Portugal recorded its highest levels of happiness and life satisfaction in a decade in 2025, even as concerns over housing costs, healthcare quality and future security intensified, according to the latest edition of the Observatory of Portuguese Society.
The annual study by the Observatory’s Behavioral Insights Unit at Católica-Lisbon found that 71% of respondents described themselves as happy, with a 9.3% saying they were very happy. Life satisfaction also reached a record high, with 73.4% satisfied and 8.7% very satisfied — the strongest results since the survey began in 2015.
The findings point to a sustained recovery in individual well-being following the pandemic, with overall happiness and satisfaction now exceeding pre-Covid levels. But the data also reveals a sharp divide between personal circumstances and perceptions of the country’s structural challenges, such as rising housing prices, the quality of healthcare and future security.
Future security emerged as the most fragile dimension of well-being. More than a quarter of respondents (28.6%) said they were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their prospects, reflecting broader unease about economic stability and public services.
Health perceptions illustrate a similar tension. While 77.5% rated their health as good or better, only 6.6% described it as excellent — the lowest figure in the historical series. The decline points to growing dissatisfaction with the quality of healthcare, even as overall assessments remain broadly positive.
Economic pressures are increasingly shaping household attitudes. Nearly half of respondents said their income was “enough to live on,” (48.7%) and 12.7% said it was sufficient to live comfortably. Yet views on what constitutes a minimum viable income shifted sharply over the past year. The share of participants who said less than €1,000 a month was sufficient fell from 63.2% in 2024 to 22.7% in 2025. At the same time, those who said they needed more than €1,500 rose from 10.7% to 44.8%, underscoring the impact of rising living costs.
Against this backdrop, interest in saving remains high. Almost two-thirds of respondents said they were very interested in saving, a pattern the study describes as a “prudent and defensive” household stance.
Economic expectations, while still cautious, show signs of recovery. The Economic Confidence Index stood at -10.6, up 5.5 percentage points from July 2024, signalling gradual improvement in outlooks despite persistent pessimism.
Trust in institutions remains uneven. The study identifies a clear gap between confidence in European institutions and assessments of national governance. Nearly half of respondents (49.6%) said they trusted the European Union, compared with 17.2% who expressed distrust. More than seven in 10 agreed that Portugal is better equipped to face future challenges as an EU member.
By contrast, government performance was rated poorly in areas with direct impact on daily life. Rising housing prices received the lowest score, at 2.45 on a 10-point scale, followed by housing supply in urban centres (2.93), corruption (2.96), public housing (3.11), poverty (3.31) and social inequality (3.67).
Rita Coelho do Vale, a professor at the Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics and coordinator of the study, said the findings reveal “a two-speed country.”
“There is a private sphere marked by high levels of happiness and personal satisfaction, and a collective sphere marked by anxiety and mistrust in the face of unresolved structural problems, such as housing and health,” she said. “This gap is one of the most significant signs of Portuguese society today.”
The Observatory of Portuguese Society has tracked well-being, institutional trust and economic perceptions since 2015. The 2025 data were collected in July through an online survey of 1,134 participants drawn from the university’s representative online study panel.
