This is part of the Sovereign Canadian Expat Living series, where I work through what actually living in another country buys a Canadian, what it costs, and which chapter of life it fits. This is personal documentation and analysis, not immigration, tax, legal, or investment advice. Rules here change fast; verify current figures with primary sources before you act on anything.

There is a version of Portugal that lives on in expat videos and relocation blogs: cheap Lisbon apartments, a decade of near zero tax under NHR, a Golden Visa you buy with an apartment, five years to an EU passport, and healthcare that is simply free. Almost every specific claim in that pitch has since been closed, narrowed, or repriced. The old NHR regime shut its doors to new applicants at the end of 2023. The Golden Visa has not touched real estate since October of that same year. Portuguese house prices recorded the largest annual increase anywhere in the European Union heading into 2026. And as of May 2026, the citizenship clock for a Canadian runs ten years, not five.