How much it costs to renovate a two or three-bedroom flat in Lisbon, Setúbal and the Oeste

A flat in Lisbon, Setúbal or the Oeste costs between 600 and 2,400 € per square metre to renovate. It is a wide range because it covers very different things: at the lower end, a finishes refresh with the flat keeping its existing layout; at the upper end, a job with an interior design project, bespoke joinery and VRV/VRF climate control.

If you have already been researching, you probably noticed something else: the numbers online do not line up with each other. For the same two-bedroom flat you will find people quoting 20,000 € and people quoting 90,000 €. That is not the market being chaotic, it is the result of different jobs being quoted under the same name. This guide works the sums for specific cases and, more importantly, explains where that gap comes from, so you can read any proposal you receive.

The three levels of work and what each includes

We organise work into three levels, using the same classification as the renovation levels guide, where each one is described in full. What follows is only what you need for budgeting: what separates one level from the next is how deep the work goes, not a commercial name.

Level	In short	Price	End-to-end timeline
Practical	Surfaces and finishes, nothing structural touched	600 to 900 €/m²	5 to 8 weeks
Family	Kitchen and bathroom rebuilt, services updated	900 to 1,600 €/m²	3 to 5 months
Signature	Designer project and premium materials	1,600 to 2,400 €/m²	6 to 10 months

Each level serves a different decision.

Practical. Makes sense for adding value before a sale, or preparing a flat for long-term letting or short-term rental in the areas where that works. The aim is a presentable, functional flat, without rebuilding infrastructure that still does its job.

Family. The level for someone who will live there for years and therefore wants the kitchen and bathroom resolved from scratch, with the electrical and water systems updated at the same time.

Signature. Starts from a designer project, with material and detail choices that can only be executed with made-to-measure joinery and longer timelines. Listed heritage property falls outside this level and is quoted separately, because heritage constraints change the working method.

The sums worked through: a 70 m² and a 95 m² flat

The figures above are per square metre, so they only become useful multiplied by a real area. For this exercise we use a two-bedroom flat of 70 m² and a three-bedroom of 95 m². These are plausible sizes for ordinary flats in these regions and serve to give an order of magnitude; they are not official market averages and do not replace measuring your own property.

Level	2-bed (70 m²)	3-bed (95 m²)
Practical (600 to 900 €/m²)	42,000 to 63,000 €	57,000 to 85,500 €
Family (900 to 1,600 €/m²)	63,000 to 112,000 €	85,500 to 152,000 €
Signature (1,600 to 2,400 €/m²)	112,000 to 168,000 €	152,000 to 228,000 €

Two readings are worth taking from this table.

First: the ranges overlap. A two-bedroom at the top of Practical (63,000 €) costs the same as a two-bedroom at the start of Family. The difference between them is not the money, it is what ends up done. In the first case you have a flat with new finishes and the old infrastructure underneath; in the second, a flat with less area treated in detail but with the pipework and consumer unit renewed. If you are choosing between levels, the right question is not how much you want to spend, it is how many years you want to go without opening walls again.

Second: area weighs more than people assume. Going from 70 to 95 m² adds about 36% of area, and the budget follows in the same proportion within the same level. That matters when comparing figures heard second-hand: an absolute number with no area attached says nothing.

Why you find such different figures when you search

This is the part price guides usually leave out, and it is the part that most helps you decide. It is worth starting with a concrete case, using figures published by two Portuguese renovation companies, both talking about a two-bedroom flat of around 80 m².

Source	What it publishes for a ~80 m² 2-bed
pom-lda.pt	18,000 to 30,000 €, rising to 35,000 € or more in Lisbon and Porto
fsimoes.pt	64,000 to 96,000 € for a mid-level renovation

Between the top of one and the bottom of the other there is more than double the difference, for the same property type and the same area. Neither of them is lying. They are describing different jobs under the same name, and there are three concrete reasons for that.

They are not quoting the same scope. By far the most common cause. A quote that includes a new consumer unit, separate circuits and replacement water pipework is not comparable to one that assumes the infrastructure stays as it is. Between those two scenarios there is easily a difference of tens of thousands of euros in a two-bedroom flat, and both can legitimately be called a “full renovation”.

A building quote is not the same as a flat ready to live in. Many proposals cover the construction work and stop there, leaving out items the client will have to pay for anyway: furniture, appliances, any design fees. When comparing two proposals, first confirm whether both are measuring to the same finish line.

The age of the building changes the starting point. In older construction, a good share of the budget goes on work that does not show in the final result: levelling floors, treating damp in party walls, replacing lead or iron pipework. That is why some companies publish a separate, higher band for buildings from before 1960 (fsimoes.pt indicates 1,800 to 2,500 €/m² in those cases), above what they charge for more recent construction.

Add to this that Greater Lisbon is more expensive than the national average, through labour, material prices at the point of delivery and logistical constraints, and a per-m² figure taken from an article covering the whole country will tend to sit below what is charged in the region. pom-lda.pt makes that distinction itself, separating the national figure from the Lisbon and Porto one.

Worth remembering A per-m² figure is only comparable when it comes with three things: the scope (which items are included), the area assumed and the area of the country. Without those three, comparing two numbers says nothing about which is more expensive.

What the per-m² figure does not include

The ranges above refer to the work: materials, labour and coordination through to handover. Some items fall outside and are worth budgeting separately when putting together the total cost of the project.

