Foreigners in Portugal
Expat? Tourist? I Wish!
A non-digital nomad reads the tea leaves
Tourism revenue may be good for GDP, but over-tourism impacts Portugal’s locals as in the Canaries, Amsterdam, Barcelona…
In Lisboa (12 tourists per resident), the focus of protest is against the Airbnb-hijacked rents and erosion of culture, especially the prevalence of spoken English. In Porto, it’s the traffic. Even in ‘fairytale’ Sintra, they’re telling tourists “stay away” as noisy tuktuks blast around the village, their drivers shouting at foreigners to ‘get in or get off the road’, in very un-Portuguese accents.
With its depth of history, peaceable people and beguiling physicality, it’s sad to see Portugal over-selling itself, with claims to the ‘world’s best beaches’, its Venice (Aveiro) and its Caribbean(Arribada). They aren’t, but Portugal invites, and we keep coming — because we like the place, and thought it liked us.
But at least tourists used to go home.
The invitation to visit became an offer to stay. There’s the D7 and the Willy Wonka Golden Visa. Then there wasn’t, but now might be. Northern European retirees find the perfect match of tax incentives and sunshine; renovating depopulated villages and oiking up property prices.
Same for Digital Nomads, pumping up quiet coastal villages into vibrant Winter surf towns. If Portugal only knew how to make ice coffee…É pá! Now it does.
It’s a familiar story, but with a twist.
Portugal has amongst the lowest barriers to entry for EU residency and eventual citizenship, in terms of the capital and evidence it requires. By the end of 2023, there were over 800,000 of us jigsawing in to a native population of just over 9 million; elbowing into the gaps left by a million emigrant Portuguese.
From this staggering rise of immigration in just the last few years, it’s clear that many people spent The Pandemic researching their options and getting their documents in order.
For North Americans, ‘third country’ visa applicants require a one-year lease to satisfy the residency requirement. And guess what? No visa; no travel. That meant renting, or even buying, sight unseen. My Facebooks groups are full of Americans who paid up front for a year’s lease or even bought a house, never having been to Portugal. Not once.
Such is the desperation to escape gun violence, identity politics and runaway healthcare costs.
Can you hear the amazed gasps of the Portuguese? These wealthy foreigners — decamping to Portugal?!
Being Americans, they’re not shy to post airport photos: trolley-loads of baggage; their pooches jetting in on chartered flights at 2k per paw. Rabbits, cats, reptiles — you name it, they’re coming.
They even bring the kids, while 40pc of young Portuguese do all they can to flee for better opportunities.
Can you imagine the real estate feeding frenzy?
A slew of supporting Move to Portugal industries popped up like mushrooms — reconnaissance guides for ‘scouting trips’, relocation services , guys to sort your NIF, lawyers etc — mostly fronted as visitor or expat community groups, with fierce ‘be nice’ rules. Nothing but the rosy ‘figs left at the door’ view allowed.
It didn’t all end well.
The mold, the damp, the searing heat, bland repetitive food, the dogshit-laden streets, excruciating bureaucracy, the abysmal customer service. It gets worse. There’s now as many new groups about Leaving Portugal as there were for those still arriving. And they don’t pull the punches.
But we shouldn’t pick on Americans just because it’s easy.
By far the biggest incoming nationality is Brazilian (about 30%), with other Portuguese-speaking nations well represented, along with the Rest of the World. This latter group are younger, economic migrants coming with, or hopeful for, work visas. They are here for jobs. You don’t have to be in Portugal very long to see the gaps that need filling — in software, building trades and, apparently, in agriculture.
One picture of diverse immigration was painted for me at Vila Nova de Milfontes, a charming fishing-come-surf town on the Alentejo coast, backed by the clear, fast-moving waters of the Rio Mira. I’d sailed in on a racing tide to meet a Dutch friend — a terrifying entry and even worse starlit exit into booming surf.
Suz is still in her twenties and really got it made — interesting well-paid online job, a rural property stuffed with surf and paddleboards, the campervan and dog. And probably a hunky fella who makes documentaries and blueberry pancakes for breakfast.
