Portugal Rents Can Rise by Up to 2.56% in 2027, on INE's First Estimate

If you rent a home in Portugal, the most your landlord can add under the standard annual update in 2027 looks like 2.56%. The figure comes from INE’s flash estimate of 31 August 2026: the 12-month average of the consumer price index excluding housing — the exact series Portugal’s rental law uses to set each year’s update coefficient — stood at 2.56% in August. The coefficient in force for 2026 is 2.24%, so next year’s update runs a little higher.

Two dates keep the number honest. INE publishes the definitive August index on 10 September 2026, and the coefficient becomes official only when INE’s notice appears in the Diário da República, due by 30 October. Last year’s notice was published on 19 September 2025. Until the 2027 notice is out, 2.56% is an estimate: a good one, but an estimate.

There is nothing to file. What a tenant should do is read the lease, note its anniversary, and know the rules on notice and arithmetic below. The law lets you check a rent-update letter to the cent.

Where does the 2.56% come from?

Article 24 of the NRAU — the Novo Regime do Arrendamento Urbano, the 2006 urban rental law — fixes the formula. The annual rent-update coefficient is the variation of the consumer price index excluding housing over the last 12 months for which INE has figures at 31 August; in INE’s tables that is the series’ 12-month average rate. INE computes it, and a notice (aviso) with the coefficient must be published in the Diário da República by 30 October each year.

That is why an inflation release at the end of August sets the coefficient for the following calendar year. In INE’s flash estimate of 31 August 2026, the table of CPI aggregates gives the 12-month average rate for “all items excluding housing” as 2.56%, up from 2.51% in July. Headline inflation, the number in the news, was 3.3% for August; we covered it, and the fuel behind it, on 1 September. The rent coefficient uses a different cut of the same index, averaged over a year, which is why it sits lower and moves more slowly.

Every figure in the flash release is marked estimated. INE’s definitive August results arrive on 10 September 2026, and the coefficient INE then writes into its notice runs to four decimal places (last year’s read 1.0224), so the final number could still shift by a hundredth of a point or so. For 2026 the notice, Aviso n.º 23174/2025/2, was signed on 16 September and published on 19 September 2025, six weeks ahead of the deadline. If INE keeps to that timetable, the 2027 coefficient would be official in the second half of September.

What does it mean for your rent?

Multiply the current rent by the coefficient — 1.0256 if the estimate holds — and round up to the next cent. The rounding rule is the law’s own, in article 25 of the NRAU. The sums below are ours, not INE’s, and they shift if the definitive figure does:

Rent today	After a 2.56% update	Increase per month
€800	€820.48	€20.48
€1,000	€1,025.60	€25.60
€1,200	€1,230.72	€30.72
€1,500	€1,538.40	€38.40
€2,000	€2,051.20	€51.20

On a €1,000 rent that is about €307 more over a year. ECO’s own worked example lands on the same €1,025.60.

The coefficient is a ceiling for the standard update. A landlord may apply less, or skip the year.

How does 2027 compare with earlier years?

The Portal da Habitação keeps the official table. The last eight years, with 2027 as it stands today:

Year	Coefficient	Update	Set by
2027	1.0256 (provisional)	2.56%	INE flash estimate, 31 August 2026
2026	1.0224	2.24%	Aviso n.º 23174/2025/2
2025	1.0216	2.16%	Aviso n.º 23099/2024/2
2024	1.0694	6.94%	Aviso n.º 20980-A/2023
2023	1.02	2.00%	Lei n.º 19/2022 (a cap set by parliament)
2022	1.0043	0.43%	Aviso n.º 17989/2021
2021	0.9997	−0.03%	Aviso n.º 15365/2020
2020	1.0051	0.51%	Aviso n.º 15225/2019

Two rows matter. The 6.94% of 2024 is what the formula produces after a year of high inflation; 2.56% is higher than the last two years but far below that spike. And 2023 is the year the formula was switched off: parliament capped the update at 2% by law instead of letting INE’s figure apply. The formula can be overridden again; as of 2 September 2026 we have seen no proposal to do so for 2027.

Can your landlord apply it to your contract?

The rules sit in article 1077 of the Civil Code, and they start with your lease. The parties set out in writing whether the rent can be updated and under what regime. If your contract has its own clause (a fixed percentage, a different index, no update at all), that clause governs. Where the lease says nothing, or simply points to the legal coefficient, the default regime applies:

• The rent may be updated once a year, using the coefficient in force. The first update can be demanded one year after the contract began; each later one, a year after the previous update. Your update date is your contract’s anniversary, not 1 January. January matters only because that is when the 2027 coefficient takes over from the 2026 one.
• The landlord must give written notice at least 30 days before the new rent applies, stating the coefficient used and the new rent it produces. A letter that names no coefficient, or a figure you cannot reproduce from it, is worth querying before you pay.
• A skipped update cannot be claimed for the months that have passed. The landlord may, though, apply a skipped coefficient in a later year, provided no more than three years have gone by since it could first have been used. A rent that has not moved for two or three years can, in principle, see those years’ coefficients arrive in a single letter.

One boundary on all of this: it describes ordinary residential leases under the 2006 regime. Older contracts, signed before it, fall under the NRAU’s transitional rules and are outside this post.

What should you do before the letter arrives?

• Find the update clause and the anniversary date in your lease. Those two lines decide whether the coefficient applies and when.
• Diary 10 September for INE’s definitive August figures, and watch for the Diário da República notice from mid-September. The Portal da Habitação table is where the official coefficient is listed once the notice is out.
• When the letter comes, do the sum. Coefficient stated? Rent times coefficient, rounded up to the cent, equals the new figure? At least 30 days between the letter and the first new payment? A year since the last update? If any of the four fails, query it before you pay.
• If you are the landlord, wait for the published notice before you write: the letter has to cite a coefficient that exists. For a 1 January 2027 update, that means posting it by 1 December 2026 — our reading of the 30-day rule, not a date the law names.

What should you do next?

• Working out whether the rent you are quoted is normal? The cost of living in Portugal sets out 2026 rent ranges by city and household — the base any budget should start from.
• Want the headline inflation figure this coefficient is carved from? Portugal’s inflation rose to 3.3% in August, and almost all of it is fuel.
• Weighing buying against another year of updates? Bank appraisals hit €2,240/m² in July — the purchase side of the same market.
• Signing a new lease rather than renewing? INE’s median rents for new agreements sit on our Lisbon and Porto pages — the benchmark for what a fresh contract costs, as opposed to an updated one.

This is general information, not legal advice. The 2.56% is INE’s flash estimate of 31 August 2026; the coefficient becomes official only with INE’s notice in the Diário da República, due by 30 October 2026 — verify it at portaldahabitacao.pt or ine.pt before you act on it, and take a disputed update to a lawyer or a tenants’ association.