The Public Finance Council (CFP) clarified on Wednesday that it did not establish any connection between the Young IMT and housing prices in the report ‘Budgetary Evolution of Local Administration in 2024’, published yesterday.
The issue arose from a news article by Jornal Económico, claiming that the government’s housing measures, particularly the reduction of IMT for young homebuyers, led to increased market prices, citing the CFP report.
However, the entity led by Nazaré Costa Cabral clarified in a press release, “contrary to what has been reported by some media outlets, the report 06-2025 ‘Budgetary Evolution of Local Administration in 2024’, published on July 8, does not make any connection between the Young IMT and housing prices.”
The statement continues: “What the CFP states in the report is that the IMT revenue contributed to the increase in municipal revenue and explains the underlying reasons for this revenue’s growth.”
“The development referred to in the phrase ‘Towards this evolution, measures such as IMT exemption for young people contributed by the end of the year’ concerns the IMT revenue recorded by municipalities in 2024,” the release reads.
The CFP report explains that the Young IMT regime resulted in transactions that did not generate IMT revenue. However, as detailed in the footnote, municipalities were compensated by the state for this loss, receiving an amount of 17.8 million euros, recorded in IMT revenue. This compensation contributed to the increase in this tax revenue recorded by municipalities.
The entity led by Nazaré Costa Cabral assures that “at no point did the CFP raise any alert about the impact of this measure on housing prices.”
The IMT revenue increases thanks to the exemption for young people?
Moreover, Jornal de Negócios reports that the CFP concluded that the reduction of IMT for young people contributed to the increase in local authorities’ revenue from the tax, contrary to expectations.
The same newspaper notes that the CFP initially indicates that government and local authority projections for municipal IMT revenue “were exceeded” last year.
Overall, this tax, paid to municipalities on real estate transfers, saw an increase of 0.8%, reaching 1.726 billion euros in 2024, contrary to what the Government expected (a 1.6% drop) and local authorities predicted (expecting to collect about 50 million euros less).
According to Jornal de Negócios, the expectation of less revenue was justified with the Young IMT, as this measure exempts those under 35 years old on their first home purchase exclusively for personal and permanent residence.
The National Health Service (SNS) recorded a deficit of about 1.377 billion euros in 2024, representing a deterioration of 741 million compared to 2023, announced today by the Public Finance Council (CFP).
Lusa | 15:06 – 01/07/2025
