Welcome to the Week em Breve, a wrap-up of important Portuguese news to keep you up to date and in the know.
2025 municipal elections
The results from the Sunday election for local government posts, covering city halls, municipal assemblies, and parish assemblies, show the far-right Chega party gaining ground but falling short of its ambitious agenda.
The ruling Social Democratic Party (Partido Social Democrata – PSD) remained in control of the mayorship in Lisbon, despite Carlos Moedas being attacked over the horrific crash of the Gloria funicular that left 16 dead last month.
The PSD will also have mayors in Porto, Vila Nova de Gaia, Sintra, and Braga, among other municipalities.
Among the larger cities, the Socialists only won mayoral posts in Coimbra, Faro, Bragança, and Loures.
In all, PSD picked up an additional 22 city halls.
The Socialists, meanwhile, lost 22 — but declared this election a victory, after the devastating results of the May legislative elections, in which it was knocked from the top two spots it’s held for decades and came in third after Chega.
Overall, the Socialists did win more votes than the other parties in Sunday’s city hall elections (28.6%, compared to 13.6% for PSD-CDS and 11.9% for Chega), as well as municipal assemblies (27.3%, vs. 13.2% for PSD-CDS and 12.8% for Chega), and parish assemblies (28.5%, vs. 13.1% for PSD-CDS and 10.5% for Chega).
Chega, despite wild ambitions, didn’t do as well as planned, but it did win its first three city halls, including the Algarve’s den of sin that is Albufeira, but also Entroncamento in Santarém and São Vicente in Madeira, where the far-right candidate took 49% of the votes, according to Público — although not without alleged incident, echoing other controversies plaguing Chega party members in the past.
Chega boss André Ventura said that the “it was a good night” for the party but that it “didn’t achieve all of its objectives,” according to SIC Notícias.
You can see how each parish voted on Público’s handy data map: https://www.publico.pt/eleicoes/resultados/autarquicas/2025.
Voter participation in the most recent election was the highest since 2005 — nonetheless, abstention was still above 40%, which it has been since 2009, according to data from the internal affairs ministry (Secretaria-Geral do Ministério da Administração Interna – SGMAI).
Abstention varied widely by district, with some areas having fewer than 20% of voters sit out on the sidelines — and in some, more than half of the residents didn’t vote, according to Expresso.
In all, however, close to 3.8 million eligible voters — which in municipal elections includes foreigners with residency permits in Portugal — didn’t take part in Sunday’s elections.
2026 budget proposal aims at lowering taxes
The Portuguese government also managed to squeeze through its budget proposal a couple of days before Sunday’s elections.
The Thursday proposal includes lowering tax rates by0.3% for those earning between €8,340 and €29,400, to 15.7% for those at the bottom of that bracket and to 31.1% for those at the top of it, according to Reuters.
The tax rate would also go down from 20% to 19%, as part of a longer-term goal to reduce it to 17% by 2028, while for companies with annual income of €50,000 it would drop from 16% to 15%.
Moreover, homes bought by those under 36 for €330,000 or less would be exempt from the Municipal Property Transfer Tax (IMT).
Among its key provisions is more autonomy over budgets and operations for the local centros de saude, as well as various structural proposals aimed at eliminating administrative waste, according to Observador.
The Assembly will debate the budget proposal at the end of the month and vote on the final text on Nov. 27, according to the government.
Portugal home prices continue soaring
Portugal had the highest year-on-year rise in real estate prices from April to June: while the European Union average increases in the second quarter was 5.4%, Portugal’s was 17.7%, according to Eurostat news cited by euronews.
Prices grew 15.5% in Bulgaria and 15.1% in Hungary, but only 12.8% in Spain — and just 0.5% in France, according to the report.