Furniture and decoration. A flat handed over with the work done is not yet furnished. At Family level, furnishing a living room and bedroom (sofa, table, rug, lighting and decoration) typically runs between 2,800 and 3,500 €. At Signature level, living room furniture alone, verified with suppliers, comes to around 6,045 to 6,335 €, and bedroom furniture is quoted case by case because premium suppliers do not publish public prices. In either case it is an optional item, separate from the cost of the work.

Appliances. Hob, oven, extractor, washing machines and fridge are the client’s choice and vary too much in range to sit inside a per-m² figure.

Design fees. When the job involves an architectural design, the corresponding fees run in the order of 6 to 12% of the construction cost, a figure published by fsimoes.pt for projects requiring full supervision. They are not part of the per-m² execution figure and should be added separately in financial planning.

Fees and notifications. Work confined to the interior of the flat, not touching structure or façade, normally carries a light administrative framework, but each council and each building’s rules have their own requirements. This is confirmed before starting, not during.

VAT. The rate applied changes the total significantly. Renovation work on housing can carry a reduced rate on part of the job, but that depends on the specific conditions of the contract and the property, confirmed case by case. What matters at the quoting stage is simpler than the tax rule: always confirm whether the figure presented is with or without VAT, and at what rate. Two proposals that look close can be several thousand euros apart for this reason alone.

What makes the price vary within the same level

Within each range, the difference between minimum and maximum has concrete causes. These are the ones that most often decide where in the range a job lands.

Layout changes. Opening or closing rooms with non-structural partitioning is predictable work. Touching structural elements is a different category of job: it requires structural verification and permits, and falls outside the Practical and Family levels.

Moving water and waste points. Relocating a bathroom, or moving the kitchen to another room, means redoing waste runs with the necessary falls and often raising floor levels. It is one of the single factors that most pushes a quote towards the top of the range.

The state of the electrical installation. In a building with an old consumer unit and no separate circuits, updating the installation stops being optional the moment you add light points, an induction hob or climate control. In buildings already worked on in recent years, this item can shrink considerably.

Age and condition of the building. Floors with pronounced level differences, ceilings short on usable height, damp in party walls or degraded window frames all add levelling work before any finish even begins. It is the item least visible in the final result and the one that most consumes budget.

Choice of materials. Between vinyl flooring and solid wood laid in herringbone, or between a laminate worktop and one in natural stone, there are differences in material cost and also in labour, because the method of installation is not the same.

Access and building rules. A building with no lift, a lift that cannot be used for loads, restricted working hours and parking limitations for loading and unloading all directly affect the number of hours required.

Bathroom and kitchen. These are the two rooms with the highest density of work per square metre, because they concentrate plumbing, waterproofing, finishes, furniture and equipment. A two-bedroom flat with two bathrooms does not cost the same as one with a single bathroom, even at the same area. As a market reference, renovating a kitchen in Lisbon, including the work and mid-quality units, typically sits between 12,000 and 22,000 €, which gives an idea of how much this room weighs in the total.

Why we do not publish a price list by task

It is common to find lists giving the price of painting a square metre of wall or laying a square metre of tile. As isolated references they are not false, but added up they do not give the cost of a job: a flat is not the sum of independent tasks.

What those lists leave out is precisely what decides the final figure. Substrate preparation before the finish (levelling, treating damp, correcting ceilings) does not appear in a task list because it depends on what is found on opening up. Nor does the sequence between trades: the electrician has to come before the plasterer, the plumber before the waterproofing, and a delay on one front propagates to every one that follows. And carrying debris down from a fourth floor with no lift does not cost the same as from the ground floor.

That is why we work with a total project figure, fixed in writing before the work starts, after a site visit. Payment is released against verified stages, not paid up front, and coordination of all the trades (builder, electrician, plumber, painter) sits with a single project manager. The work is covered by the 5-year legal guarantee under article 1225 of the Portuguese Civil Code.

That is also what a turnkey job means in practice: the design, the management of every trade and the final clean included in the same contract, instead of the client hiring and coordinating each trade separately.

Comparing quotes from different contractors

When you receive two quotes with very different figures, in most cases you are not comparing prices: you are comparing scopes. Four checks almost always settle it.

1. Confirm the area assumed. Some quotes count usable floor area, others count the area actually worked on (excluding, for example, rooms left untouched). Without the same basis, per-m² figures are not comparable.
2. Look for the infrastructure items. If one quote lists a consumer unit, new circuits and replacement water pipework, and the other does not mention them at all, the price difference is already explained.
3. See what is written about unforeseen work. A quote that says nothing about what happens when a wall is opened and damp is found is leaving that bill open.
4. Read the payment schedule. A large up-front payment, with no verifiable stages attached, transfers all the risk to the client before there is any executed work to show.

If you want to go further in checking the company itself, before looking at numbers, we have gathered what to confirm before signing with a contractor in a separate guide: registration, insurance, certificates and warning signs.

How to use these numbers

Multiply your flat’s area by the range for the level matching the scope you have in mind and you will have a reliable order of magnitude for deciding whether to proceed. Then add, separately, the items that fall outside the per-m² figure: furniture, appliances, any design fees and VAT.

The next step towards a fixed figure is a site visit. That is where the existing installation, the state of the walls and floors and the building’s constraints are confirmed, and those are what decide between the bottom and the top of the same range. The figure is closed in writing before the work starts.