Moving to Portugal for 6 Months: Insider tips on finding accommodation

Once you have figured out the Portugal entry visa requirements and obtained a visa that allows you to stay for 6 consecutive months, the next step is finding suitable accommodation for your budget in your chosen location.

Portugal is one of the 26 Schengen Zone countries in Europe. If you are a non-EU-citizen and if you intend to stay for 6 months or longer, you need a long stay or resident’s visa. Apply for these at your nearest Portugal embassy. This usually takes at least 2 months.

Airbnb can sometimes be just as affordable as other options if you follow some cost-saving tips, more of that below. But if your budget is on the low end, you can save a lot of money by looking elsewhere.

This post is all about Portugal accommodations for low and medium budgets, so read on if you’re not rolling in cash. These are the areas we’ll cover:

1. Low-medium budget rentals in Portugal’s big cities
2. Low-medium budget rentals in Portugal’s tourist spots
3. Low-medium budget rental in Portugal’s rural areas

Part of the visa requirements will be proving you have somewhere to stay. You can easily resort to Airbnb for this, making several consecutive reservations. Nothing stops you from cancelling most of these reservations after you arrive (penalties depend on the cancellation policy set by the host – so check these before you book).

1. Low-Medium Budget Rentals in Portugal’s Big Cities

RENT A ROOM IN LISBON OR PORTO

This is by far your cheapest option. You can rent a bedroom in an apartment where the owner lives, or in an apartment with other lodgers. 

For the cheapest offers forget Airbnb; forget other rental platforms such as uniplaces.com aimed at Erasmus students who have chosen Portugal to study for 6 months. Instead, go to the platforms that the locals use when they’re students or relocating, or both: Idealista and OLX. 

Idealista.pt website

Idealista is fast becoming Portugal’s go-to real estate website, not so much because their listings are different to other local platforms but because the navigation is easy and intuitive. Idealista’s standout feature is a responsive map showing each locality clearly delineated. You can point and shoot at the map without prior knowledge of what the area is called. 

Idealista offers an English menu as well as  automatic translation of each listing. This is a welcome feature if your Portuguese is not yet up to scratch. 

Once on Idealista’s homepage, select Rent and Rooms from the drop down menu, enter your city/region and click Search. You’ll be sent to a second page that typically displays a list and a map. On the left is the clickable list of all the different neighbourhoods in your selected region, on the right the clickable map. 

Start by clicking the list, or an area on the map and you’re on your way. In Lisbon, rooms for rent typically start at 250 Euros per month, plus 50 Euros for utilities. This applies to non-tourist neighborhoods that are not far from the center, such as Penha de França. 

Whether the room for rent is in an apartment destined for lodgers like you, or the spare room of a family home, make sure to inspect it. Ask plenty of questions, such as if you can use the kitchen and if you are allotted some fridge space. 

TIP: If the host can’t speak English – usually not the case in Portugal’s urban centres – prepare by Google translating your questions in advance on your phone, or try a voice translation app such as Speak & Translate.

OLX.pt website

OLX.pt is Portugal’s largest online second-hand marketplace and the Portuguese version of Ebay … if Ebay also listed real estate. The OLX homepage might look a bit intimidating at first because it doesn’t offer a menu in English, let alone automatic translation. 

OLX is well-worth a look because it’s popular with locals who haven’t gotten used to fancy websites like Idealista. This means you might find rooms (and apartments) for rent that don’t appear anywhere else. 

In the OLX homepage select “Imóveis” (real estate), then “Quartos para arrendar” (rooms for rent”) or “Apartamentos” (apartments). Or even “Casas de férias” (holiday homes) – more of that below under the Low-medium budget rentals in Portugal’s tourist spots.

RENT A REALLY NICE ROOM/APARTMENT IN LISBON OR PORTO

Let’s not dismiss Airbnb.com for medium budget and for longer stays – and let’s also not dismiss similar but less well-known platforms such as Sabbaticalhomes.com. And of course there’s always the option of renting an apartment the regular way. 

Let me walk you through all these options one at a time.

Airbnb website

Because the Airbnb platform makes it so easy to book accommodation in a stranger’s home, it’s probably what you’ll use for the first couple of weeks in Portugal. But if you thought Airbnb is just for short term rentals, think again.

