# 1.5 Million Without a Family Doctor: Portugal's Private Care Shift

> SNS family doctor shortfall tops 1.6 million in 2026, pushing more foreign residents toward private GP cover. GrowIN breaks down the real costs.

- Source: https://www.growinportugal.com/news/1-5-million-people-in-portugal-have-no-family-doctor-why-mor-2026-10-10
- Publisher: GrowIN Portugal (https://www.growinportugal.com)
- Published: 2026-10-10
- Last reviewed: 2026-10-10
- Language: en

> **Key figures — as of 2026-10-10:** 1.67 million SNS users had no assigned family doctor in May 2026, up from 1.60 million in January — a rise of nearly 66,000 people in five months; Lisbon and the Tagus Valley alone account for over 1.16 million of those cases; the government has authorised the SNS to hire up to 1,111 retired doctors in 2026; typical domestic private health insurance runs €30–€150 a month per person.

## The number keeps climbing, not shrinking

Portugal's primary care shortage has moved past the symbolic 1.5-million mark and kept going. Official statistics from the SNS Transparency Portal show the number of users without an assigned family doctor increased from 1,601,018 in January to 1,666,823 in May – an increase of 65,805 people. The latest numbers underline how sharply access to primary healthcare has deteriorated in recent years — in September 2019, the figure stood at 641,228, around one million fewer than today.

The share of the registered population affected is substantial: by the end of 2025, roughly 14.6% of everyone signed up to a health centre had no GP attached to their name, according to Público's reporting on official data. For anyone arriving from a country where a GP referral is the default gateway to specialists, that's not a rounding error — it's a structural gap.

## Lisbon takes the hit — and it's where most newcomers land

This matters disproportionately for foreign residents because of geography. Lisbon and the Tagus Valley remains by far the worst-affected region, accounting for 1,165,496 people without a family doctor in May – around 35,000 more than at the start of the year — while the North has fewer than 100,000 people waiting to be assigned a GP. Lisbon, Cascais, Oeiras and the wider Tagus Valley are also where the bulk of relocating professionals, remote workers and retirees under the [D7 and D8 visas](/visas/) settle first, which means the national shortage lands hardest exactly where new arrivals need a GP fastest — to register a baseline health record, get referrals, or simply have someone to call.

## The government's fix: bringing retired doctors back

Lisbon's health authorities aren't ignoring the problem, but the remedies are stopgaps rather than a fix. The Health and Finance Ministries authorised the SNS to re-hire up to 1,111 retired doctors in 2026, covering both new contracts and renewals of those already working past retirement age. Officials have openly acknowledged the underlying issue is demographic — family medicine is one of the specialities hit hardest by a wave of pending retirements.

There's cautious optimism further out. The National Association of Family Health Units projects the heaviest wave of retirements will hit this year, with around 503 doctors expected to retire, while the current shortfall nationally is calculated at 588 family doctors needed to give everyone registered in the SNS one. The association argues full coverage is realistic by the end of the current legislature — effectively 2029 — but only with sustained hiring and retention incentives, not one-off fixes.

## What it actually costs to skip the queue

Faced with a multi-year wait, a growing number of foreign residents are simply budgeting for private cover from day one rather than hoping an SNS assignment arrives. Major Portuguese domestic providers include Multicare, Médis, Allianz Portugal, Fidelidade and AdvanceCare, with typical costs running from €30 to €150 per month depending on age and coverage level. For a family rather than a single applicant, the maths changes quickly: a family plan with children under 18 through a provider like Multicare Top runs roughly €180–€320 a month combined, once couple and per-child discounts and loadings are applied.

**GrowIN's own calculation:** at that combined rate, a family of four paying for private cover purely to secure reliable GP access would spend between €2,160 and €3,840 a year — on top of the social security contributions and taxes that already fund the SNS they technically can't fully access. That's a real, recurring household cost many newcomers don't budget for when they first calculate their cost of living in Portugal.

As GrowIN Portugal Editorial puts it: *a monthly insurance premium has quietly become the real price of admission to a working relationship with a doctor in Portugal.*

## What this means in practice

Registering with the SNS is still worth doing even without an assigned GP — it's free, it covers emergency care, and it's often a prerequisite for visa renewals and other paperwork handled through [relocation guidance](/relocation/). But for routine check-ups, specialist referrals, or simply peace of mind in the first year, private insurance has become the practical workaround rather than a luxury. AIMA and Finanças processes don't require private cover once you're an SNS-registered resident, but many D7 and D8 applicants arrive already holding a private policy from the visa stage and simply keep paying into it rather than wait on a GP assignment that may not come for years.

## What to watch next

Keep an eye on the Health Ministry's spring hiring round for new *médico de família* vacancies, and on whether the 2029 target floated by family medicine associations survives contact with actual recruitment numbers. If the retirement wave plays out as projected, the backlog could start shrinking by 2027 — but SNS data has shown the user count moving the wrong way for several consecutive years running, and past government targets on this exact issue have already slipped once.

For now, anyone moving to Portugal without an EU health card or existing private cover should treat a private GP budget as a standard line item, not a contingency.

## Sources

- [Portugal Resident](https://www.portugalresident.com/portugal-family-doctor-shortage-2026)
- [Público](https://www.publico.pt/2026/01/06/sociedade/noticia/quase-15-utentes-medico-familia-fim-2025-centros-privados-avancam-leiria-oeste-algarve-2160235)
- [Observador](https://observador.pt/2026/10/01/medico-de-familia-para-todos-os-utentes-do-sns-ate-2029-e-possivel-diz-associacao-das-usf/)
- [Feather Insurance](https://feather-insurance.com/en-pt/blog/health-insurance-guide-portugal)

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© GrowIN Portugal. Cite as: GrowIN Portugal, "1.5 Million Without a Family Doctor: Portugal's Private Care Shift", https://www.growinportugal.com/news/1-5-million-people-in-portugal-have-no-family-doctor-why-mor-2026-10-10