Technical article

Renting in Portugal and Switzerland: A Lease on Paper, and Rent in Francs

They wonder what renting looks like in each place, and what a government asks of a renter.

By Neil Solomon · 4 min read

Picture a couple named Frank and Maria. Both are 63. They are weighing a move to Portugal, and a friend who lives in Switzerland tells them nobody there buys a home. They wonder what renting looks like in each place, and what a government asks of a renter.

Portugal: the lease comes first

For the D7 visa, the Portuguese consulate checklist asks for proof of accommodation for 12 months. The accepted options listed are:

• "Deeds of property in Portugal in the name of the applicant"
• "Long term rental agreement of property in Portugal"
• A signed "Term of Responsibility" from a host, with the host's papers

The same checklist asks for bank statements showing at least EUR 9,840 for a single applicant, plus the last three months of statements. That checklist is hosted by the consulate's visa application centre, so I treat it as partly confirmed. It is dated March 2025.

The immigration agency AIMA, in a notice published 29 November 2025, says proof of accommodation always needs a sworn statement of the applicant's address and the legal basis for using the home. For a lease, the contract must show the applicant's identity, and a rent receipt for the previous month is also asked for. If the applicant is not named on the lease, a sworn declaration and a tax-domicile certificate issued less than 30 days earlier are asked for. (This is my paraphrase of the page.)

For rent levels, Statistics Portugal (INE) publishes a median for new lease contracts. A release republished by the Madeira regional statistics office, with the INE release dated by its address 26 June 2026, says: "The national median stood at 9.46 euros /m²" for the first quarter of 2026. For the 12 months to March 2026 the same page gives 9.50 EUR per square metre for the country. These are medians for new contracts across Portugal, and Lisbon and the Algarve are likely to differ. The page does not show a figure for a whole home. A search extract of the INE release for the second quarter of 2026 (released 29 September 2026), read 11 October 2026, gives EUR 10.17 per square metre nationally, EUR 15.24 for Greater Lisbon, EUR 11.56 for the Algarve and EUR 17.79 for the city of Lisbon.

My arithmetic, to turn a price per square metre into a home: at the national median of EUR 10.17, a 60 square metre flat comes to about EUR 610 a month, an 80 square metre flat about EUR 814, and a 100 square metre home about EUR 1,017. At the Greater Lisbon median of EUR 15.24, the same three sizes come to about EUR 914, EUR 1,219 and EUR 1,524. These are medians of what new contracts were signed at. They are not a quote for a home you could see. (From the page; the release itself shows no further date.)

Switzerland: most households rent

The Federal Statistical Office says that in 2020, 60.7% of households were tenants, 36.2% were owners and 3.1% were in another situation. Its own summary reads, "Swiss households tend to rent rather than own." Owners were 28.5% in 1970.

The same office gives the average rent paid by tenants and cooperative members:

These are averages across everyone who rents, including people who have lived in the same flat for years. A new lease could be different, and the office's table does not say. By my arithmetic, 1,412 a month is 16,944 CHF a year.

What is left open

• A published rent for a whole home. The official figure is per square metre, so the sizes above are my arithmetic.
• Whether Switzerland asks a foreign retiree for a lease before a permit. That is a question for the cantonal office that handles your permit.
• The Swiss ownership share after 2020, which the office has not published in the table I read.