Portugal Drew 186 Foreign Investment Projects in 2025, 5 Percent Fewer Than a Year Before, and Stayed Ninth in Europe as the Continent Fell 7 Percent

Foreign companies announced 186 new or expanded investment projects in Portugal in 2025, down from 196 a year earlier, a fall of 5 percent, according to the consultancy EY. Europe as a whole did worse: the number of projects across the continent fell 7 percent, to 5,026, and Portugal stayed ninth among European destinations by number of projects, the place EY gave it for 2024.

The European figures come from EY's European Attractiveness Survey 2026, released in May. The detail for Portugal comes from the firm's Portuguese edition, the EY Attractiveness Survey Portugal 2026, which was reported by Dinheiro Vivo late on Monday and by Jornal de Negócios on Tuesday. It combines the count of projects announced in 2025 with a survey of 200 international business decision-makers about how they see the country.

The numbers

• Projects in Portugal: 186 in 2025, down 5 percent on 2024, which puts Portugal ninth of the top 15 European countries, behind Belgium and ahead of the Netherlands.
• Expansions: projects by companies already in Portugal rose from 26 percent to 37 percent of the total. Dinheiro Vivo notes that this did not translate into a significant gain in competitiveness against Europe's fastest-growing markets.
• Sectors: 44 percent of the projects were in software, IT services, and business and professional services, continuing the pattern of earlier years.
• Intentions: 57 percent of investors surveyed plan to set up or expand operations in Portugal in the next 12 months, slightly above the European average of 54 percent. Among technology companies the share is 66 percent, up 11 points in a year.
• Energy: 30 percent of respondents named renewable energy as one of Portugal's main competitive advantages, but 44 percent said energy prices make operating harder.

Quality of life remains the attribute investors value most, according to the Portuguese study, and access to capital was the improvement respondents cited most often when asked what the economy needs to attract more investment. In his interview with Jornal de Negócios, Miguel Farinha, who runs EY in Portugal, credited infrastructure, the availability of green energy and talent for the smaller fall, and named the tax framework and access to financing as the areas to improve.

A shrinking European pie

The fall in Portugal is part of a longer European trend. EY's figures show the number of projects in Europe falling every year since 2022, from 5,962 that year to 5,383 in 2024 and 5,026 in 2025. Jobs created by those projects fell faster, by 25 percent, to about 200,000.

The biggest destinations lost the most ground. In its press release, EY reports projects down 17 percent in France, 14 percent in the United Kingdom and 10 percent in Germany, while Poland rose 10 percent, Spain 7 percent and Türkiye 20 percent. It singles out Greater Lisbon as one of the regions bucking the trend, with projects up 11 percent. Across Europe, artificial intelligence projects rose 96 percent and defence projects 84 percent, while healthcare manufacturing fell 28 percent, chemicals 19 percent and automotive 11 percent.

Investor appetite for Europe has cooled: 54 percent of the 500 executives EY surveyed plan to set up or expand in Europe in the coming year, down from 59 percent in 2025 and 72 percent in 2024.

Projects are not money

EY's ranking counts announcements, not euros. Its European Investment Monitor tracks publicly announced projects that create or expand facilities and jobs, found by monitoring news sources, and it leaves out mergers and acquisitions that create no new jobs, hotels and real estate, retail and leisure, utilities and portfolio investment. A small software office and a large factory each count as one project.

The money is measured by the Bank of Portugal, and it tells a different story. Inward investment flows fell about 35 percent in 2025, as we reported in February. The accumulated stock is still growing: the bank's regional statistics put foreign direct investment in establishments in Portugal at 217,446 million euros at the end of 2025, up from 201,346 million a year earlier. Of that, 115,765 million euros, or 53 percent, sat in the Lisbon region and 37,662 million, or 17 percent, in the North.

What it means for immigrants

• Jobs are mostly in tech and services: with almost half the projects in software, IT and business services, foreign investment still favours the roles many English-speaking immigrants already fill in Lisbon and Porto.
• Existing employers are growing: the jump in the share of expansions suggests more of the new roles will come from companies already established in Portugal.
• Lisbon keeps its pull: both EY's count and the Bank of Portugal's stock data point to the Lisbon region as the main destination, with the North a clear second.
• Energy costs are a drag: investors say high energy prices weigh on operations, a cost households in Portugal will recognise.

EY's survey measures intentions as well as results, and the intentions for Portugal are slightly firmer than for Europe as a whole. AICEP (the Portuguese trade and investment agency), which courts these projects for the state, is also under new leadership: Galp's global innovation director took over the agency on 1 October.