Portugal's Space Sector Added €2.4 Billion to the Economy Over Five Years, a Government-Commissioned Study Concludes
A Novaspace study for the Portuguese Space Agency finds space activities added €1.2 billion directly to GDP from 2019–2024 and €2.4 billion in total value, with every euro generating another €1.17 — even as the sector stays tiny at 0.03% of GDP.
Portugal's space industry is still tiny — but it punches well above its weight. Between 2019 and 2024, space activities added €1.2 billion directly to national output and, once supply chains and worker spending are counted, generated an estimated €2.4 billion in total economic value, according to a new study for the Agência Espacial Portuguesa (Portuguese Space Agency, known as PTSpace).
The report, prepared by the specialist consultancy Novaspace, is the first attempt to measure what has grown up since Portugal adopted its Portugal Space 2030 strategy in 2018 and created a dedicated space agency the following year. Its headline finding is a multiplier effect: for every euro the sector adds directly to GDP, another €1.17 ripples out through the wider economy.
A high-value ripple effect
That gives the space sector a total economic multiplier of 2.17 — higher than agriculture, at 2.01, though still short of construction's 2.80. For an industry that barely registers in the national accounts — space accounts for just 0.03% of GDP — the finding is a talking point for officials arguing that public money spent here works harder than it looks.
The multiplier is "a clear signal of the dynamism of national supply chains" for a cutting-edge industry, said Joan Alabart, entrepreneurship manager at PTSpace.
Small companies, concentrated revenue
The sector remains structurally fragile. More than 150 entities are associated with space in Portugal, of which some 80 are active companies employing around 4,000 people. Activity clusters around Lisbon, Coimbra and the Porto region, and the firms are overwhelmingly small: none employs more than 200 people in space-related work.
Concentration is the other vulnerability. Roughly 76% of the sector's revenue is generated by just 14 companies, leaving a long tail of start-ups dependent on public contracts and European programmes to survive their early years.
Betting on a bigger orbit
Ambition, though, is not in short supply. Portugal has committed €204.8 million to the European Space Agency (ESA) for the 2026–2030 period, a 51% increase on its previous pledge, signalling that Lisbon wants a larger seat at Europe's space table.
A separate, more bullish study by the Boston Consulting Group for the New Space Alliances industry group argues that €4 billion of investment through to 2040 could lift the sector from a curiosity to a genuine pillar of the economy — creating around 27,000 direct and indirect jobs, 6,000 of them highly qualified, and building an annual space economy worth €2 billion. On that trajectory, space's share of GDP would climb from 0.03% today to roughly half a percent.
Whether Portugal reaches that orbit depends on sustained funding and on turning a handful of successful firms into a broader base. For now, the Novaspace numbers make a narrower but concrete case: even at its current modest size, the space sector already returns more to the Portuguese economy than the raw figures suggest.
