Short-term rental yield

Under the simplified regime of Portuguese income tax, the taxable amount is not the profit: it is a fixed percentage of gross income, set by statute. The coefficient stands in place of deducting costs, which means platform commission and cleaning reduce what reaches you but do not reduce the tax.

The IRS Code expressly excludes alojamento local in a house or apartment from the lower coefficient that applies to hotels and restaurants. Outside a containment area the coefficient is 35%; inside one it is 50%.

Containment areas, áreas de contenção, are drawn by each municipality to limit the spread of short-term rental, and they cover much of central Lisbon and Porto, precisely where the activity is most sought after. Toggling that switch in the simulator moves the tax by more than a thousand euros in an ordinary scenario, and confirming which side of the line your address falls on is the first thing to do at the town hall.

Both columns use the same property and the same annual charges, so the only difference is the way it is let. On one side, income per night less commissions, cleaning and tax by coefficient. On the other, monthly rent less the same charges and income tax on rental income.

What the comparison cannot capture, and it is worth saying plainly, is the work. A long-term letting takes a few hours a year; a short-term rental takes a few hours a week, between bookings, cleaning, messages and the things that go wrong. Where the gap in result is small, it is the work that decides.

The second figure to treat with suspicion is occupancy. It moves the result more than anything else and you control it least: it depends on location, on season, on whatever opens up down the street and on how well the place is run. Simulate a cautious scenario before relying on a good one.

Registration and municipal rules. Alojamento local requires a registration number, and there are areas where no new ones are issued, condominiums entitled to object, and caps per building. None of that is checkable by a simulator, and any of it can stop the operation before the arithmetic even becomes interesting.

Self-employed social security contributions, a real and recurring cost of running the activity. And the option, available each year under the law, of being taxed under the rules for rental income instead, which in some cases works out better and deserves its own calculation.

The register of this page is deliberately neutral. Short-term rental suits some properties well and others badly, and the answer depends on the property, the area and who will run it. This is neither an endorsement nor a warning: it is a calculation.

The tax figures in use are those in force in 2026 and are reviewed annually.