Since 1 September, Portugal has had a new Regime Simplificado de Arrendamento Acessível (RSAA) — a simplified regime for affordable renting. It replaces the Programa de Apoio ao Arrendamento, which had been running since 2019. The state is once again trying to solve an old problem: how to persuade owners to let their homes below the market rate when an ordinary lease would let them ask for more.
The answer is tax. The owner agrees to cap the rent and sign a lease for a set minimum term, and the income from that lease is exempt from IRS or IRC. But there is an important detail for tenants: RSAA is not a new waiting list for state-owned apartments, not a rent subsidy, and not even a separate listings site. What it actually governs is the lease between an owner and a tenant.
For a tenant, the practical point of RSAA lies elsewhere: it is one more way to rent an ordinary apartment you have found at a lower rate. If the property and the length of the lease fit the rules, you can ask the owner directly whether they are willing to sign the lease under RSAA: the owner gets a tax break, and you get a rent within the set limit.
What the state now counts as affordable rent
The core condition of RSAA is a cap on the rent. Under the law, the maximum rent is to be calculated with reference to 80% of the median rent per square metre in the specific municipality, according to data from Statistics Portugal (INE). The limit may also take the features of the home itself into account — its energy efficiency, for example, or whether it has parking.
The 80% wording is easy to misread. It does not mean the owner takes the listing of a similar apartment and knocks 20% off. The starting point is the statistical median rent in the specific concelho, or municipality, and the maximum amounts are set by property type (T0, T1, T2 and so on). So an apartment let under RSAA has to cost less than the limit set for that area, but the gap with the individual listings around it can vary a great deal. Utility bills and other charges the tenant pays under the lease are not part of this maximum rent.
How to check whether an apartment you have found qualifies for RSAA
If you have already found a home and want to know whether it can be let under the new regime, check four things:
- the purpose of the lease: permanent or temporary housing;
- the length of the lease: at least three years for permanent housing and three months for temporary housing;
- the rent: it must fit within the current limit for that property type and municipality;
- the paperwork: the owner has to register the lease on the Portal das Finanças and then send the lease and proof of registration to IHRU, the Institute for Housing and Urban Rehabilitation.
The maximum rents for each property type are set by a separate regulation. Before you sign, check whether the current limits for your property type have been published on the Portal da Habitação, and ask the owner directly: will the lease be made under RSAA and declared to IHRU?
What is in it for the owner
It makes sense for an owner to compare their after-tax income from an ordinary lease with their income under RSAA. The rent under RSAA is lower, but the tax break applies. If the gap with the market price is small, this kind of lease can come out ahead. Taking part is voluntary: the law does not oblige anyone to lower their rent.
Why the regime is called “simplified”
Until September there was the Programa de Apoio ao Arrendamento — PAA. The idea was similar: lower rent in exchange for tax breaks. But the procedure itself was noticeably more complicated.
Under the old system, both the apartment and the applicant had to be registered. Tenants’ income was checked, the rent had to stay within a set share of household income, the permitted property type was taken into account, and leases came with mandatory insurance requirements. The minimum lease for permanent housing was five years, and temporary lets were designed mainly for students.
The government names the complexity of the old programme as one of the reasons for the reform. Since 1 September the old regime has been repealed and RSAA has taken its place. Existing PAA leases have not disappeared, however, and keep the tax breaks they were granted.
Under the new RSAA, a lease between a private owner and a tenant carries far fewer special conditions: above all, the rent limit and the minimum term.
That shifts the programme’s logic: the state now decides less about who deserves an affordable apartment and more about which lease counts as affordable renting.
The lease can also be shorter
For permanent housing, an RSAA lease must run for at least three years. Under PAA the minimum was five.
Temporary lets have changed too. RSAA allows leases from three months for temporary housing if the tenant’s tax residence is in another municipality. Under certain conditions, such a lease can cover not only a whole apartment but also part of a home.
That potentially makes the regime interesting beyond classic long-term renting. It could, for instance, work for someone who has moved to another city for a few months for work or study. But that does not mean any informal sublet from Facebook automatically falls under RSAA: the regime requires a proper lease.
In our next newsletter we will look separately at where to find this kind of rental at all. There is no single RSAA marketplace, so we will go through the usual listings sites, IHRU tenders, municipal programmes, Facebook groups and sublets — and work out where you can genuinely find a home below market price, and where it matters most to check the lease before you pay.
So do I now need to register for RSAA?
No. Unlike the way state housing programmes are usually pictured, a tenant does not go to an RSAA website to first be approved as an eligible applicant and then choose from affordable apartments. The official procedure works the other way round. First the owner and tenant find each other and sign a lease. The lease is registered on the Portal das Finanças. After that, the owner submits to the IHRU system a copy of the signed lease and proof that it has been registered with the tax authority. Under the law, this has to be done by 15 January of the following year.
So in private renting, RSAA is in effect a regime under which a lease is drawn up, not a marketplace where the state matches tenants with owners. For anyone looking for a home right now, this is the key point: you can find an apartment in a completely ordinary way and discuss with the owner the option of signing the lease under RSAA, if its terms allow. The listing itself does not have to appear on any special state platform.
Will this bring apartments cheaper than the market?
There is no answer to this yet. The mechanism is aimed first of all at supply: the state removes some of the bureaucracy, shortens the minimum lease term and offers owners a tax break in exchange for a capped rent. In theory this should persuade more owners to move into affordable renting, but between creating a tax incentive and an apartment appearing in a listing there is still the decision of an individual owner.
If an owner could earn far more from an ordinary lease than the RSAA limit allows, the tax advantage may not be enough. If the difference is small, the regime can already look much more attractive. That is why 1 September brought no magical drop in rents: the state has changed the rules and is now testing whether a simpler regime can bring more capped-rent housing onto the market.
For tenants it is still a useful change: RSAA can now be raised with an owner as a concrete type of lease, rather than as some mysterious “state apartment” that first requires passing a separate selection process.
What to remember
RSAA has been in force since 1 September and has replaced the old PAA. It is a voluntary rental regime: the owner caps the rent and keeps to a minimum lease term, and the income from that lease is exempt from IRS or IRC. For permanent housing the minimum lease is three years; for some kinds of temporary lets, three months.
But RSAA itself is not a place where you can open a list of apartments and pick one. So the next question is far more practical: if affordable rentals exist, where do you actually look for them?
On Thursday we will bring together all the real channels: IHRU and municipal tenders, the usual property sites, Facebook groups and sublets. We will work out where to look for offers below market price, which conditions to check, and how not to confuse a legal temporary let with an informal sublet that has no proper lease.
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