You bought a house in Portugal. Now what? The first-year owner calendar
Bought a house in Portugal? Here's the registration, IMI, gas, EPBD and condominium deadlines due in your first year of ownership and when they fall.
Nobody hands you a calendar at the deed. The escritura ends the purchase and starts a set of obligations that arrive on fixed dates, mostly without a reminder: the registration you have to file, the IMI instalments that split at €100 and €500, the gas inspection whose deadline may already have passed, the EPBD trajectory that reaches a property you already own, and a condominium that can vote to spend your money by simple majority. Missing them costs money rather than the house, which is why they stay missed. The RealOS True Ownership Cost tool puts the recurring side of that year into one figure before it arrives.
The buying process gets written about constantly. The twelve months after it get written about almost nowhere, which is odd, because that is where the running cost of a Portuguese property actually reveals itself. This is the calendar a buyer's agent would hand you with the keys if Portugal had buyer's agents. The costs themselves are added up in the guide to the real cost of buying property in Portugal. What follows is the timing.
This is general information, not tax or legal advice. Verify your situation with a qualified professional.
Table of Contents
- What has to happen in the weeks after the deed?
- When is IMI due, and how is it split?
- What is the gas inspection deadline on your installation?
- How does the EPBD calendar reach a property you already own?
- What does the condominium expect of you now?
- Is radon a check you need to make?
- Frequently Asked Questions
What has to happen in the weeks after the deed?
Registration of the purchase at the Conservatória do Registo Predial and the update of the Caderneta Predial at the Autoridade Tributária are the buyer's first two obligations after the escritura.
The deed transfers ownership between the parties. Registration is what makes it good against everyone else, and the two are not the same thing. Where the deed goes through Casa Pronta or a notary who files electronically, registration is handled for you and the confirmation arrives without further action. Where it does not, the filing is yours.
Three things follow, and none of them announces itself.
The permanent land registry certificate (Certidão Permanente) should now show you as owner, with no charges you did not agree to. Pull it and read it rather than assuming. It is the document a bank, a buyer or a lawyer will read about your property for as long as you own it.
The Caderneta Predial, the tax record held by the Autoridade Tributária, has to reflect the change. The Caderneta and the registry are separate systems in Portugal and they drift, which is a running theme in Portuguese property and the reason area discrepancies surface at the worst possible moment. If the two describe your property differently, the cheapest time to find out is now, not at resale.
Utilities, the condominium register and your tax address all need moving to you. Anything still in the seller's name generates correspondence you never see, and the first bill you learn about tends to be the one with interest on it.
When is IMI due, and how is it split?
IMI falls due in May, and splits into two or three instalments depending on the amount owed: under €100 in one payment, €100 to €500 in two, above €500 in three.
IMI (Imposto Municipal sobre Imóveis) is the annual municipal property tax, calculated on the VPT (Valor Patrimonial Tributário), the tax value the Autoridade Tributária assigns, at a rate each Câmara Municipal sets within a statutory band. The rate is why the same VPT produces different bills in Lisbon, Porto and an interior concelho.
The payment calendar runs on amount, not on preference.
Bills under €100 are paid in full by 31 May.
Bills of €100 to €500 split into two instalments, 31 May and 30 November.
Bills above €500 split into three, 31 May, 31 August and 30 November.
Paying the whole thing in May stays optional at any amount, and some owners prefer it for the simplicity. Missing an instalment attracts juros de mora, running at 7.221% in 2026, plus a possible coima (DECO Proteste and Montepio 2026 IMI guides; confirm the current rate against the Portal das Finanças, since it is set annually).
The detail that catches first-year owners is timing rather than amount. IMI is charged to whoever owned the property on 31 December of the year it relates to. Buy in March and the bill arriving next May belongs to the seller for that year, not to you. Your own first IMI bill lands the May after your first 31 December as owner, which for an August purchase means roughly nine months of quiet followed by a bill nobody budgeted for.
What is the gas inspection deadline on your installation?
Gas installations executed before 21 August 2018 need their first periodic inspection by 26 August 2028 or on reaching 20 years, whichever comes first, under DL 97/2017.
This is the deadline most often quoted wrong, and the half that gets dropped is the half that bites.
Decreto-Lei n.º 97/2017, as amended by Lei n.º 59/2018 which took effect on 21 August 2018, sets two different clocks depending on when the installation was executed.
