Buying property in Madeira, step by step

The order it actually happens in

1. A Portuguese tax number for every buyer named on the deed.
2. Search, viewing, and the document check on the specific property.
3. Contrato-promessa de compra e venda, with the deposit.
4. Escritura publica before a notary, or an authenticated private document.
5. Registration at the Registo Predial, with the tax filings that go with it.

The last three can compress into a single session at a Casa Pronta counter, where the sale, the registrations and the related tax obligations are completed together. The compression is administrative. It does not change what any of the steps commit the parties to.

The tax number, and the fiscal representative rule that changed

A Portuguese tax number is required before a purchase, a bank account or a utility contract. It is issued by the Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira, and a non-resident may be registered against a foreign address, in which case the register records them as non-resident. The mechanics are in the guide to getting a NIF, and the account that follows it in opening a Portuguese bank account.

The fiscal representative requirement changed in July 2022, and an account written before then gives the opposite answer. This is the rule as it now stands. Decreto-Lei n.º 44/2022 amended article 19 of the Lei Geral Tributária so that the obligation to appoint a representative does not apply to taxpayers who adhere to one of the dematerialised notification channels: the public electronic notification service tied to the Morada Única Digital, the regime of electronic notifications and summonses on the Portal das Finanças, or the caixa postal eletrónica.

Two further points are routinely misreported. First, the mere attribution of a tax number to a non-resident with a third-country address does not by itself trigger the obligation. It attaches once a tax relationship exists, which owning property in Portugal creates. Second, for taxpayers resident outside the EU or EEA, cancelling adherence to the electronic notification channel only takes effect once a fiscal representative has first been designated. The representative cannot simply be dropped once the electronic channel is switched off.

Where the sources conflict

Older practitioner material places the waiver at article 19, paragraphs 8 and 10, of the Lei Geral Tributária. Readings of the consolidated text following Decreto-Lei n.º 44/2022 place it at paragraphs 14, 15 and 16. Those two accounts conflict, and the consolidated LGT was not opened directly to settle it here. The substance of the rule is not in dispute. Only the paragraph numbering is.

The agent, and the word that is not a licence

Real estate mediation in Portugal requires a licence, the AMI, issued by IMPIC and listed on a public register. It attaches to the mediation business — a company or a sole trader — and not to the person showing the house. An angariador imobiliário sources listings and clients for a licensed company, holds no AMI of their own, and cannot mediate independently.

The register search takes about a minute and is set out in how to check an estate agent is licensed. The check costs nothing, and it belongs before a deposit exists rather than after.

The documents that decide whether a property can be sold at all

Caderneta predial urbana

The tax register extract for the property, issued by the Autoridade Tributária. It carries the description, the article number in the matriz, the registered owner, and the valor patrimonial tributário. That last figure matters at deed day, because transfer tax is charged on the higher of the contract price and the VPT.

Licenca de utilizacao

The use licence certifies that the building may lawfully be occupied for its stated purpose, under the Regime Juridico da Urbanizacao e da Edificacao. Buildings completed before 7 August 1951*, source: Diário da República, buildings completed before the date, read August 26, 2026 are treated as not requiring one, because no such licensing requirement existed then; in a sale that is normally evidenced by a certificate from the câmara municipal rather than by a licence. A property marketed as housing but licensed for another use is a common defect, and this is the stage at which it surfaces.

Certificado energetico

An energy certificate is required at every stage of the transaction, including marketing and advertising, the promissory contract and the deed, subject to the statutory exemptions. Certificates are issued by qualified experts through the SCE portal, and the certification system is managed by ADENE.

Ficha tecnica da habitação

A datasheet of the materials, systems and construction characteristics of a dwelling. It applies to housing built or substantially reconstructed from the dates set in the diploma, which in practice means new-build and heavily reworked property. Older houses that have not had qualifying works are commonly sold without one, and its absence on an old house is not by itself a defect.

