Home sales increased in most European Union (EU) countries in 2025. Portugal is among them, recording an annual rise of 10.5% in the number of homes sold, placing it 10th among the Member States. Even so, there was a slowdown in house purchases compared with the previous year.
“In 2025, residential property sales in the EU increased in most countries for which data are available, compared with 2024,” Eurostat reported in a bulletin released on Monday, 6 July.
Among the 18 Member States analysed, the largest annual increases in home sales were seen in Slovenia (+29.9%), Lithuania (+22.8%) and Austria (+21.4%).
Portugal is among the EU countries that recorded growth in home sales in 2025 (+10.5%), ranking tenth overall. However, although positive, this increase was lower than the one registered the previous year (+15.2%), pointing to a slowdown in transaction growth.
It is worth noting that the national market also experienced a strong rebound in buying and selling homes in 2024, after transactions had fallen by 19.8% in 2023 amid rising mortgage interest rates and a loss of purchasing power due to high inflation.
On the other hand, in 2025, “the number of residential properties sold decreased in three of the 18 EU countries with available data.
- The declines were recorded in Croatia (-4.1%), Bulgaria (-2.5%) and Poland (-1.1%),” Eurostat stated.
The recovery in home sales across the EU began in 2024, with the number of transactions rising in 12 countries and falling in six compared with the previous year. In 2023, the number of residential properties purchased dropped in most Member States due to a less favourable economic and financial environment, the bulletin explains.
Between 2023 and 2024, the strongest rebounds in housing transactions were recorded in Luxembourg (+47.1%), Hungary (+34.8%) and the Netherlands (+17.0%). The sharpest declines were observed in Slovenia (-17.7%), Croatia (-13.9%) and France (-9.4%).
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