The Portuguese consulting company Bloom conducted a survey that occurs every year to verify which are the best cities to live, visit and do business in Portugal, and for the eighth consecutive time the capital in Lisbon took the best. The champion stood out in all dimensions, asserting itself as Portugal’s strongest municipal brand, with great international projection for tourists, investors, students, professionals and also rivalling other European cities.

In second place comes the city of Porto, which is the runner-up in the three segments, business, tourism and living. Cascais and Braga are strongly competing for third place, with Cascais taking the lead in the business area and Braga being third for living in Portugal.

What was the method used for this research?

This is a different kind of research; no interviews are carried out and only hard data is used, that is, concrete data such as the number of businesses, the number of nights spent by a traveller, population growth in the city, unemployment rate, purchasing power, crime rate, among others. And all this to rank the performance of the 308 Portuguese municipalities.

The Business and Investment Category

In the business investment category, for example, the percentage of new companies over the total number of existing companies was considered.

The Category of Visits

In the visit category, the hotel occupancy rate was taken into account.

The Living Category

In living, not only unemployment and crime rates were considered, but also the purchasing power of each municipality in relation to the national average, taking into account the percentage of population, so as not to penalise the less populated municipalities.

It is still possible to see which socio-economic component is more important in each city. In the best municipalities to visit, Albufeira rose to third place this year, behind Lisbon and Porto. And followed by Portimão in fourth place Sintra in fifth place, which enters the group of five municipalities with the best results in this tourism indicator, taking the place of Cascais that this year appears in sixth and Funchal that now appears in 8th place to visit in Portugal.

Another study, this one done by the Correio da Manhã newspaper, shows the average salary per district. The data were calculated through the salaries declared to Social Security by the companies and correspond to the salary still without discounts.

What is the Average Salary of a Professional Contractor in Portugal?

The average salary of workers hired by some company here in Portugal was 1,237 Euros in March 2022. Remember that this is the average value, i.e., adding up all the wages received in March by people with an employment contract and dividing by the number of people hired, the average value obtained was 1,277 Euros/month per person.

And many people in Portugal live on just the Portuguese minimum wage, 705 euros.

Which Districts Are Above the National Average?

Only two districts are above the national average, Lisbon with 1,506 euros in Setúbal with 1,323 euros. Porto appears in third place, with 1,227 euros of salary, slightly below the average. And just after comes Coimbra, with average salaries around 1,172 euros.

In the district of Braga the average salary stood at 1,093 euros and in Viana do Castelo 1,042 euros, staying well below the national average. Guarda and Porto Alegre stay at the average salary of 1.007 €, Vila Real and Bragança have the average salary of 1.001 € and the district with the lowest average salary was for Beja, with 990 € of remuneration.

The European Commission has warned that the small difference between the minimum wage and the average wage in Portugal may discourage the Portuguese to invest in education, because, for those who continue studying here, the values add little compared to those who have less study. According to the Ministry of Labour, about 1/4 of workers in Portugal receive the minimum wage.

In the last six years, the national minimum wage has increased around 40%, with the last year’s increase being 40 euros from 2021 to 2022, the highest readjustment until then. Even so, Portugal remains among the European Union countries with the lowest minimum wages, being part of the group of 13 countries with the lowest guaranteed minimum monthly wage.

Will the Portuguese Minimum Wage Increase?

The Portuguese Prime Minister, António Costa, has announced that the gross monthly minimum wage will rise by 45 Euros in January next year (2023), reaching 750 Euros by then, as defined in the Electoral programme of the socialist party.

The aim is to arrive in 2006 with a minimum wage of 900 euros. A report indicating the amount of contributions and taxes that are paid by Social Security was released at the end of May, by the organization for economic cooperation and development, and in it it was announced that single workers, without children and with an average salary in Portugal receive 72% of the gross salary paid, 28% of the gross salary is from taxes and contributions.

The differences are even greater in Belgium, where taxes and contributions accounted for 39.8% of gross wages, and in Denmark, Germany and Lithuania, which were the only countries with rates above 35%.

Which Countries have the Lowest Taxes on Wages?

At the bottom of the list with the lowest average tax rates paid by the worker are Costa Rica, Mexico, Chile and Colombia, all below 10%. In the case of a married worker, who has two children and receives an average salary, the average/net tax rate, already considering there the benefits related to children and tax provisions, was 14.5% in 2021, that is, this worker who has a family in Portugal and receives subsidies for the children, received in 2021 a net salary, after taxes and family benefits corresponding to 85.5% of his gross salary.