We ate takeout frango, then sat outside a locals’ café in the town centre. Our table grew as fit, tanned Nomads stopped by for a beer, chattering away in English, Dutch and German.
On the other side of the terrace the town velhos, sipped at drinks, barely talking, quietly watching, like old men do in villages the world over.
Across the road in the park were groups of brown men — probably agricultural labourers from India, Nepal and Bangladesh — looking at phones, quietly passing the time. Spending the bare minimum, just to survive, work the fields, save or send money home.
It reminded me of Britain’s biracial post-industrial small cities, like Bolton and villages around Bradford. White towns and brown towns.
And in the middle, the squeezed Portuguese, pressured by excess wealth on one hand, and driving need on the other. It was like watching the movement of tectonic plates. Irresistible universal forces driving creation of something other, which forever alters all those in motion, or formerly at rest.
Seems I’m not the only one that noticed. In March 2024, Portugal finally said, ‘Enough’.
Unfortunately, instead of the typically polite ‘sufficiente’ or ‘basta, obrigada’, it said Chega!
That’s the party of the anti-immigrant far-right which found particular favour in the Algarve, with an historic win in Faro district of nearly 30pc. It was largely viewed as a protest vote from frustration at the government’s failure to deliver on water and healthcare promises, rather than one born from conviction.
Time will tell. Expat nerves are stirred, but not shaken. By self-definition, this privileged group don’t intend to stay any longer than is comfortable. They have First World incomes. They have choices.
But in one humbled pocket of the immigrant influx, this question is particularly troubling, if not existential.
By 2022, about 35,000 British people moved to Portugal, around 10% of its immigrant population. This, of course, in disgusted response to the devastating partition from Europe that we call Brexshit. Only 38% of the electorate voted Leave. A third of Brits ‘couldn’t be bothered to vote’, or were simply away, as younger people tend to be in June, on Glastonbury weekend.
I think none of us believed it could happen, was actually possible. The referendum was sold as consultative, not constitutionally binding. The aftermath held no accountability for false claims made by self-serving politicians; no reckoning with the gross assault on Democracy engineered by Cambridge Analytica in the Leave debacle.
The Royals didn’t speak up. Of course. Serve them right when they lose Wales and Scotland.
And so we left, shuffled off backstage like unparented kids in a divorce, scrabbling as best we could to find safe harbour.
In one year. I sold the house, packed the boat and sailed for Portugal. For me, it was the only and obvious choice. The only country where I felt like one of them — a Proper European with cold, Atlantic currents running in our veins.
A few years in and my European dream looks all but shipwrecked on the rocks of my own reckless naivety, those rose-tinted specs on which Portuguesey sharks feed. Therein lies a lesson or twelve.
In the lonely shame of this despair, my groping for connection led me to Facebooks groups that reveal horror stories of The Other Portugal. The one where dead dogs, not figs, are left at the door.
Then it seemed I wasn’t alone. There’s lots of us being fleeced, terrorised and disrobed of our convictions. Oh joy! But could I get them on the phone? I could not. Could we meet and render each other actual support? Well…maybe…Not.
Will the Real Portugal please stand up?
In day-to-day life I’m variously charmed, left in peace, treated brusquely, never harassed or made fearful, and all too frequently totally blown off by ‘service’ providers. That I can cope with.
My life is a tad on the fringes. As a liveaboard sailor, I’m a lingering relic: an endangered species, roaming the foamy plains, shoved into lumpy, unfertile corners. Fed (up) like a bulimic on junkfood Antisocial Media. That I have chosen.
But I’m confused. And scared. Not just for me, but for Portugal — or what I thought was Portugal. That place where it’s OK to be a gentle anarchist.
We’re both a bit scruffy and somewhat melancholic. Who could blame us? It ain’t easy being old and downtrod, uncertain of our memories.
I’m happy to drink just minis, not many. And I dearly, dearly want the Portuguese to drink them with me.
