Skip to content
CrediSegur — home page
All toolsFree simulation · 2 minutes · no personal data

Buy or rent? Rent or sell?

Being a homeowner has costs you never get back: taxes, maintenance and the cost of money. The 5% rule turns them into a break-even rent. We’ve adapted it to Portugal, with IMT, IMI, IRS on rents and capital gains.
  • Credit intermediary and insurance agent registered with BdP and ASF
  • No personal data needed to simulate
  • Intermediation service at no cost to you
Perspective

Three questions to see if it pays off to buy

€

€/month

Look for listings of similar homes in the same area.
years

We assume a down payment of 10%, a reference interest rate of 3.7%, house price appreciation of 3.9% per year and a return of 4.5% per year on the money invested (assumptions, not guaranteed: an investment can lose value). You can change everything under “In detail”.

How we calculate

We compare what you spend and what you build up on each path, over the same term and with the same assumptions.

  1. What buying costs

    Down payment, IMT, Stamp Duty and the deed, the instalment at a hypothetical rate, IMI, insurance and maintenance.Legal rule · CIMT, art.º 17.º, and Tabela Geral do Imposto do Selo, items 1.1 and 17.1; Assumption

  2. What renting costs

    The rent goes up every year by the reference increase. The down payment you did not spend stays invested at a hypothetical return.Assumption

  3. What you have at the end

    If you buy: the home’s value minus the debt and the selling costs. If you rent: the savings built up. From the landlord’s side, we compare the rents after IRS with the sale value after capital gains tax.Legal rule · CIRS, art.º 72.º; Assumption

Illustrative cases

Illustration of Marta
Illustrative example

Marta was paying €950 in rent and thought buying was always better.

She is 31, works in Aveiro and has saved €25,000. She found a two-bedroom apartment for €250,000 and plans to stay 10 years. Before signing, she ran the numbers with the 5% rule: the break-even rent for her place was €579 per month. Because she was paying more than that, buying was clearly worth it.
  • Aveiro
  • 31 years old
  • Down payment of €25,000
  • IMT Jovem
  • 10 years in the home
The quick rulePer yearPer month
Cost of being an owner2.8%€579
Rent she pays4.6%€950
The rule saysBuy ✓
Buying pulls ahead from year 3, when appreciation and principal repayments offset the purchase costs. With IMT Jovem, purchase costs drop from €12,432 to €3,390.

Estimated monthly payment €1,032/month

After 10 years+€73,480

After 10 years+€73,480more in net worth than if she rented
Estimated monthly payment€1,032/monthTAN of 3.7% (assumption)
Needs to have available€28,390with IMT Jovem
Representative example
TAEG
4.31%
Variable TAN
3.672%
MTIC
€395,484.67
Mortgage of €225,000.00 over 30 years, secured by a deed of trust: 360 monthly payments of €1,032.08, plus Life and Multi-risk Insurance of €60.00 per month, required to obtain the credit under these conditions. Variable TAN of 3.672%: 6‑month Euribor of 2.922% (average for September 2026) + spread of 0.75%. APR (TAEG) of 4.31%. Total cost of credit of €170,484.67; total amount payable by the consumer (MTIC) of €395,484.67. The APR (TAEG) and MTIC include the insurance, initial fees of €988.00 (including Stamp Duty of 4%) and Stamp Duty of €1,350.00 on the principal. Interest exempt from Stamp Duty (art. 7 of the CIS). Values calculated by the simulator, with the rate remaining constant throughout the entire term. They do not correspond to the offer of any credit institution; binding conditions are set out in the European Standardised Information Sheet (FINE). Banco de Portugal Notice no. 5/2024.
Illustrative case: character, amounts and conditions are fictional. Figures calculated by the simulator using the default assumptions (TAN of 3.7%, appreciation of 3.9% and return of 4.5% per year), which are not offers from any bank. Granting of credit is subject to approval by the credit institution.
Illustration of Jorge
Illustrative example

Jorge had a rented two-bedroom apartment and one question: does the property or the money earn more?

He is 58 and lives in Faro. He bought in 2014 for €140,000, receives €900 per month and still owes €80,000 to the bank. A neighbor sold an identical two-bedroom apartment for €250,000 and he started wondering if he should do the same.
  • Faro
  • 58 years old
  • Rent of €900/month
  • Bought in 2014
  • Credit of €80,000
The landlord’s ruleAmount
Rent after vacancies and IRS3.9% per year
Cost of keeping the capital in the property1.5% per year
Minimum rent for it to pay off€342/month
The rule saysKeep ✓
With moderate rent, you pay 10% IRS on the rents. If you sold today, you would pay €11,569 IRS on the capital gain and repay the €80,000 of the credit. Transferring the credit to a rate 0.50 p.p. lower would add about €4,010.

