€4.1 Billion in 10 Months: Where Portugal's Councils Are Spending in 2026

Between 2 January and 29 October 2026, Portugal's 308 municipal councils published 48,730 public contracts worth €4.1 billion on BASE, the government's public procurement portal. Every road resurfacing, school canteen contract, new social housing block and waste collection tender ends up there, with a price tag and a contractor name.

Most people look at house prices and crime rates when choosing where to live. Public contracts are an earlier signal: they show where streets, schools, housing and transport are about to change. A council that signs large construction contracts this year is a council whose neighbourhoods will look different in two or three years.

The headline: the biggest spender is not Lisbon.

Cascais Outspends the Capital

Cascais has signed €180 million in contracts so far in 2026, well ahead of Lisboa (€110M), Oeiras (€95M), Loures (€81M) and Porto (€75M).

Cascais signed fewer contracts than Lisbon (438 against 907), but much bigger ones: the average Cascais contract is worth €411,000, more than three times Lisbon's €121,000. A single February contract with Cascais Próxima, the council's own municipal company for mobility, public spaces and energy, accounts for €50 million of urban infrastructure, maintenance and energy-efficiency work. Add a €25.8 million school meals contract, and education and construction together make up more than 80% of the council's 2026 spending.

Lisbon's lower figure partly reflects how the capital is organised. Much of its investment flows through municipal companies and parish councils (juntas de freguesia), which publish their own contracts. Still, for a resident of Cascais, the message is clear: the council is putting serious money into public space right now.

The Top 15 Municipalities by Contract Value

The Lisbon and Porto metropolitan areas dominate, but the list also includes mid-sized councils that rarely make headlines:

1. Cascais: €179.9M across 438 contracts
2. Lisboa: €110.2M across 907 contracts
3. Oeiras: €94.9M across 742 contracts
4. Loures: €80.7M across 430 contracts
5. Porto: €75.1M across 488 contracts
6. Matosinhos: €72.9M across 518 contracts
7. Leiria: €67.8M across 619 contracts
8. Maia: €65.7M across 328 contracts
9. Sintra: €65.3M across 709 contracts
10. Portimão: €64.5M across 330 contracts
11. Braga: €61.4M across 443 contracts
12. Gondomar: €59.5M across 355 contracts
13. Ovar: €56.7M across 324 contracts
14. Vila Real de Santo António: €54.6M across 206 contracts
15. Coimbra: €53.7M across 293 contracts

Grande Lisboa as a region accounts for €688 million (16.8% of the national total), followed by the Porto Metropolitan Area with €525 million (12.8%) and the Algarve with €354 million (8.7%).

The Surprises: Leiria, Portimão, Ovar and Vila Real de Santo António

Four names stand out because they punch far above their size:

• Leiria (€67.8M) outspends Sintra and Braga, both much larger councils. With apartments still at around €1,800/m², it is one of the most affordable places on this list.
• Portimão (€64.5M) is building 204 new homes in Bairro Coca Maravilhas (€26.1M), one of the largest single housing contracts in the country this year.
• Ovar (€56.7M) signed a €39.7M waste collection and street cleaning contract, the largest environmental contract in Portugal in 2026.
• Vila Real de Santo António (€54.6M) has the highest average contract value in the top 15 (€265,000), driven by a €44.6M rehabilitation of its social housing stock funded by the PRR (Portugal's EU-backed Recovery and Resilience Plan).

What the Money Is Buying

Broken down by category, municipal spending in 2026 looks like this:

• Services, supplies and other: €1.53 billion (37%). Electricity and fuel supply, energy-efficiency contracts, electric buses and bike-sharing, plus other contracts our automatic classifier could not place in a single area.
• Construction and public works: €1.24 billion (30%). Urban regeneration, public buildings, housing and squares.
• Education: €487 million (12%). School meals, school transport and school renovations.
• Environment and waste: €295 million (7%).
• Security, culture and sport, water and sanitation: around €105 million each (2.5–2.6%).
• Digital, roads and health: €71–79 million each (about 2% each).

Housing is the quiet story of 2026. Contracts mentioning housing (habitação) or new homes (fogos) add up to roughly €272 million across 640 contracts, much of it tied to the PRR's housing programme, whose deadlines push councils to sign before funding expires. Beyond Portimão and Vila Real de Santo António, Barreiro signed a €23.3M regeneration of its historic centre (Barreiro Velho), covering streets, green spaces, water, drainage and lighting.

How Councils Buy

Half of all contracts (50.2%) were direct awards (ajuste direto), but these are mostly small and represent only 14.8% of the money. Open public tenders (concurso público) are just 17.5% of contracts yet cover 55.5% of the total value. The median contract is worth about €18,700. In other words, the big-ticket projects that reshape a town go through competitive tenders, while the long tail of small purchases keeps the lights on.

Spending also accelerates through the year: from €300M in January to a peak of €515M in July, as projects approved in council budgets reach the contract stage.

Why This Matters If You're Choosing Where to Live

Public investment does not guarantee quality of life, but it shows a council's priorities and, often, where things are about to get better:

• Construction-heavy councils such as Cascais, Sintra, Gondomar and Portimão are investing in streets, buildings and housing that will be finished in the coming years.
• Education-heavy councils such as Loures and Porto put a large share of their budget into schools and school meals, which matters most to families.
• Affordable councils with high investment, such as Leiria, Ovar, Braga and Coimbra, combine prices around €1,700–2,100/m² with active public spending, often a good mix for buyers looking for value.

Pair contract data with prices, safety and services before making a decision. A council can spend heavily because it is growing fast, or because it is catching up on years of under-investment.

Check Your Municipality

Every municipality page on OndeVende now includes a Public investment section: total spending, a breakdown by area and the latest contracts, each linked to its official record on base.gov.pt. You can compare it side by side with housing prices, safety, healthcare and quality-of-life scores. Start with Cascais, Lisboa or Porto, or open the map to find any of the 308 councils.

Methodology: contract data comes from the IMPIC public procurement open data (BASE portal), covering contracts published between 2 January and 29 October 2026 where a municipal council is the contracting entity. Values are contract prices as published and may include multi-year contracts. Categories are assigned automatically from contract titles. Housing prices are INE median values of dwelling sales over the 12 months to Q4 2025.