Airbnb is an excellent option especially in these post-pandemic times, when hosts have emptier calendars and are more willing than ever to negotiate a good deal. Airbnb hosts will often respond favourably if you send them an enquiry requesting a special offer for a longer stay of 3 months or more. 

Hosts know they can save on cleaning and laundry fees on longer stays. This was always the case, but it is especially true now after the pandemic horror year of empty reservation calendars. Whether you’re looking for a tourist-grade room or for an apartment, you’ll probably find plenty of offers on Airbnb. 

Spend a couple of hours sending out enquiries to Airbnb hosts with large gaps in their calendars. 

• Ask them if they would consider a special offer for a longer stay (3 months and over). 
• Address their main worry – will you neglect to clean the place for the full length of your stay? Tell them you are a tidy and conscientious guest. Even if you don’t have many Airbnb guest reviews they have no reason to disbelieve you, especially if you volunteer the information without being prompted.
• Suggest you are willing to pay for a fortnightly clean (about 30 Euros) during your stay. To make things easier you can pay the cleaner with cash. This way the host is reassured they can keep an eye on the place (themselves or via their cleaner) and that the apartment is kept at least moderately clean.

I am an Airbnb host (superhost, if you please) with an apartment in Buraca just outside the Lisbon municipal area. It’s a two-bedroom walk-up in a 1950’s building in a modest street. I would accept 750 Euros per month if the enquiry met the above conditions. 

In Lisbon, for well negotiated medium-term stays on Airbnb, expect to pay about 900 Euros per month for a studio or small one-bedroom in a nice location like Graça. And no less than 1,500 Euros in a premium location like Santa Catarina or Principe Real.

Sabbaticalhomes.com websites

Then there’s  Sabbaticalhomes.com, a home-sharing website that works much like Airbnb but where you will often find homes that don’t appear on the well-known platforms. Read on to find out why.

Sabbatical Homes lists accommodation in many world cities including Lisbon and Porto in Portugal. Hosts might choose it instead of Airbnb because they want to attract guests who want to stay longer than a few days. Listings for one month minimum are common. 

Sabbatical Homes tends to offer more affordable accommodation in premium areas. This is mainly because it requests less legal paperwork from hosts, such as proof of the lodging’s registration with the city’s council (and therefore the taxation department). This means two things:

1. Sabbatical Homes hosts can ask for lower rents because they save on taxes
2. Sabbatical Homes hosts can list their homes in premium tourist areas where the city council is no longer allowing short-term tourist lodgings

Does this also mean you are more likely to be scammed by Sabbatical Homes hosts? I don’t believe so. But you should definitely inspect the home before you agree to anything. You’ll probably be asked to pay the rent by cash or bank transfer. If you’re paying cash, ask for a written statement from the owner (such as via email) saying they received your rent. 

All this is to say that you should definitely browse through the listings on Sabbatical Homes. You might well see if you can find a really good deal in a more premium area. 

The same negotiation techniques with Airbnb hosts we looked at above applies to Sabbatical hosts, and you can add to it the suggestion to pay in cash. 

Going through Sabbatical Homes, you can expect to pay up to 15% less than you would on Airbnb for medium-term stays. 

Rent an apartment the regular way

You can always opt to rent an apartment the regular way. Meaning: searching for an apartment for rent in the real estate websites just like a local, then signing a lease and paying the deposit (“caução”) plus usually 2 rents up front. 

For that, head over again to Idealista and also to OLX and enter a search for “Homes” and “Apartamentos” for rent respectively.

Because you are not a local and lack a “fiador” (person who vouches to pay for you if you default), you might be asked to pay more than 2 rents up front. The more months you can pay up front, the more they are likely to favor you over other applicants.

How do I know? Why, because I rent out an apartment (a different one, but also just outside Lisbon) the regular way and I picked my tenant over others because he offered to pay for 4 months in advance. 

It’s a large 3-bedroom apartment in a 1940s building in a lovely corner of Amadora, a stone’s throw from Lisbon. The rent is 720 Euros per month and the rental contract stipulates I can raise the rent by 2% every 12 months. 

Affordable rental apartments in Lisbon and Porto were notoriously as rare as hen’s teeth in pre-pandemic times, allegedly because Airbnb pushed prices up. They are less rare now but the best ones will still be snapped up quickly.

