Portugal

In Portugal, the unicameral parliament (Assembly of the Republic), consisting of 230 members is elected every 4 years, with the possibility of early elections. The age limit for both active suffrage (right to vote) and passive (standing for election) is 18 years. The members are elected in a regional closed-list proportional representation system, in constituencies of 2-48 seats, using the D'Hondt method. There are two constituencies for citizens abroad (both two-seat), one for European residents and the other for those in the rest of the world. There is no legal threshold as the constitution explicitly prohibits such.

The president (head of state) is directly elected for a 4-year term in a two-round system and may be re-elected once, so the same person can be president for a maximum of 2 terms in total, i.e. 8 years (the two terms do not have to be consecutive). The first round is held via a single-choice vote and the two candidates with the most votes advance to the second round if no one receives a majority (more than half of the valid votes, 50%+) in the first round.

To stand for election, one needs to be at least 35 years old.

MEPs from Portugal are elected every 5 years (at the same time as in the other EU member states). The entire country forms one constituency, in which 21 MEPs were elected in 2024. Due to "degressive proportionality", Portuguese voters have more representatives per capita than the EU average.

The main principle in the election of the Parliament (within the countries) is proportionality: by default, only a proportional system can be used, but beyond this, the member states decide for themselves what type. Portugal, unlike most member states, uses a closed-list proportional system. This means that voters can only vote for a party list, not for a candidates. The allocation of seats between parties is done using the D'Hondt (Jefferson) method, therefore the system is slightly biased towards larger parties. There is no legal electoral threshold, but in practice (due to the 21 seats) a minimum of about 4.5% is required to obtain a seat.

The minimum age for both active suffrage (the right to vote) and passive suffrage (the right to stand for election) is 18 years. Voting is not compulsory, and voting at embassies is possible, but postal voting, online voting or proxy voting are not.

This is the description of the electoral system of Portugal as of 07.06.2026 on Electoral Knowledgebase. Sources and further information on this topic:

• parlamento.pt

• IPU

• 2024 European Parliament elections: National rules (European Parlament)

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