Twenty-eight percent. That is the share of all home purchases in Portugal made by international buyers in 2025, according to the Bank of Portugal’s Financial Stability Report released on 27 May. Here in the Western Algarve the story is even stronger: our region captured 42.4 percent of every euro that non-residents invested in Portuguese housing last year.
This is not a spike. The foreign share of purchases has been stable since 2019, moving between 25 and 31 percent. International demand is structural in Portugal, and I work with it every day in Lagos. These are the clearest numbers I have seen confirming what this market actually is: an international market, best served by people who treat it that way.
The Algarve Takes the Biggest Slice of International Money
INE, Portugal’s national statistics institute, breaks down where non-resident buyers purchased in 2025. The Algarve leads on both measures, and it is not close.
- 29.7 percent of all non-resident transactions in Portugal happened in the Algarve, ahead of the North (20 percent), the Centre (14.9 percent) and Greater Lisbon (12.5 percent).
- By value, the Algarve took 42.4 percent of total non-resident investment, nearly double Greater Lisbon’s 22.2 percent.
- The Algarve gained share compared to 2024, while Lisbon recorded the steepest decline in both volume and value.
In other words: when international money buys property in Portugal, it comes here first. The full regional breakdown is in Idealista’s coverage of the INE data.
International Buyers Spend Roughly Double the Local Average
The average 2025 transaction by a Portuguese tax resident was 234,120 euros. EU-based buyers averaged 335,640 euros, about 43 percent more. Buyers from outside the EU, which includes my American, British, Swiss and Norwegian clients, averaged 470,277 euros. That is almost exactly double the resident average.
And 470,000 euros in the Western Algarve is squarely the bracket where most of my work happens: a renovated townhouse in central Lagos, a two-bedroom apartment near Meia Praia, or the entry point for villas in Praia da Luz and Burgau.
Fewer Buyers, Bigger Budgets
Here is the nuance most headlines miss. Non-resident purchase numbers actually fell 13.3 percent in 2025, the third consecutive annual decline, largely because the Golden Visa property route ended in 2023 and the old NHR tax regime was replaced by the stricter IFICI framework in 2024.
And yet total foreign investment in Portuguese property hit a record 3.9 billion euros in 2025, up 10 percent on the year, according to the Bank of Portugal. Fewer buyers, bigger budgets. The incentive-driven volume has gone and the committed lifestyle buyer remains. That is precisely the buyer the Western Algarve attracts, and exactly the profile I meet at viewings from Lagos to Sagres.
What This Means If You Are Buying or Selling Here
If you are buying from abroad: you are not a guest in this market, you are the market. Almost three in ten purchases nationally involve a foreign buyer, and competition from other non-residents has thinned for three years running. Well-priced homes in Lagos, Praia da Luz and Burgau still move quickly, but the frenzied bidding of 2022 and 2023 has eased.
If you are selling: your most likely buyer is international, almost certainly paying more than a local buyer would, and probably starting their search from another country. The practical question for any seller in the Western Algarve is simple. Does your agent reach that buyer, in their language, through their channels?
Built for International Clients, Not Adapted for Them
This data is the reason SunnySteve works the way it does. I am Steve Marqué, a licensed real estate agent in Lagos, Western Algarve, specialising in expat and international buyers, brokered by eXp Realty, with 25 years of real estate experience. International clients are not a sideline of my practice. They are the practice. That is what The Expat’s Agent means.
In practice it looks like this: viewings and updates that work across time zones, documentation explained in plain English, a tested network of English-speaking lawyers, tax advisers and currency specialists, and support that continues after the deed is signed, because settling in matters as much as buying well.
Being brokered by eXp Realty puts more than 82,000 agents across 29 countries behind that service. When a buyer in Boston, Amsterdam or Manchester starts thinking about the Algarve, there is often an eXp colleague in their home market who can connect them to me directly. In a market where 42 percent of the invested money is international, that network is not a nice-to-have. It is the infrastructure.
Why Buyers Keep Choosing the Algarve
One more thing the headlines tend to miss. Yes, prices here have climbed impressively. But even after those increases, the Algarve remains attractively priced next to comparable coastal markets in Europe: prime stock here still costs a fraction of what you would pay on the French Riviera or in the better-known Spanish and Italian coastal enclaves. Idealista’s comparison of Portugal with other European destinations makes the gap clear.
And yet price is rarely what closes the decision. What really drives my buyers is the quality of life and the security. Portugal sits consistently among the safest countries in the world, and daily life in Lagos, Praia da Luz or Burgau has a calm that is hard to put a number on. People come for the value. They stay for the life.
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