The Health Regulator Has 368 Beauty Clinics Queued for Inspection and Has Managed 223 Since 2023
Two establishments were shut down in the first half of this year, both over people performing medical procedures they are not qualified to perform. Those files go to the prosecutor.
Portugal's health regulator has been getting more and more complaints about beauty clinics, and the substance of them is consistent: that procedures which count as healthcare are being performed by people not qualified to perform them, in premises that do not meet the legal requirements for opening, operating or carrying on the activity.
The Entidade Reguladora da Saúde has now published its running tally. Between 2023 and the end of the first half of 2026 it carried out 223 inspections of aesthetic establishments: 67 in 2023, 55 in 2024, 82 in 2025 and 19 in the first six months of this year.
Where the inspectors went, and what they closed
This year's 19 inspections fell in four districts: Lisboa (eight), Santarém (six), Porto (three) and Castelo Branco (two). The regulator says it picks targets on the seriousness of what has been reported and the risk to users' health and safety, on requests for cooperation from the food and economic safety authority ASAE and from the medicines regulator Infarmed, and on the opportunity presented by other fieldwork already under way.
Two establishments were hit with precautionary suspension of activity in the first half of 2026, taking the total since 2023 to 21. In most cases the trigger was the same: the identification of professionals not qualified to practise the health care linked to aesthetics that they were practising. Those cases are also referred to the Ministério Público, the regulator notes, with a view to whether a criminal offence has been committed.
Two orders prohibiting the practice of care being improperly delivered were issued in the first six months. Since the monitoring began, the ERS has issued eight such orders: seven prohibiting practice and one ordering an establishment closed permanently.
The scale behind the inspections
The numbers that put the enforcement in proportion are the complaints. In the first half of 2026 alone the regulator received complaints about 41 establishments. Since the specific action plan for the sector was approved on 1 April 2022, it has received complaints about 476. Of those analysed to the end of June 2026, the ERS concluded that 368 establishments warranted an inspection.
Set against 223 inspections actually carried out, that is a queue rather than a backlog cleared.
The plan covers establishments delivering health care linked to aesthetics: the application of botulinum toxin, hyaluronic acid and biostimulators among them. These are the procedures marketed in the language of beauty and regulated in the language of medicine, and the gap between the two is precisely where the complaints sit.
What to check before you book
The regulator has also fielded 535 requests for information and clarification since the plan began, about the professional qualifications required to carry out these procedures and about the legal requirements applying to the premises. The busiest year was 2024, with 152 such requests. The first half of 2026 brought 97, a figure the ERS suspects is connected to the launch of a joint campaign called Não é só estética. É saúde ("It is not just aesthetics. It is health"), run with ASAE, the Direção-Geral do Consumidor and Infarmed.
The campaign's point is the one worth taking away. An injectable is a medical act. The person holding the syringe needs to be qualified to perform it, and the premises need to be registered to host it, and both of those are things a prospective client is entitled to ask about before sitting down.