If you’re looking for a furnished apartment, look for those that are significantly cheaper than those available on Airbnb. Typically the furnished apartments will not be fully equipped with bed linen and crockery and so on, like on Airbnb. So keep in mind the cost of buying those necessities. 

Another thing you need to consider about renting an apartment the regular way is that six-month leases are no longer that common. You might have to commit to one year or longer. 

2. Low-medium budget rentals in Portugal’s tourist spots

RENT AN APARTMENT AT THE BEACH IN ALGARVE

If you want to rent an apartment in one of Portugal’s tourist meccas, like Algarve, you will find plenty of excellent deals in the off seasons – basically all months except June, July and August. 

If your stay overstays those summer months, you might still convince the owner to let you stay by paying a bit more throughout the year, or just for those months.

Either way, head over to Imovirtual.com or OLX.com and search for “Holiday Property Portugal” or “Casas de Férias” respectively. Or even Airbnb – after all, tourist volumes are not close to those of pre-pandemic times and prices are much more competitive than they used to be.

If you are starting your search in spring, the steep prices might initially put you off. Keep in mind most hosts try to make all their income in summer because their homes will likely be mostly empty for the rest of the year. If you tell them you’re interested in a medium-term stay of a few months beyond summer, they’ll be all ears.

For a longer stay in Algarve, you can expect to pay about 800 Euros per month for a one-bedroom (T1 in the Portuguese real estate lingo) with a sea-view or a few steps from the beach. 500 Euros without a seaview or a longer walk to the beach. Nice!

And of course you can also go to Idealista.pt and point and shoot at the Algarve map and search for the regular rental properties under Rent > Homes.

3. Low-medium budget rentals in Portugal’s rural areas

RENT A HOME IN REGIONAL PORTUGAL

You don’t have to go too far from Lisbon for the rent prices to drop off the cliff. Then again, you wouldn’t want to be stuck in a remote village without a car, so your rural Portugal adventure will require a greater initial investment. (You can find second-hand cars for sale in OLX).

Let’s look at Entroncamento, a city in the district of Santarém, that is 1 hour and 29 minutes by train from Lisbon (and about the same by car). You can rent a modern three-bedroom apartment with a garage for 380 Euros per month.

Entroncamento is not rural, given that it’s a city. But I gave the example because it just gets cheaper from there.

Let’s look at Alcains, a beautiful village in the Castelo Branco district in Central Portugal. It’s also serviced by a train that takes you to Lisbon in 4 hours and 39 minutes. At the time of writing you can rent a renovated, nicely appointed two-bedroom apartment for 250 Euros per month in Alcains.

I say at the time of writing not because I suspect the prices will rise soon, but because there are hardly any rental listings for the Castelo Branco region. This is probably less because they don’t exist in great numbers than because advertising your home for rent is more a word-of-mouth process.

This means you might have to rely less on websites and more on asking the locals. Go straight to the local café. There’ll be someone who speaks English who can give you some tips and directions. 

Meanwhile, take advantage of the many Airbnb options in those out of the way regions where hosts are desperate to attract guests. Who knows you can work a good deal with them, too.

Happy Portugal travels!

Related Questions

• How much does it cost to move to Portugal for 6 months?

Without counting travel costs, you can expect the total cost of living in Portugal for 6 months to be between 7,200 Euros (USD 8,650) and 11,640 Euros (USD 14,000), depending on your rent and taking into consideration other living expenses.

• Does Portugal require 6 months on my passport?

If you are a non-EU-citizen and you want to gain entry into Portugal, you will need a passport that is valid for 3 months after you leave. For example, if you arrive on the 1st of January and intend to stay until June, your passport must be valid until the 30th of September.

• How much should I pack if I’m moving for 6 months to Portugal?

For a 6-months stay in Portugal you should pack a medium to large suitcase, plus cabin luggage totalling about 30 kgs (66 lbs). Prepare mostly for mid-season weather (long sleeved shirts, medium-weight bottoms) as well as some warm weather (t-shirts and light-weight bottoms) and cold weather (at least one warm sweater and a jacket or coat). Include walking shoes and smart casual shoes (moccasins for men and comfortable medium high heels for women).

Want to read more about why move to Portugal? Read our article on the main reasons expats love it.

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