Portugal's Construction Firms Reach 43.5 Billion Euros in Turnover, and 38 Percent of Their Workers Were Born Abroad, Banco de Portugal Finds

Portugal's construction firms employed more than 427,000 people in the second quarter of 2026, and 38 percent of them were born abroad, up from 15 percent in 2010. That is one of the main findings of an analysis of the sector over the past 20 years, published on 4 November by the Banco de Portugal (BdP, the central bank) in its BPstat statistics series.

The study looks at the firms that build: homes and other buildings, civil engineering such as roads and networks, and specialised trades such as electrical work, plumbing and finishing. It covers 2006 to mid-2026. It does not count homes built, house prices or building licences.

A sector that halved and then more than doubled

Between 2006 and 2016 construction firms lost almost half of their turnover, hit by the 2008 financial crisis and the sovereign debt crisis. Since then turnover has more than doubled, reaching an estimated 43.5 billion euros in the second quarter of 2026 in nominal terms, not adjusted for inflation.

The recovery was strongest in the building of homes and other buildings. According to the bank's chart data, that subsector's turnover fell from about 14.9 billion euros in 2006 to 7.1 billion in 2016 and has since risen to an estimated 21.8 billion. The number of building firms went from 24,034 at the 2016 low to an estimated 37,393, and the people working in them from about 110,000 to 219,000.

Across the whole sector there are now about 64,000 construction firms, mostly micro businesses, more than before the crisis. Yet construction weighs less in the economy than it did: its turnover was equal to 18 percent of GDP in 2006 and 14 percent in the second quarter of 2026.

Who builds, and for how much

The change in the workforce is the sharpest in the study. Using data from the Segurança Social (Social Security), the bank found that the share of construction workers born outside Portugal rose from 15 percent in 2010 to 38 percent in the second quarter of 2026, above the 28 percent recorded across all non-financial companies.

Pay has risen but remains low. The average monthly wage in construction was 1,380 euros in the second quarter of 2026, against 1,527 euros for non-financial companies as a whole. Turnover per worker, a rough gauge of productivity, is still about 35 percent below the average for all companies.

Healthier balance sheets, with weak spots

Firms' finances have improved markedly. In 2025 return on assets reached 10 percent and return on equity 13 percent, the highest in the series and above the average for non-financial companies. Equity funded 39 percent of firms' assets. The share of bank credit to the sector in arrears, which peaked at 32 percent in 2015 and 2016, was down to 2 percent in mid-2026, though still above most other activities.

Weak spots remain: almost one in five construction firms still had negative equity in 2025.

Why it matters for housing

The figures describe the capacity behind the country's housing supply: more firms and more workers than 20 years ago, a heavy and growing reliance on workers born abroad, and productivity well below the rest of the economy. They sit alongside the gap between homes licensed and homes finished that we reported in Portugal Has Finished Only About Two in Three of the New Homes It Licensed in Seven Years, and the planned rewrite of the 1951 building rulebook covered in Portugal Starts Drafting a Successor to Its 1951 Building Rulebook.

The sector tables behind the study are on the bank's BPstat sector pages.