The promissory contract is where the money becomes committed

The contrato-promessa de compra e venda binds both parties to execute the later sale. For urban buildings and autonomous fractions the special regime requires a written instrument, in-person recognition of the signatures, and notarial certification that the use licence or construction licence exists. The deposit handed over with it is the sinal, and it is not a booking fee.

Under article 442, paragraph 2, of the Código Civil, if the party who gave the sinal fails to perform through their own fault, the other party may keep what was handed over. If the failure is that of the party who received it, the party who paid may demand double the sinal*, source: Diário da República, arts. 442, 755 and 830, read August 26, 2026, or, where the thing has already been delivered, its value at the time of the default. The alternative is to seek specific performance under article 830.

That alternative is stronger than the doubled deposit alone would suggest. Under article 830, paragraph 3, in promises concerning the transfer of a real right over a building or autonomous fraction already built, under construction or still to be built, the right to specific performance cannot be excluded by the parties, even where the contract contains a sinal or a penalty clause. A seller who signs a promissory contract on a Madeira apartment and then finds a better offer cannot buy their way out of it by handing back a doubled deposit, if the promissory buyer would rather have the flat. The promissory buyer also holds a right of retention under article 755, paragraph 1, subparagraph f).

Deed day: escritura or documento particular autenticado

The transfer can be titled two ways. Either by public deed before a notary, or by an authenticated private document drawn up and authenticated by a lawyer, solicitador or registrar. Decreto-Lei n.º 116/2008 introduced the second route, and both have the same effect for land registry purposes. There is no statutory tariff for conveyancing work in Portugal; fees are freely agreed between the parties and their advisers.

Casa Pronta is the integrated alternative: a procedure run at registry offices under which the sale, the associated registrations of acquisition, mortgage and cancellation of prior charges, and the related tax obligations are handled at a single counter in one session. What each of those lines costs, and which of them can be traced to a published schedule, is set out in what it costs to buy in Madeira.

Transfer tax and stamp duty are settled as part of the transaction. In Madeira the transfer tax is computed against regional bracket tables rather than the mainland ones, which is the single most common error in English-language coverage of the island. There is a second half to that: where the buyer is not tax-resident in Portugal, a flat rate on housing applies instead and the tables do not decide the bill at all. The IMT guide sets out the rate, the two-year residency route and the letting route.

Registration is what makes it yours against everybody else

Facts subject to compulsory registration must be registered. Under article 8-B of the Codigo do Registo Predial, the duty to promote registration falls on the entity that executed the deed, authenticated the private document or recognised the signatures, and failing their intervention, on the buyer. Under article 8-C the registration must be requested within 30 days*, source: Diário da República, The deadline to request registration after the deed, read August 29, 2026 of the date the fact was titled.

Registration is what makes the acquisition effective against third parties, and it fixes priority. It does not affect validity between buyer and seller. An unregistered purchase is still a purchase as between those two, and close to useless against anyone else with a competing claim over the same property.

If the property is already running as Alojamento Local

This changed twice in fourteen months, so on this subject the date of a source decides whether it is right. Both the superseded position and the one now in force are set out here, with the instrument for each. Lei n.º 56/2023 made an Alojamento Local registration personal and non-transferable, lapsing on transfer of the holder, on cessation of the operation, on letting, on any change of operator, and on transfer of any part of the share capital of a corporate holder, with succession to heirs the only carve-out. Through that period the registration attached to a Madeira property carried no transfer value at all.

Decreto-Lei n.º 76/2024 revoked that construction. Since November 2024*, source: Diário da República, 2026, read August 26, 2026 the registration is no longer characterised as personal and non-transferable, and no longer lapses merely because the property is sold. A buyer can continue operating under the existing registration, subject to updating the holder details and continuing to meet the technical, safety and municipal requirements. The precise article of the consolidated Decreto-Lei n.º 128/2014 that now carries this, reported as article 9, was not opened at source for this page. What the registration involves in Madeira specifically, where regional bodies hold competences that sit nationally elsewhere, is in the Alojamento Local guide.