Tourist rentals have also become a ‘culprit’ for Portugal’s housing woes. The Portuguese government has approved measures to tackle the increase in short-stay rentals as opposed to traditional rentals by prohibiting the opening of new tourist apartments in Lisbon, Porto and much of the Portuguese coastline, as well as adding a 15% surcharge on the rates they usually pay.
This measure will be imposed on more than 108,000 dwellings for tourist use, which represents about 1.8% of the entire residential stock in Portugal. With this “extraordinary contribution” of 15%, which was originally intended to be 35%, the tourist rental sector joins other sectors such as the energy and food sectors. The tourist rental employers’ association also regrets the possibility opened in the communities of owners to suspend licenses already granted if voted by two thirds of the neighbors of the same building. According to statistics, some 70,000 units are in horizontal properties.
Since February, the Portuguese government has been negotiating measures to curb the increase in prices and rents in view of the difficulty many Portuguese have in accessing housing. In addition to all these initiatives in the face of tourist rentals, the Golden Visa for foreign citizens when investing in the purchase of a property in Portuguese territory was also terminated. Almost 12,000 residence permits in almost 10 years since its implementation.
Another point of conflict was the forced rental of vacant housing, which official agencies concentrate in more than 723,000 units. But the situation has been left as an exceptional measure to be used by municipalities, “as long as it guarantees the social function of housing”.
