Portugal Starts Drafting a Successor to Its 1951 Building Rulebook This Month, but Homes Are Still Built to the Old Rules
The Housing Secretary of State told MPs the law replacing the RGEU, the 1951 building regulation, enters drafting in November. It then goes to cabinet. Until it takes effect, the old rules apply, and no draft has been published.
The government will start drafting this month the law that is meant to replace Portugal's main building rulebook, a regulation written in 1951. The Secretary of State for Housing, Patrícia Gonçalves Costa, told MPs on Monday that the structure of the new "technical conditions for buildings" will enter legislative drafting before the end of November, Jornal de Negócios reported.
For anyone building, buying off plan or renovating a home, nothing changes yet. The old rules still apply, and no draft text has been published.
What is being replaced
The rulebook is the Regulamento Geral das Edificações Urbanas (RGEU, the general regulation on urban buildings), approved by Decree-Law 38382 of 7 August 1951. It sets many of the basic technical requirements that new and altered homes must meet, and architects and councils still work from it.
The 2024 licensing reform known as Simplex Urbanístico, Decree-Law 10/2024, scheduled the RGEU's repeal for 1 June 2026 and asked the professional associations (the ordens of architects and engineers) to propose the technical rules for a future Construction Code. That date passed without a replacement. Decree-Law 108/2026, published on 29 May, rewrote the clause: the RGEU now lapses only when the new law setting technical building standards comes into force, and the professional associations are to contribute to drafting it.
The timetable
According to Negócios, the Secretary of State said the government is still consulting the bodies that work in construction, including the professional associations and the building industry. Once the draft enters legislative drafting, it goes first to a meeting of secretaries of state and then to the Council of Ministers (the cabinet) for approval. She gave no date for either step, and the government has not announced a public consultation.
What has already changed
Some of the RGEU's most criticised requirements were changed in January 2024 under the Simplex reform. A bidet is no longer compulsory in bathrooms, a shower may replace a bathtub, and kitchenettes, cupboard kitchens and walk-through kitchens are allowed, with the kitchen area able to merge into another room. The new law will deal with the technical rules that remain.
What it means for you
- Projects in progress: plans for a new home or a renovation are still assessed against the RGEU and the other technical rules in force today.
- No content yet: the government has not said what the new law will say on ceiling heights, minimum room sizes, accessibility or the treatment of older buildings, so claims about lower building costs are premature.
- Licensing is a separate track: the procedural side of the reform, covering permits, deadlines and prior notification, already applies. We covered how homeowners in planned areas can now start work on a filed notice, and the government's plan for an AI platform to cut planning waits.
Under Decree-Law 108/2026, the 1951 regulation stays in force until the new law takes effect, which requires cabinet approval and publication in the Diário da República, the official gazette.