Net rent €531/month

After 10 years+€51,630

After 10 years+€51,630more than if you sold today
Net rent€531/monthafter expenses, vacancies and IRS
Net amount if you sold today€143,056after IRS and the credit
Illustrative case: character, figures and conditions are fictitious. Values calculated by the simulator using the TAN from Jorge’s loan agreement (3.4%) and the remaining default assumptions, with the tax rules for 2026, under individual taxation; the final tax depends on each person’s situation and the law may change. This is not tax advice. The TAN is an assumption, not a condition offered by any bank. Provisional coefficients: the ordinance for sales in 2026 has not yet been published. We use the one for 2025.
*Illustrative, non-binding example, with fictional characters and values that do not correspond to the offer of any credit institution. This does not constitute a credit offer and does not replace an assessment of each client’s personal and financial situation, nor the approval of the lending credit institution. TAN, TAEG and MTIC values are presented under the terms of Decree-Law no. 74-A/2017 and Banco de Portugal Notice no. 5/2024; the actual values are calculated by the lending credit institution in the European Standardised Information Sheet (ESIS). CrediSegur (CRRF – Brokerage, Lda.) — tied credit intermediary registered with Banco de Portugal under no. 0001290.

Myths

  • Myth“Renting is throwing money away.”Buying also has costs you never get back: interest, IMT, IMI, insurance and maintenance. The fair comparison is between the rent and those costs.What to do: compare both paths over the same term, with the simulator.Source: the simulator’s calculation.
  • Depends“Buying is always better in the long run.”It depends on how long you stay in the home, on the ratio between price and rent, and on the interest rate. Anyone who moves within a few years loses a lot in taxes and purchase costs.What to do: see in the simulator from which year buying starts to pay off.Source: the simulator’s calculation.
  • Myth“Rents always pay the same IRS rate.”The rate goes down with the length of the contract and is lower for moderate rents and affordable renting.What to do: landlords, simulate with the contract’s actual length and check whether the rent qualifies for a reduced regime.Source: CIRS, art.º 72.º; DL n.º 97/2026.

The next step

You already have this answer. Keep going — each tool prepares the next decision.

Support from a CrediSegur manager

A CrediSegur manager follows your request with the institutions we work with. Our intermediation service has no cost for you.

Frequently asked questions

It’s a quick way to compare buying with renting. It estimates that being a homeowner costs about 5% of the home’s value per year in costs you never recover: taxes, maintenance and the cost of money. Dividing by 12 gives you the break-even rent. If the rent for a similar home is lower, renting and investing the difference tends to pay off.
Because the costs of buying, owning and selling a home are different in each country. In Portugal, buying pays IMT and Stamp Duty, owning pays IMI on the taxable assessed value, selling usually pays a real estate agent commission with VAT (we assume 6.15% of the price, which you can change) and, in some cases, IRS on the capital gain, and the landlord pays IRS on the rents. The simulator adds all of this to the cost of money.
It’s what the money put into the home costs you per year: the interest on the credit, plus what the down payment would earn if it were invested, minus the home’s expected appreciation. With the default values, for a home worth €250,000: 2.42% + 1.53% − 3.90% = 0.05%. The adapted rule comes to 3.1% and the break-even rent to €655 per month.
In “Detailed”, choose “Landlord”. We compare the rent you receive, after months without a tenant, expenses and IRS, with the cost of keeping the capital in the property. If the rent is below the minimum rent, selling and investing the money tends to pay off; if it’s above, keeping pays off.
The flat rate is 25% on contracts of less than 5 years and falls with the contract length, down to 5% on contracts of 20 years or more. Residential rents up to €2,300 per month pay 10% until 2029 (moderate rent). You can choose to aggregate the rents if your IRS rate is lower.
Not necessarily. Owning also has costs you never recover: interest, IMI, maintenance, insurance and buying and selling costs. If the rent is lower than those costs and you invest the difference, renting can leave you with more wealth.
Official data verified on 10/20/2026 · Sources: Diário da República, Autoridade Tributária, Banco de Portugal, INE, Segurança Social, Assembleia da República · see sourcesData from INE – Portugal, reused under the CC BY 4.0 licence.
Important note: Purely informational and illustrative simulation, based on the assumptions entered, which remain constant over the term, something that rarely happens in reality. The interest rate is an editable assumption and does not constitute a credit offer. This does not constitute tax advice, an investment recommendation or a contractual offer. Granting of credit is subject to approval by the credit institution. CRRF – BROKERAGE, LDA (CrediSegur) is a tied credit intermediary registered with Banco de Portugal (no. 0001290) and an insurance agent registered with the ASF (no. 421571530); it does not charge fees for credit intermediation.Sources (in Portuguese) — Real estate: Valorização: BIS, preços residenciais em Portugal (via FRED), taxa média anual composta 2000–2025 (3,9 %); rendas: INE, IHPC — rendas efetivas da habitação, média anual 2015–2025 (3,2 %); comissão de venda: 5% + IVA, pressuposto da CrediSegur; CIMI, art.º 112.º (taxa de IMI) · Rents: Art.º 72.º do CIRS e DL n.º 97/2026; Regime Simplificado de Arrendamento Acessível · Capital gains: CIRS, art.º 10.º, 43.º e 44.º (mais-valias); DL n.º 442-A/88, art.º 5.º (não sujeição antes de 1989) · Coefficients: Portaria n.º 382/2025/1 (alienações de 2025) · Parameters updated on October 20, 2026.