Alojamento Local Freeze: New Short Let Licences Blocked in 2026

A Portuguese flat bought for short letting is only worth the rental income if it can get a licence. In Lisbon and Porto, that licence may not be available at all this year.

Decreto-Lei n.º 151/2026, published on 30 July 2026, gives municipalities that had passed 1,000 registered short let establishments until 31 December 2026 to decide on local rules. While they write those rules, it also lets them extend an existing suspension on new registrations, or impose a fresh one.

What did the 30 July decree actually change?

It bought town halls time, and it handed them a pause button. The Diário da República entry for Decreto-Lei n.º 151/2026, issued by the Presidência do Conselho de Ministros on the proposal of the Infrastructure and Housing ministry, summarises the decree as temporary and extraordinary measures to overcome constraints in how municipalities exercise their power to regulate alojamento local.

Alojamento local, usually shortened to AL, is Portugal's licensed short stay rental regime, the category an apartment must sit in before it can legally be let to tourists by the night. Every unit is entered in the Registo Nacional de Alojamento Local, the national register run by Turismo de Portugal.

Reporting the decree on the day it was published, ECO, the Portuguese business daily, sets out the mechanics. The threshold is councils that exceeded 1,000 registered AL establishments as at 31 December 2025. Those councils have until 31 December 2026 to decide on drafting or amending their rules. They may also, once only, extend the freeze on new AL establishments during that window. ECO notes the decree took effect on Friday 31 July 2026.

The freeze is not automatic. ECO quotes the decree requiring it to be taken "por deliberação da assembleia municipal competente, sob proposta da câmara municipal", meaning a vote of the municipal assembly on a proposal from the council executive. The same text limits any suspension to the period strictly necessary to write or amend the rules, and says it must not run past 31 December 2026.

Which places are actually affected?

Lisbon and Porto, above all. ECO reports that creating new alojamento local is currently suspended or heavily restricted mainly in parts of those two municipalities. In Lisbon, according to the same report, the parishes of Santa Maria Maior, which covers Alfama, Baixa, Castelo, Chiado and Mouraria, along with Misericórdia, covering Bairro Alto, Cais do Sodré and Príncipe Real, plus Alcântara, Estrela and São Vicente, have new licences banned outright. Central parishes including Arroios, Santo António and Campo de Ourique operate under relative containment, where new registrations are heavily limited rather than blocked.

That geography matters because it is precisely the postcode range a buyer shopping for short let income tends to search first.

When does a suspension lapse?

On the earliest of four events, all of them listed in the decree as reported by ECO. An extended or additional suspension lapses automatically when the municipal rules on AL, or an amendment to them, come into force; when the municipal assembly votes expressly to end it; when the period set for the extension or the additional suspension runs out; or when the deadline for drafting or amending the rules is reached. That last deadline is the fixed one: 31 December 2026.

This sits on top of a market that is not cheap. Dividing the 9.9 billion euro of transactions recorded by Statistics Portugal, the national statistics institute known as INE, by the 37,745 dwellings it counted sold in the first quarter of 2026 gives an average sale of roughly 262,000 euro. That arithmetic uses two figures from a single INE release, and it is the sum a licence decision can attach itself to.

What this changes for a buyer

The licence question is now municipality specific and time limited, and the answer can differ between two apartments a tram stop apart. Whether a given council has voted a suspension, and whether it has published rules, is a matter of public record at that council, not something visible in a listing.

The direction of travel is not uniform across southern Europe. Spain's Supreme Court struck down its national tourist rental registry in May 2026, which we covered in the registry annulment, and Italy tightened the tax side instead, in the 2026 short let tax rules.

We do not give buying or selling advice, and nothing here says whether a Portuguese short let is a good purchase. What the published sources do support is narrow: the legal deadline is 31 December 2026, the trigger is 1,000 registered establishments at the end of 2025, and any freeze needs a municipal assembly vote. Prices are the other half of the picture, and we covered those in Portugal house prices 2026. AiMYNDi reads the listing, the financials and the legal paperwork for a specific property so you can check the details that decide these questions. You can see an example of what a report looks like first.