Portugal scored eighth in the world. Twenty-ninth for one thing.

The world's expats have been rating their adopted homes again, and Portugal scored near the top on almost everything that isn't a payslip. It's Thursday, 6 August. Thirty-two degrees. Air quality: 31 (Good). Here's what you need to know.

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PORTUGAL IS THE WORLD'S EIGHTH-BEST COUNTRY FOR EXPATS, NEW SURVEY FINDS

Portugal has placed eighth out of thirty-one countries in this year's Expat Insider survey, the annual ranking run by the expat network InterNations. Nearly 8,000 people living abroad, across 162 nationalities, were asked to rate their adopted country on everything from the cost of living to how easy it is to make friends. Portugal came out ahead of every European country except Spain.

It is a notable climb. Last year Portugal sat in seventeenth place, so this is a jump of nine spots in twelve months. The survey scores each country across five areas: quality of life, personal finances, working abroad, expat essentials, and how easy it is to settle in. Portugal's overall result was carried by strong marks in the areas people tend to worry about most before they move.

The standout was money. Portugal ranked fourth in the world for personal finances, with most respondents saying they had enough disposable income to live comfortably and were satisfied with where they stood financially. It also came seventh for ease of settling in, with people reporting that they found it straightforward to adapt, build a routine and feel at home here.

Then there is the catch, and it is a familiar one. Portugal placed twenty-ninth for working abroad, near the bottom of the entire table, with respondents pointing to limited career prospects and lower salaries than they would find elsewhere. The picture the survey paints is consistent year after year: this is a country that rewards retirees, remote workers and anyone whose income arrives from outside its borders, and frustrates those trying to build a career from within it.

At the top of the list, warm and affordable destinations dominate. Panama took first place for the third year running, followed by Mexico, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Spain, Singapore, then Portugal, with Malaysia and Luxembourg completing the top ten. At the other end sit some of Europe's wealthiest nations: the United Kingdom placed twenty-eighth, Germany thirtieth, and Norway dead last. The common thread among the low-scorers is not money but belonging, with expats reporting that these countries are the hardest places to feel part of local life.

Whether you are settled here, weighing a move, or fielding questions from friends back home who are, the data lines up with what a lot of people already live day to day. The lifestyle and the cost of living hold up well. The job market is the part to walk into with your eyes open, particularly if you are relying on a local salary rather than bringing your work or your pension with you.

Bottom line: Portugal keeps winning on the things that make daily life good and losing on the one that pays for it. The ranking is really just a well-sourced snapshot of a trade-off most residents worked out for themselves a long time ago.

⚡ QUICK HITS

A British royal baby has been born in Lisbon. Princess Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank welcomed a daughter, their third child and first girl, at a hospital in the capital on Monday evening, 3 August, at 6.20pm, weighing six pounds nine ounces. Buckingham Palace confirmed the news, and the couple posted a first photo the following day, though they have not yet announced her name. The Lisbon birth is less surprising than it first appears: the couple have split their time between Britain and the Alentejo coast, about an hour south of the city, since 2022, when Brooksbank took a job at a resort development there. Still counts as a rare royal arrival on Portuguese soil though.

Solar became Portugal's single biggest source of electricity for the first time on record last month. Figures from the national grid operator, REN, show solar supplied 19 percent of the country's electricity in July, ahead of hydropower on 16 percent and wind on 13 percent, while renewables together covered 53 percent of national demand. It caps a decade of heavy investment in solar and marks a genuine shift in where the country's power comes from. Abundant midday sun can help hold down wholesale electricity prices, though how much of that reaches household bills depends on storage and the grid keeping pace as more panels come online.

Europe's airports are demanding urgent fixes to the new border system. Airports Council International (ACI) Europe, the body representing the continent's airports, has called on European Union (EU) authorities to resolve the disruption caused by the Entry/Exit System (EES), the new digital border check that fingerprints and photographs non-EU travellers as they arrive. It warns that long and unpredictable queues are beginning to put people off flying altogether, at a point when passenger growth across Europe is already slowing, up just 2.6 percent in the first half of the year. Lisbon has been among the airports feeling it. This follows the delays we covered yesterday.

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🍽️ SPOT OF THE DAY

SANTA JOANA (AVENIDA)

Some places are worth going to for the room before you have tasted a thing. Santa Joana is built into a converted seventeenth-century convent just off Avenida da Liberdade, and the main dining room sits inside the old convent church, with soaring ceilings, stone archways and original azulejos running along the walls. It is the Lisbon homecoming of Nuno Mendes, the Portuguese chef who made his name in London and came back to run this.

The cooking is contemporary Portuguese built for sharing. Oysters and cold seafood from the raw bar, grilled meats and fish, and a shrimp rice with lobster that ends up on more or less every table. Ingredients are sourced from farmers, growers and small producers around the country, and the menu moves with the seasons, so the list in August leans on summer shellfish, tomatoes and stone fruit. It is a room designed to be lingered in, with a crudo bar and a plant-filled atrium alongside the main hall.

Worth knowing before you go: this is a special-occasion place rather than a weeknight one. Expect to spend upward of one hundred euros a head once wine is involved, and book ahead, as the dining room fills quickly on weekends.

→ See the space and book here ←

Insider tip: if the full dinner is more than you are after, Bar Joana in the atrium takes walk-ins, and is the low-commitment way to sit inside a former convent with a dozen oysters and a glass of something cold and crisp.

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