From January to July, more than 1.3 million Americans spent their holidays in Portugal - more than the Germans, Spaniards and Britons, who are usually the largest groups visiting Portugal. In addition, another trend is clearly emerging: more and more American citizens are choosing Portugal as a permanent place to live, writes the German public broadcaster ARD.
Emigration boom after Trump's election
Gilda Pereira runs an agency that provides services to migrants - for example, arranging visas or helping them find suitable real estate. She can pinpoint the time when many Americans started contacting her agency - in November 2024, shortly after Donald Trump won the US presidential election.
However, the trend is not new - already during Trump's first term, many Americans began to emigrate to Portugal, says Pereira. From 2017 to 2024, the number of American citizens living in Portugal increased more than sevenfold, writes the newspaper Publico. They are now almost 21,000, and the trend is upward, points out ARD.
Preferred retirement location
Christoph and Marybeth Zimmerman are not yet included in this statistic. They moved this year, but they had long been eyeing Portugal as a place to live in retirement. From Washington, D.C. to the quiet Setúbal near Lisbon: the two economists feel welcome and safe, they say after the first few weeks of their move. Pereira's agency has taken care of the formalities and they have been granted a special pensioner visa.
Portugal makes it easy for immigrants like the Zimmermans. And an apartment was also found relatively quickly. "In the US, real estate is extremely expensive, but here the prices are affordable for us," explains Christoph. But this depends largely on individual circumstances, for example which part of the US a person comes from. "We are pensioners. We have saved all our lives," says Christoph in the ARD report.
Local people cannot afford real estate
For many Portuguese, real estate is out of reach, at least in the big cities. Marta and Luis Rodrigues have had to move to a gloomy suburb of Lisbon - across the beautiful bridge, which, by the way, was built by the “American Bridge Company”. The couple are middle-class and earn above average. But since they had children, they can no longer afford to live in Lisbon, says Marta. “People with a lot of money can buy wherever they want, and that drives up property prices.“
According to the European statistical office Eurostat, property prices in Portugal rose by 16.3% in the first quarter of this year compared to last year. This is the highest increase within the EU. And according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the ratio between income and property prices has developed as unfavourably nowhere else in Europe as in Portugal. With a monthly average income of 1,630 euros, the Portuguese are at a huge disadvantage as homebuyers.
Airbnb and hotels are raising prices
And what are politicians doing? The housing shortage is regularly one of the most important issues for citizens in polls before elections. But since the beginning of 2022, the Portuguese have elected parliament three times. Neither the Socialists, who ruled until March 2024, nor the conservative alliance, which has been in power since then and was recently re-elected, have proposed sustainable solutions to the housing problem. For years, they have been attracting investors and real estate buyers from abroad with “golden visas“.
“Builders want to build only in the luxury segment“
At the same time, there is almost no social housing construction, and cooperatives that build affordable housing are having difficulty establishing themselves on the market. Expert Teixeira Lopes complains that in Portugal it is already difficult to build even public buildings such as schools or apartments for the socially disadvantaged. “Even when there is money, builders want to build only in the luxury segment.“
The current government has announced that it will take measures to increase the supply of housing, but for now this remains only on paper. ThereforeLost Generation: Why Young People Flee Abroad locals would have difficulty competing with wealthy immigrants, digital nomads or tourists. More and more Portuguese people are being forced to leave the city centers and move to the suburbs.
Author: Christina Böcker ARD