Lisbon, May 27, 2025 — Foreign direct investment in Portugal decreased by 1.063 billion euros in the first quarter, primarily impacted by debt reduction, while investment abroad rose by 1.321 billion euros, the Banco de Portugal (BdP) announced today.
The central bank reported that foreign investment in Portugal fell by 1.063 billion euros in the first quarter, compared to an increase of 670 million euros last year.
This reversal was mainly due to the reduction in debt held by resident entities to non-resident companies within the same economic group, which accounted for a decrease of 1.2 billion euros.
The decrease in investment from Spain, which fell by 3.1 billion euros, was “partially offset by increases in investment from Luxembourg (400 million euros), Belgium (333 million euros), and France (309 million euros).
Conversely, Portugal’s direct investment abroad increased by 1.321 billion euros in the first quarter, lower than the growth of 1.883 billion euros in the same period of 2024.
“From an immediate counterparty perspective, significant investment was made in entities residing in European countries, particularly in the Netherlands (790 million euros), Spain (210 million euros), and Germany (99 million euros),” explained the BdP.
Concerning direct investment income, in the first quarter, FDI and Portuguese direct investment (PDI) revenues amounted to 2.077 billion euros and 607 million euros, respectively. PDI revenues grew by 30 million euros compared to the first quarter of 2024, and FDI revenues increased by approximately 230 million euros.
The BdP document also provides an analysis of direct investment relations between Portugal and the United States.
On an immediate counterparty basis—meaning investment made directly by US-based entities—the stock of foreign direct investment in Portugal made by American investors was 4.0 million euros at the end of 2025, accounting for 2% of the total foreign investment in Portugal.
This figure represents growth more than double what it was six years earlier, in the first quarter of 2019 (1.8 billion euros).
Based solely on final investor data, “allowing the determination of the ultimate origin of investment flows,” the stock of foreign investment by investors from the United States increased from 6.7 billion euros in March 2019 to 11.4 billion euros at the end of March this year.
As of the end of March, the value of US FDI in Portugal, “from the final investor’s perspective, represented 5.7% of the total,” ranking the US eighth among the primary investors in the country.
Thus, at the end of the first quarter, only 34% of US direct investment in Portugal had been made directly, indicating that “most US FDI entered Portugal from other economic jurisdictions”—notably Luxembourg (39%) and the Netherlands (12%).
Conversely, Portuguese direct investment in the US increased from 1.3 billion euros in the first quarter of 2019 to 1.8 billion euros by the end of the same period this year. Over these six years, the BdP noted, “the proportion of Portuguese investment in the US relative to total PDI has remained largely unchanged, ranging between 2% and 2.5%”.
