What buying a home costs on top of the asking price

People compare listings by price. People signing a deed pay the price plus four items nobody advertises: IMT transfer tax, stamp duty on the acquisition, stamp duty on the loan if there is one, and the cost of the deed and registrations. None of them is negotiated with the seller, none depends on the agency, and none is an estimate: they are published tables applied to the purchase value.

That is why the real figure can be worked out before the viewing rather than after the offer. Two homes with the same asking price can differ by thousands of euros if one is your own permanent home and the other is a second property — the table is not the same, and the difference starts at the very first bracket.

This guide shows the tables in force and how they apply. It is not tax advice and does not replace the tax authority simulator or the Modelo 1 IMT return, which is the document that actually assesses the tax before the deed.

• IMT. Municipal tax on transfers of property for consideration. It is progressive, and the table depends on what the home is for.
• Stamp duty on the purchase. 0.8% on the same value the IMT applies to, with no brackets and no floor.
• Stamp duty on the loan. 0.6% on the amount borrowed, where the loan runs for five years or more. With no mortgage, this item does not exist.
• Deed and registration. At the Casa Pronta desk, €375 for a single registered act and €700 for more than one. The private notary route with separate registrations can cost more.

Article 12 of the IMT Code is short and decides everything that follows: the tax applies to the value stated in the deed or contract, or to the property’s rateable value, whichever is higher. The price you agreed with the seller is only one of the two candidates.

The rateable value — the VPT — is the value the tax register assigns to the property, and it appears on the caderneta predial. In most purchases it is lower than the agreed price, and then the price governs. But in older homes with a recent revaluation, or in purchases made below market value, the VPT can be the higher figure, and then that is what you pay on, even though you paid the seller less.

Ask for the caderneta predial before doing any maths. It is free to the owner on the tax portal and the seller can supply it; it tells you which of the two values will drive the assessment. Stamp duty on the acquisition uses the same base, for the same reason: item 1.1 of the general table applies to the value the IMT applies to.

One practical consequence catches many buyers: declaring a lower price does not push the tax below the VPT. Besides being tax fraud, it does not work — the base has a floor.

If the property is missing from the register or listed without a rateable value, the VPT is determined under the IMI Code before assessment.

Article 17 of the IMT Code sets three housing tables for mainland Portugal. The first covers an own permanent home; the second, a first own permanent home bought by someone aged 35 or under who meets the remaining conditions; the third, all housing not covered by the first two — a second home, a rental, a holiday flat. The young buyers’ table has its own guide on this site.

Reading them is always the same operation: find the bracket the value falls in, multiply the value by that bracket’s marginal rate, and subtract the amount to deduct. That deduction exists so that crossing from one bracket to the next does not create a step: buying one euro above a bracket ceiling costs a few cents more, not a whole new bill.

Above €660,982 for an own permanent home, and above €633,931 for other housing, progressivity ends: a flat rate applies to the entire value, 6% up to €1,150,853 and 7.5% above that. Here the step is real, and it is large — the one point in these tables worth checking with a calculator before making an offer.

A €150,000 purchase as an own permanent home, with no mortgage: the value falls in the 2% bracket, IMT is €1,008.98, stamp duty on the acquisition is €1,200.00, and the Casa Pronta desk charges €375.00. Total on top of the price: €2,583.98.

The same home at €289,000 with a €231,200 mortgage: IMT rises to €9,772.04, purchase stamp duty to €2,312.00, loan stamp duty of €1,387.20 joins them, and the desk charges €700.00 for registering more than one act. Total: €14,171.24 — close to 5% of the price, and not one euro of it can be borrowed.

The same home at €450,000 bought as a second property: a different table, and the first bracket already charges 1%. IMT is €23,300.11, against €22,236.65 if it were an own permanent home. The gap — €1,063.46 — is the price of the home not being where you live.

These three figures come from the same function the site’s calculator runs. They are not rounded and they are not averages: they are the tables applied to the value given.

Item 1.1 of the general stamp duty table taxes the acquisition of property for consideration at 0.8%, on the same value the IMT applies to. It has no brackets, no general value exemption, and it is paid at the same time as the IMT, before the deed.

Item 17.1.3 taxes the use of credit running five years or more at 0.6% on the amount borrowed. Nearly all home loans fall here. Borrow less and you pay less duty: on a €231,200 loan it is €1,387.20, and every ten thousand euros less of principal saves €60.00.

They are two items with different bases: one falls on the property, the other on the loan. A cash buyer pays the first and not the second. Moving an existing loan to another bank does not trigger item 1.1, because there is no acquisition — but that operation has costs of its own.

• Item 1.1. 0.8% on the value the IMT applies to. It always exists in a purchase, even when the IMT is zero.
• Item 17.1.3. 0.6% on the principal of a loan running five years or more.
• Who assesses it. Purchase stamp duty is assessed with the IMT on the tax portal. Loan stamp duty is charged by the bank when the loan is drawn.

The Casa Pronta desk, run by the Ministry of Justice, handles the sale, the loan and the registrations in a single act. The price is fixed: €375 where a single fact is registered — the acquisition alone, for instance — and €700 where more than one is, which is the normal case for a purchase with a mortgage. Each additional property in the same file adds €50.

The traditional route — a deed before a private notary with registrations filed separately — has no single fixed price: it adds notary fees to registration fees, and usually comes out higher. We use the one-stop desk price in the examples because it is the typical and verifiable cost; if you go the other way, ask for a written quote before booking the deed.

If this is your first home and you are 35 or under, that figure falls: up to €330,539 of taxable value, Decree-Law 48-D/2024 takes €225 off the fee where a single fact is registered and €450 where more than one is. Where only one buyer qualifies, the discount is halved. The IMT Jovem guide covers the conditions.

The desk price does not include stamp duty or IMT, which are assessed beforehand and produced at the act.

Brackets for property in the Azores and Madeira are the mainland ones uplifted, under the single article of Law 21/90. In practice every threshold rises: an own permanent home only starts paying IMT above €132,933, against €106,346 on the mainland.

This site’s calculator applies the mainland tables and says so in the interface. If you are buying in the Azores or Madeira, use the tables below — the marginal rates are the same, but the points where each one starts are not.

Everything this guide computes comes from official tables. What does not come from a table does not get in: it would mean inventing a number and presenting it with the same confidence as the verifiable ones, which is exactly the mistake this site exists not to make.

Left out, and belonging in your budget separately: the bank’s property valuation; arrangement and file fees on the loan; life and buildings insurance; the energy certificate where it is negotiated; the works the viewing revealed; next year’s IMI; the service charge; and the move itself.

Also left out is the cost of deciding badly. A home bought above what the area registers does not hand the difference back on resale, and no tax table makes up for that.

• Bank valuation. Charged by the lender, varies by institution and by property.
• Loan fees. Set out in the European Standardised Information Sheet the bank must give you.
• IMI. Annual, calculated on the rateable value, at a rate set by the municipality.
• Service charge and works. Ask for the last few years of building meeting minutes before offering: approved but unexecuted works follow the property.