Installations executed before 21 August 2018 need a first periodic inspection by 26 August 2028, or on reaching 20 years, whichever comes first. Installations executed after that date get their first inspection at 10 years. After the first inspection, both run on a 5-year cycle.
The 20-year alternative is the part almost every summary omits, and it changes the answer for older housing stock. An installation executed in 2007 reaches 20 years in 2027. Its deadline is 2027, not 2028. An owner reading only the 2028 headline is already late without knowing it. Anyone who bought a property built or refitted in the late 1990s or 2000s should find the installation date before assuming they have until 2028.
Non-compliance carries fines to €3,500 for individuals under Article 29.º, notification to the DGEG, and definitive supply cut-off after a three-month period. So the practical order of events is a letter, then a deadline, then no gas.
Find the installation date first. It sits in the ficha técnica da habitação for anything built from 30 March 2004, or in the municipal file, or on the last boletim de inspeção de gás if one exists. Verify the regime against the DGEG before acting on a date, since the gas rules are the least well documented of the recurring obligations.
How does the EPBD calendar reach a property you already own?
Portugal partially transposed the EPBD through Decreto-Lei n.º 11/2025, de 19 de fevereiro, bringing in minimum energy performance standards and zero-emission new buildings from 2030.
Two corrections first, because both errors circulate widely and both would mislead an owner planning work.
Portugal did not miss the directive and do nothing. Decreto-Lei n.º 11/2025, de 19 de fevereiro (Diário da República, 1.ª série, n.º 35) partially transposed Directive (UE) 2024/1275 and amended DL 101-D/2020. It introduced the Passaporte de Renovação de Edifícios, minimum energy performance standards (MEPS), the requirement that new buildings be zero-emission from 2030, and the end of financial incentives for installing autonomous fossil-fuel boilers from 1 January 2025. Full transposition is still outstanding, with ADENE coordinating the GT-EPBD working group.
And the Portuguese energy scale runs A+, A, B, B-, C, D, E, F. There is no class G on a current Portuguese certificate, and no Portuguese rental prohibition by energy class is confirmed in force. The class G letting ban belongs to France, where it took effect on 1 January 2025.
For an owner in year one, the honest framing is trajectory rather than prohibition. A low class does not stop you letting or selling. It shows up in what a buyer offers and in what a bank will lend against, which is the argument developed in the guide to the desconto castanho, Portugal's brown discount. The regulatory direction is set even where the Portuguese thresholds are not, and the fossil-boiler incentive change is already dated law worth knowing before you replace a boiler.
Year one is the cheap moment to find out where you stand, because a retrofit sequenced with work you were doing anyway costs a fraction of the same retrofit done under deadline. The RealOS EPBD Compliance Calendar tracks the 2026, 2030 and 2033 dates against a specific property, and the EPBD Compliance Tracker estimates upgrade cost by current class. Broader context sits in the EPBD compliance guide, and the legal changes arriving alongside it in the guide to DL 108/2026.
What does the condominium expect of you now?
Charges falling due after the transfer bind the new owner, and under Article 1425.º of the Civil Code conservation works pass by simple majority of the condominium.
Buyers of an apartment inherit a decision-making body they did not choose and cannot leave.
Start with the document you should already have. Since 10 April 2022, Article 1424.º-A of the Civil Code requires the seller to obtain the administrator's declaration of charges and debts, and it is a mandatory deed document unless the buyer expressly waives it. Waiving it means assuming the seller's condominium debts. If you signed a waiver, the first-year job is finding out what you took on. If you have the declaration, keep it: it is the record of where the account stood when the property became yours. Charges falling due after the transfer are yours either way.
Then read the assembleia minutes, which matter more than the declaration and are what almost nobody asks for. Approved but unstarted works on a roof, a façade or a lift are a committed bill sitting in the minutes with no entry in the accounts yet.
Article 1425.º sets how the building decides to spend. Conservation works pass by simple majority. Inovações require a majority representing two thirds of the building's total value. Lifts and gas in buildings of eight or more fractions carry a special double majority. The consequence for a new owner is blunt: a simple majority of your neighbours can commit you to a roof you have not budgeted for, and your recourse is to attend the meeting.
