Category: Real Estate Investment

This section collects the articles published on real estate investment in Portugal — property acquired not as a home, but for income, resale or refurbishment.

The first decision is the vehicle. Buying in your own name or through a company is not a question of form: it determines how income and capital gains are taxed, the exposure of the investor to creditors, the cost and ease of a future transfer, the accounting obligations, and the way the investment is divided among several investors. The right answer depends on the number of properties, the intended holding period, the tax residence of the owners, and whether the exit is expected to be a sale of the property or a sale of the shares. No single structure suits every case, and the structure built for a first property is rarely the right one for a fifth.

The second decision is how the property will be used. Residential letting, non-residential letting and short-term rental (alojamento local) are governed by distinct regimes — of licensing, of taxation and of termination — and the same property may allow some and not others, depending on the use permit it holds and the limits the municipality has set. Misclassifying the activity is one of the most frequent sources of later exposure.

The third decision is the exit, and it reaches back over the other two: the treatment of the capital gain, the available exclusions and reinvestment, and the difference between transferring the property and transferring the company that holds it.

Adjacent sections, within these same publications: legal and tax structuring and real estate due diligence.

The scope of our work in this field is set out on the real estate investment and structuring page. General information only; it does not replace advice on a specific case.