in 2020 — a 30.5% increase over six years, and a steeper rise than the 19.9% recorded for the rest of the population over the same period.

The data come from a bulletin published by the Direção-Geral da Política de Justiça (Directorate-General for Justice Policy, or DGPJ), which compiles reports from the country's three main policing bodies: the Polícia de Segurança Pública (Public Security Police, or PSP), the Guarda Nacional Republicana (National Republican Guard, or GNR) and the Polícia Judiciária (Judicial Police, or PJ). Taken together, the police logged 237,766 victims aged 65 or over between January 2020 and December 2025.

Older people are also becoming a larger share of all victims. Those aged 65-plus accounted for 14.2% of recorded crime victims in 2020; by 2025 that had risen to 15.3%, or roughly one in every seven victims. The 10.5-percentage-point gap between how fast crime against the elderly grew and how fast it grew for everyone else is the striking part: whatever is driving the overall increase is hitting older residents harder.

The pattern of offending is dominated by property crime rather than violence. Crimes against property — chiefly theft (furto) and fraud or swindling (burla) — made up 68% of offences against the elderly in 2025, up from 65.8% in 2020. Crimes against the person, such as assault and homicide, accounted for 27.5%, down slightly from 29.1%, with the remainder spread across other categories. The shift toward scams and theft points to older people being targeted for their perceived vulnerability and, increasingly, through fraud rather than physical confrontation.

The findings arrive in a summer when Portugal's older population is already under strain from other directions. Two recent heatwaves were tied to some 123 excess deaths, almost all among the over-85s, and the country has just crossed 11.4 million residents with an age profile that keeps tilting older — the same demographic pressure the EU cites when it warns about long-term public-service sustainability.

What This Means for Expats

• Fraud is the main threat: With property crime and swindling driving the rise, the biggest risk to older residents is not street violence but scams — bogus phone calls, fake utility or bank messages, and doorstep con artists. Treat any unsolicited request for card details, transfers or codes as suspicious.
• Know how to report: Crimes can be reported to the PSP in cities or the GNR in rural areas; both run dedicated support for older and vulnerable victims. The national emergency number is 112.
• Look out for older neighbours: Isolated retirees are the prime targets. If you live near elderly expats or Portuguese neighbours, a simple habit of checking in makes them far harder to defraud.
• Secure the basics: Simple measures — not confirming personal details to cold callers, using verified banking apps, and being wary of "official" visitors without appointment — cut exposure to the exact crimes that are rising fastest.

The numbers do not, on their own, tell us whether more crime is happening or more of it is being reported — greater awareness and easier reporting can push the figures up too. But the consistent gap between the elderly and everyone else, sustained across six years and three police forces, is hard to dismiss. In an ageing country, protecting older residents from fraud is shaping up to be a policing priority the state cannot keep treating as an afterthought.