Working and Hiring in Lisbon: Pay, Rent and What Employers Should Know

What it costs to employ someone in Lisbon

Lisbon follows Portuguese employment law, Social Security and income tax rules. There is no separate city payroll tax. What changes in Lisbon is the pay level. Take a monthly salary equal to the Grande Lisboa average monthly earnings of €1,935.68. Paid 14 times, with the holiday and Christmas subsidies, that is €27,099.52 a year. The employer adds 23.75% Social Security, or €6,436.14, for a total cost of €33,535.66 a year, before workplace accident insurance and benefits such as meal allowance. The employee pays 11%. For leave, probation, dismissal rules, the minimum wage and income tax, see our guide to hiring in Portugal.

Pay in Lisbon

Full-time employees working in the Grande Lisboa region, which includes the city of Lisbon, earned an average of €1,935.68 a month in October 2024, according to the Quadros de Pessoal statistics of the Ministry of Labor. That is 23% more than the Portugal average of €1,576.03, and the highest of any region. The median was €1,410.28, against €1,186.55 nationally. No figure for the Lisbon municipality alone is used here. See regional pay on our average salary in Lisbon page.

Rent and living costs

New lease contracts in the Lisbon municipality had a median rent of €17.79 per square meter a month in the 2nd quarter of 2026, according to INE. That is 75% above the Portugal median of €10.17 and above the Grande Lisboa median of €15.24. Lisbon rents rose 5.1% over the year, slower than the national rise of 10.2%. A monthly Navegante Municipal pass, valid within the municipality, costs €30.00 a month, and the Navegante Metropolitano for the whole metropolitan area €40.00. Our cost of living in Lisbon page has rents by parish and transport passes.

The Lisbon labor market

Eurostat counts 1,965,363 residents in the Lisbon greater city on 1 January 2025, an estimate, and 1,074,283 jobs located there in 2022. Its unemployment rate was 8.82% in the 2021 census year, the latest city figure Eurostat publishes. Portugal's unemployment rate was 5.6% in September 2026, according to INE. In 2021, 32.0% of Lisbon greater city households rented privately and 60.7% owned their home.

How to hire in Lisbon

Hiring in Lisbon comes down to two decisions: who you hire, and how you employ them.

1. Find the person. Write the role, set the salary against Lisbon pay levels, then source and interview candidates. You can run the search yourself with a job post, or use a placement service that delivers a shortlist.
2. Choose how to employ them. A Portuguese entity running payroll, an employer of record or a contractor agreement. Each option is explained below.
3. Make the offer. The contract has to meet the Portuguese Labor Code, set out in our Portugal guide. Pay is usually quoted per month and paid 14 times a year.

Your options for employing someone in Lisbon

• Portuguese entity: you register a company in Portugal, run payroll and pay the employer's Social Security share yourself. It suits a team of several people in Portugal.
• Employer of record (EOR): a third-party provider becomes the legal employer and runs Portuguese payroll for a monthly fee per employee. Your company directs the work.
• Contractor: the person invoices you as a self-employed worker. The relationship has to be genuinely independent, or it can count as employment.

Euro Remote Talent does not employ people on your behalf. We handle the placement: we find and shortlist the candidate, and you employ them through the route that fits.

How Euro Remote Talent can help

We do placement. We source, screen and interview remote professionals across Europe, then deliver a shortlist of 3 candidates within 21 days for a flat $6,500, or your deposit back. Prefer to run the search yourself? Post a job for $299 and reach candidates who want to work remotely.

See how placement works, post a job or book a 30-minute call. Browse remote jobs in Portugal to see who is hiring there now, or read our guide to hiring in Portugal.