Remote Work Now Spans 1.15 Million Portuguese Workers, Concentrated in Greater Lisbon
Teleworking reached 1.15 million people in the second quarter, its highest share since 2023. Greater Lisbon leads at 34.5%, while the Azores trail at 9.2%.
Remote work has settled in as a permanent feature of Portugal's labour market rather than a pandemic-era hangover. In the second quarter of 2026, some 1.15 million people did at least part of their job from home, according to the Inquérito ao Emprego (Labour Force Survey) published by the Instituto Nacional de Estatística (Statistics Portugal). That is the highest relative level recorded since the third quarter of 2023, up 0.2 percentage points on the previous quarter and 0.4 points on the same period a year earlier.
An analysis of the figures by Randstad Research puts teleworkers at 21.3% of everyone in employment — a little over one in five — with the hybrid model, splitting the week between home and office, doing most of the heavy lifting. The pattern is far from evenly spread. Remote work is concentrated in business administration, financial services and technology, precisely the desk-bound, internationally connected sectors that also draw many foreign professionals to Portugal.
Geography sharpens the divide. Greater Lisbon is the clear leader, with 34.5% of its workers logging on remotely, while the Azores register the lowest incidence at 9.2%. The capital's mix of corporate headquarters, banks and tech firms — and its status as a magnet for so-called digital nomads — helps explain why the practice clusters there.
The teleworking numbers arrive alongside a broader picture of a tightening jobs market. Total employment climbed to almost 5.4 million people, and the survey pointed to firmer contractual stability: permanent contracts rose by 62,400 over the quarter and by 147,700 year on year, pushing the share of temporary work down to 14.5%. Portugal's unemployment rate, reported separately, has fallen to 5.3%, its lowest since 2011.
Pay is shifting at the top of the scale, too. The number of employees taking home 3,000 euros or more net each month has nearly doubled in two years, from about 71,000 in mid-2024 to roughly 125,000 now. The gains are lopsided: men make up close to seven in ten of that highest-earning group, services account for nearly four-fifths of it, and Greater Lisbon and the North together hold about two-thirds.
Yet the overall wage structure remains anchored in the middle-to-lower brackets. The most common band is still 900 to 1,200 euros net a month, which covers 34.1% of all salaried workers — about 1.56 million people. In other words, a widening slice of well-paid, remote-capable roles sits atop a labour market where the typical monthly pay packet has barely crossed the 1,000-euro mark.
For the many residents and newcomers who work for employers abroad or run hybrid schedules from Portuguese cities, the data confirms what daily life already suggests: remote and hybrid working are now woven into the country's economy, but they remain a Lisbon-and-tech story more than a nationwide one.
