How to compare mortgage offers in Portugal

Why the rate and the monthly payment mislead

The interest rate (the TAN) is only the index plus the spread. It leaves out life insurance, home insurance, fees and account charges — which is exactly where banks differ most. The offer with the lowest spread can end up dearer if it comes with a bank life policy that costs twice an outside one.

The payment depends on the term: the same rate over 40 years gives a lower payment than over 35, and far more interest in total. Comparing payments on offers with different terms compares different things.

What about the TAEG (APR)?

The TAEG was made for this: it rolls interest, fees, taxes and required insurance into one percentage. The trouble is that each bank computes it on the assumptions it chose — Euribor from a different day, its own life insurance, the age it was given, the discounts it assumed you take. Two banks’ TAEGs are rarely on the same footing.

The TAEG is fine for comparing two versions of the same offer, at the same bank, on the same day. To compare banks, recompute it — or the cost — on the same assumptions for all of them.

So what should you compare?

The cost of the loan: everything you pay beyond the principal you return. Interest, life and home insurance, upfront and monthly fees, stamp duty on the loan, account maintenance and the cost of the products behind the discounts. The principal is left out, because it is yours and sits in the house.

And over the right horizon. The FINE’s MTIC assumes you keep the loan to the last payment, without prepaying, selling or switching. In Portugal a 40-year loan often lasts much less. If you expect to move in ten years, compare the cost of those ten years — the ranking can change.

Step by step

• Ask three or more banks for a FINE (the Portuguese ESIS offer sheet) for the same loan amount and term. If a bank quotes another term, ask for a new one.
• Separate the offer with discounts from the offer without them. Many FINEs show both; if not, ask for the spread with no products.
• Put a price on every product the discount requires: the bank’s life insurance against an outside policy with the same cover, the card’s annual fee, the pension plan.
• Add up the upfront costs (valuation, dossier, formalisation, registration, stamp duty on the loan) and the monthly ones (insurance, account maintenance, payment processing).
• Price everything on the same Euribor and the same ages, and check the result with Euribor 1 or 2 percentage points higher: the cheapest offer today may not be the cheapest if rates rise.
• Take the best FINE to the other banks. The spread is the only part of the rate you can negotiate, and a competing offer in writing is the best argument.

A market benchmark

According to the Banco de Portugal, the average rate on new Portuguese home loans was 3.00% in August 2026, with 87% of new contracts on a mixed rate. Today a spread between 0.6% and 1.0% with discounts counts as good; with no products, around 1.4%. These are averages, not offers: the spread you are offered depends on the LTV, your income and the products you accept.

Doing the sums without a spreadsheet

qualcredito.com does this work: it reads the FINE PDFs in your browser, asks for the purchase once and prices every offer on that scenario — discounts at their real price, insurance recalculated on the outstanding balance, purchase taxes and Euribor sensitivity. It is free, in English, and stores nothing you upload.