Garantia pública: how 100% financing works in 2026

A €280,000 home looks within reach — until you get to the deposit. Under the classic 90% financing model you need to have 10% saved up — €28,000 — plus the taxes and fees stacked on top. In the worked example of a €250,000 purchase for a primary residence (habitação própria e permanente/HPP) with a 90% mortgage, the sum of IMT (property transfer tax, €7,042.04), Imposto do Selo (stamp duty) on the purchase (€2,000), Imposto do Selo on the mortgage (€1,350), registration fees (€700), bank valuation (€280) and arrangement fee (€300) added to the €25,000 deposit for a total of €36,672.04 — the same cost structure the total purchase costs calculator uses as its reference. On a €280,000 home, with proportionally higher taxes, the initial cheque easily runs to 40 to 50 thousand euros.

This is the problem the garantia pública (state guarantee) tries to solve: not your monthly salary, but the lump sum of capital you need to have before you even go to the notary. If the alternative is to keep paying rent while you save that amount year after year, the measure genuinely changes the calculation. If the alternative is stretching your budget to the limit just because the bank lets you, the rest of this article explains why it’s worth stopping before you sign.

How it works: the State as guarantor

The garantia pública, created by Decree-Law No. 44/2024, is neither a loan nor a subsidy. It is the State taking on the role of guarantor for up to 15% of the property’s value — €67,500 at most — so the bank finances the rest without requiring a deposit. None of this is money that lands in your account: it’s a guarantee the bank accepts instead of your own capital.

The State remains guarantor for 10 years from the date of the contract. The measure applies only to home-loan contracts signed by 31 December 2026 — with no confirmed extension beyond that date, the window closes there. And there’s one point worth underlining before anything else: the bank always decides. The guarantee opens the door to financing without a deposit, but loan approval, the interest rate and the spread remain the bank’s decision, case by case.

Who can apply: the eight criteria

The list of conditions is long and specific — miss one criterion and you’re out, no matter how many of the other seven you meet.

• Be between 18 and 35 years old.
• Be a tax resident in Portugal.
• Your household’s annual income cannot exceed €86,634 — the ceiling of the 8th bracket of IRS (personal income tax) in 2026.
• The property cannot cost more than €450,000.
• It must be your first primary residence.
• You cannot have any other residential property in your name.
• You cannot have outstanding debts to the AT (Tax Authority) or Social Security.
• The bank loan must cover at least 85% of the transaction value.

The last two points are tied to each other: the guarantee covers up to 15%, the bank finances the rest, and the sum has to add up exactly. On a €450,000 purchase — the property price ceiling — the maximum guarantee of €67,500 covers exactly that 15%.

The math: financing 100% costs this much more

The guarantee solves the deposit problem, but it doesn’t change the arithmetic of borrowing: asking for more money, over the same term and at the same rate, costs more per month and more in interest over the life of the loan. Here is the same €280,000 property, with 6-month Euribor at 2.723% and a spread of 0.9% (TAN — nominal annual rate — of 3.623%), over 37 years, comparing the two paths:

Scenario	Deposit	Amount financed	Monthly payment
100% public guarantee	€0	€280,000	€1,145.86
Classic 10% deposit	€28,000	€252,000	€1,031.27

The monthly difference is €114.59 — just over a hundred euros, but over 37 years that adds up. Over the life of the loan, financing 100% instead of putting down 10% costs around €22,900 more in interest paid to the bank. That’s the price of not having had a deposit: you end up paying it anyway, with interest, month after month, for almost four decades.

Who it’s worth it for — and who it isn’t

This is where the public guarantee stops being just a measure on paper and becomes a personal decision. It’s worth it when the real alternative is to keep paying rent while you try to save 40 to 50 thousand euros — and at the savings rate of most salaries, that means several years, during which the home you wanted to buy may no longer be the same price. In that scenario, the extra €22,900 in interest over 37 years is an acceptable cost for no longer paying someone else’s rent as of tomorrow.

It isn’t worth it when the decision is to stretch your budget to the limit just because the bank agrees to finance 100%. A monthly payment of €1,145.86 has to fit comfortably into your monthly budget, with room for the unexpected — not just pass the bank’s affordability stress test. The guarantee removes the deposit barrier, but it doesn’t remove the risk of buying a home that’s too expensive for what you earn, and that remains a calculation only you can make — ideally before you sign the CPCV (promissory purchase contract), not after.

It’s also worth noting that the guarantee doesn’t exempt you from taxes: IMT and Imposto do Selo are still payable in full, unless you also meet the criteria for the regime jovem (under-35 scheme) — a separate tax benefit, with its own rules, that can ease that part of the bill even if you’re already using the public guarantee for the deposit.

How to apply

The process has no dedicated counter: you apply for a normal home loan, at the bank of your choice, and ask explicitly whether that bank applies the public guarantee to your profile. Not all banks have signed up to the measure in the same way, and the spreads charged vary from institution to institution — it’s worth comparing more than one offer, including through a credit intermediary registered with Banco de Portugal (the Portuguese central bank), paid by the bank rather than by you, who should already know which institutions are on board at the time you apply.

The bank will ask you for the usual documents — proof of income, and confirmation that your tax and social security situation is in order — plus confirmation that you meet the eight criteria above. If one of them fails partway through the process — for example, if your household’s income moves up a tax bracket midway through the year — the loan can still go ahead, but without the public guarantee covering the deposit.

Your next calculation

Before deciding between financing 100% or saving up a partial deposit, it’s worth confirming two numbers: whether you really meet the eight criteria, and how your monthly payment changes with a different term, loan amount or spread from this example — the same calculation the home loan repayment calculator runs in seconds.