Already have a RealOS report? If your risk score is high, confirm it with a physical inspection. → Book with InspectOS at inspectos.pt/en/home-inspections
Is radon a check you need to make?
Radon testing is a conditional first-year check, sensible where the property sits in a granite district with living space at ground level or below, against a national reference of 300 Bq/m³.
Most owners do not need to think about radon. Some do, and the condition is geological rather than universal.
Portugal sets a national reference level of 300 Bq/m³ as an annual average under Decreto-Lei n.º 108/2018. The districts where granite geology makes elevated readings plausible are Braga, Porto, Vila Real, Viseu, Guarda and Castelo Branco. If your property sits in one of those and the living space is on the ground floor or below, a measurement is the sensible year-one check.
Two physical facts decide how to do it properly.
A short test tells you very little, because concentrations swing with weather, ventilation and season. A long-duration measurement of two months or more, ideally spanning winter when the house is closed up, is what produces a number worth acting on.
Ground floors typically run two to three times the level of the floor above, so where you place the detector changes the result as much as where you live.
Nothing here says how many Portuguese homes exceed the reference level, because that figure is not something this article can source. The point is narrower: the check is cheap, the condition for needing it is specific, and year one is when you have the least furniture in the way.
Frequently Asked Questions
What taxes do I pay after buying a house in Portugal?
The recurring one is IMI (Imposto Municipal sobre Imóveis), the annual municipal property tax calculated on the VPT (Valor Patrimonial Tributário) at a rate your Câmara Municipal sets within a statutory band. Higher-value portfolios can also attract AIMI. IMT and Imposto do Selo are one-off purchase taxes and are already behind you by the time you take the keys. Non-residents letting property, or owners selling later, meet IRS obligations separately.
When is IMI due?
IMI falls due in May, and how it splits depends on the amount. Bills under €100 are paid in full by 31 May. Bills of €100 to €500 split into two instalments, 31 May and 30 November. Bills above €500 split into three, 31 May, 31 August and 30 November. Paying the full amount in May remains optional at any level, and IMI is charged to whoever owned the property on 31 December of the year the bill relates to.
Do I need to register the property myself after the deed?
Not usually. Where the deed completes through Casa Pronta or a notary who files electronically, registration is handled as part of the process. Where it does not, the filing is the buyer's responsibility. Either way, pull the Certidão Permanente afterwards and confirm it names you as owner with no charges you did not agree to, and check that the Caderneta Predial at the Autoridade Tributária has been updated, since the registry and the tax record are separate systems that drift.
What happens if my gas installation misses its inspection deadline?
Non-compliance under Decreto-Lei n.º 97/2017 carries fines to €3,500 for individuals under Article 29.º, notification to the DGEG, and definitive supply cut-off after a three-month period. The deadline depends on when the installation was executed: before 21 August 2018 it is 26 August 2028 or on reaching 20 years, whichever comes first, and after that date it is 10 years, then every 5. The 20-year condition is the one that catches owners of older installations, so find the installation date before relying on the 2028 figure.
Conclusion
The purchase was the loud part. The first year is the quiet part, and it runs on dates: the registration in the weeks after the deed, IMI in May and its instalments through to November, a gas inspection whose deadline depends on an installation date you may not yet know, an EPBD trajectory that is already dated law in part, and a condominium that votes on conservation by simple majority. None of it arrives with a reminder.
Put the recurring side of it into one figure before it starts arriving, then keep the deadlines in one place rather than in your inbox.
Updated August 2026 | RealOS Portugal Reviewed by Filipe Dornellas
Sources: Decreto-Lei n.º 97/2017, Art. 29.º, as amended by Lei n.º 59/2018 · Decreto-Lei n.º 11/2025, de 19 de fevereiro (DR, 1.ª série, n.º 35) · Directive (UE) 2024/1275 · Decreto-Lei n.º 101-D/2020 · Decreto-Lei n.º 108/2018 (radon, 300 Bq/m³ annual reference) · Código Civil, Arts. 1424.º-A and 1425.º · Decreto-Lei n.º 10/2024, de 8 de janeiro · Autoridade Tributária / Portal das Finanças (IMI, VPT) · DECO Proteste and Montepio 2026 IMI deadline guides · IRN / Conservatória do Registo Predial · DGEG · ADENE · SCE class scale · pt-realestate-legal-context, Chain B Stages 1 and 3, Chain C §2 and §3.