Lisbon: a Big Mac priced by tourism and remote-worker influx
Lisbon's Big Mac price has risen faster than the Portuguese national average over the past five years, driven by post-2020 tourism inflation and a wave of remote-worker arrivals taking advantage of Portugal's now-discontinued NHR tax regime. The city's restaurant prices have decoupled meaningfully from Portuguese median wages — a tension that plays out in local political debate as much as in inflation data.
Within Portugal, Lisbon now runs notably higher than Porto, Braga, or Coimbra — a Lisbon premium that didn't exist a decade ago. For Big Mac Index analysts, Lisbon is the cleanest single-city case of how immigration-driven demand can lift local prices inside a shared currency zone (the euro) without any change in monetary policy. Watch the Lisbon-Porto spread as Portugal's NHR phase-out continues through 2026 — convergence would suggest the influx effect is cooling.