Lisbon
The main hub by a distance. Most roles, most languages, the Atlantic half an hour away, and the largest community of people who moved for exactly the reason you are about to.
🇵🇹 Destination
Working in Portugal
Portugal is where most people make their first move, and there are good reasons for that. The accommodation packages are the most generous in Europe, some covering your rent and bills outright. English gets you a long way from day one. And Lisbon has spent a decade accumulating a community of people who arrived exactly the way you are about to.
- Where we place
- Lisbon and Porto
- Typical contract
- Permanent Portuguese contract
- Working week
- 40 hours
- Paid holiday
- 22 days plus public holidays
- Common extras
- Flight, accommodation, meal allowance
- Language needed
- Your native language plus around B2 English
Why people go
What actually makes Portugal worth the move
Not the brochure version. The things people who moved here bring up unprompted a year later.
01
The accommodation packages are unmatched
Several Lisbon employers do not just help you find a flat, they put you in one. A private room in a shared apartment for the length of your contract with rent, electricity and water included, plus a pick-up at the airport when you land. Nowhere else in Europe takes that much risk out of moving abroad.
02
The Atlantic is thirty minutes away
Carcavelos, Costa da Caparica and Guincho are all a short train or bus from central Lisbon, and the surf is genuinely good rather than a nice idea. Plenty of people who moved here for the job are organising their week around the swell within two months.
03
You can cross the city on foot
Lisbon is small. Alfama to Bairro Alto is twenty minutes on foot, past three viewpoints and a tram you did not plan to catch. After a northern European city built around a commute, living somewhere you can cross in an evening quietly rearranges your whole week.
04
Everyone you meet also just arrived
This is the underrated part. Lisbon has spent ten years being the city people move to, so the social infrastructure for arriving already exists: language exchanges, football teams, surf groups, and a very high tolerance for someone new turning up on their own.
Real numbers
What a month in Portugal actually costs
Current 2026 prices, not figures copied from a five-year-old guide. If anything here turns out to be wrong, tell us and we will fix it.
Porto runs roughly 15% to 20% cheaper than Lisbon, with the gap widest on rent. And if your package includes accommodation, most of the number above simply disappears.
- Room in a shared flat, Lisbon
- €350 to €550
- Room in a shared flat, Porto
- €300 to €450
- Central or trendy Lisbon room
- €500 to €700
- Set lunch in a tasca
- Around €8
- Dinner out with a drink
- €15 to €22
- Navegante monthly transport pass
- €40
- Espresso at the counter
- €0.80
- Comfortable month, sharing a flat
- €1,100 to €1,300
Where the roles are
The cities we place into in Portugal
Porto
Smaller, noticeably cheaper, and a lot of people quietly prefer it. The Douro is fifteen minutes from most offices and the beach at Matosinhos is on the metro.
Before you go
What living in Portugal is actually like
The parts of the move nobody puts in the job advert.
Getting set up
You need a NIF tax number and a Portuguese social security number. Most employers hiring internationally handle the paperwork for you, and several collect you from the airport on the day you arrive.
Finding somewhere to live
If your package includes accommodation you can skip this entirely for the first year. If not, most people start in a shared flat found through Idealista or Uniplaces. Arroios and Anjos are central and reasonable, Alcântara and Marvila are cheaper and getting busier, Cascais is a train ride out and worth it if you surf.
Weekends
Sintra's palaces are forty minutes by train and Cascais is on the same line. The Alentejo coast is two hours south and largely empty. Porto and the Douro valley are a three-hour train north. Flights home from Lisbon are cheap and frequent, which matters more than people expect.
Most commonly hired for
- Customer advisor
- Technical support
- Content review
- Back office
Hiring now
Open roles in Portugal
The role is not the hard part. Deciding to go is.
Send your CV and we will come back to you with the roles that actually match, in the countries you actually want.