Only Six Portuguese Municipalities Post a Median Income Above €1,000 a Month, and Oeiras Sits Far Out in Front
New INE local-income data for 2024 put the national median at €12,316 — about €880 a month over 14 payments. Only six municipalities clear €1,000 a month: Oeiras (€17,250), Lisbon, Alcochete, Cascais, Coimbra and Vila Franca de Xira. A country richer, but deeply unequal by geography.
Portugal's income map barely shifted in 2024, and a fresh release from the national statistics office shows just how narrow the country's prosperous core really is. According to the Estatísticas do Rendimento ao Nível Local (Local-Level Income Statistics) for 2024, published on 25 July by the Instituto Nacional de Estatística (National Statistics Institute, or INE), only six of Portugal's municipalities record a median income above the symbolic threshold of €1,000 a month.
The national median income reached €12,316 in 2024, up 7.6% on the €11,446 recorded a year earlier. Spread across the 14 payments that are standard in Portugal, that works out at roughly €880 a month for the typical taxpayer — comfortably below the €1,000 line that only a handful of towns manage to cross.
Where the money is
The six municipalities that top €14,000 a year — and therefore clear about €1,000 a month — form a tight cluster around Lisbon, with one outlier to the north:
- Oeiras — €17,250, comfortably the highest in the country
- Lisboa (Lisbon) — €15,188
- Alcochete — €14,889
- Cascais — €14,524
- Coimbra — €14,388, the only non-Lisbon entrant
- Vila Franca de Xira — €14,004
In total, 74 municipalities sat above the national average — meaning the overwhelming majority of the country's 308 municipalities fall below it. The concentration is stark: the Lisbon metropolitan belt and a thin scattering of university and industrial hubs pull the average up, while much of the interior and the south trails far behind.
The 7.6% rise is real progress, and it outpaces the inflation Portuguese households absorbed over the same period. But it arrives against a backdrop of stubborn living costs, as our reporting on the weekly grocery basket tracked by consumer group DECO has documented. It also sits alongside a separate INE finding that household financial wealth has doubled to €402 billion — a reminder that headline wealth and everyday income tell two very different stories.
What This Means for Expats
- Your income is not the local median: Foreign professionals and pensioners typically earn well above these figures. The data explains the pattern more than it constrains you — the same six municipalities that lead the income table are where expat communities already cluster.
- Purchasing power varies sharply by region: A salary that feels ordinary in Oeiras or Cascais stretches much further in the interior, where median incomes are a fraction of the leaders'. If remote work frees you from Lisbon, the arbitrage is substantial.
- Hiring locally costs less than you might assume: If you employ Portuguese staff — for a business, a renovation, or household help — these medians are the realistic benchmark, not the salaries quoted in expat forums.
- Policy is chasing the gap: Wage growth feeds directly into debates over the youth income-tax break and a possible 2027 tax cut, and into why Portugal leans so heavily on immigration to fill jobs local wages struggle to make attractive.
The 2024 figures confirm a country that is slowly getting richer but remains deeply unequal by geography. For newcomers, the lesson is less about the numbers themselves than about what they reveal: in Portugal, where you live shapes your economics as much as what you do.
