Do you need a licence to renovate in Portugal?

It’s the first question most of our renovation clients ask, and the honest answer is that it depends on what you’re doing, where the building is and what the local Câmara’s own regulations say. The 2024 reform (the Simplex Urbanístico, Decree-Law 10/2024) made a lot of ordinary work simpler. It didn’t make everything exempt. Here is how it works in practice.

Three routes

Building work in Portugal goes down one of three routes. Exempt work needs no prior approval from the Câmara, though the technical rules still apply. A comunicação prévia is a prior notice with a project: you submit it, pay the fees, and you can usually start. A full licenciamento is an application the Câmara has to decide on, within set deadlines. The reform moved a lot of work down a route: some from licence to prior notice, some from prior notice to exempt.

What is usually exempt now

• Interior works that don’t touch the structure, the building height, the facade, the shape of the roof or the facade tiles. New kitchens, bathrooms, floors, plastering, rewiring and replumbing mostly fall here.
• Interior works that do alter the structure, provided a qualified technician signs a term of responsibility for the structural change. Exempt from approval, but not from engineering.
• Replacing windows and doors with equivalent or more efficient ones, as long as the openings themselves stay the same.
• Small works the municipality classes as of minor urban relevance in its own regulation. This list varies from Câmara to Câmara.

Running a job from overseas? Our project management puts someone on site who works for you, not the builder.

What still needs a procedure

• Changing the facade: new or enlarged openings, closing in a balcony, changing volumes. Replacing cladding with something that clearly changes its look can also count.
• Extensions and new floors, and most reconstruction.
• Changing the use of a building or a fraction.
• Almost anything on a classified building or inside a heritage protection zone.

Heritage zones and historic centres

This is where people get caught. If the building is classified, or sits inside a protection zone around a monument, the simplifications are limited and the heritage authority usually has to give an opinion. The historic centres of Porto and Guimarães are UNESCO sites, and many towns have areas where the Câmara dictates tiles, window types, colours and roof lines. A job that would be exempt in a suburb can need a full project in the old town. Check before you buy, not after.

Apartments: the condominium has a say

Inside your own flat, the rules above apply. Anything touching common parts (the facade, the roof, the structure, shared services) needs the condominium’s approval. Works that change the architectural line or the look of the building need a two-thirds majority of the building’s value. Closing in a balcony or changing the windows on the street side is the classic case. Even with a licence, the neighbours can stop it.

Exempt doesn’t mean no rules

Exempt work still has to comply with the technical regulations: structural safety, fire, acoustics, energy performance and the electrical and gas rules, with certification where they apply. And if the scaffold or skip goes on the street, the Câmara wants a licence for occupying public space whatever route the works themselves are on.

When there is a licence, how long?

Since the reform, a licence no longer has to be issued as a separate document before work starts: paying the municipal fees is enough. Câmaras also have legal deadlines to decide, generally 120 to 200 days depending on the type and size of the work, and silence past the deadline counts as approval. In practice timescales still vary a lot between municipalities, and a well-prepared project is the biggest single thing you can do to keep it moving.

Buying a house that has already been altered

Unlicensed extensions, closed balconies and garage conversions are common on houses for sale. Since 2024 the licence of use no longer has to be shown at the escritura, which makes it easier to buy a building with work that was never approved. That’s a question for your lawyer, and for us: work done without a project is usually work done without an engineer. See buying property after DL 108/2026 and the 2024 changes for buyers.

How we handle it

On renovations we run, we work out the route with the architect and the Câmara at the start, before anything is priced in detail, because the route decides the programme. If you’re planning works on a house you haven’t bought yet, tell us when you book the inspection and we’ll flag what is likely to need a procedure.

This is a builder’s summary of how the rules work in practice, not legal advice. Municipal regulations differ, so confirm the specifics for your property with the Câmara and your architect.