Portuguese companies believe that they will see exports rise 5.1% on average in 2026, expecting that the rate of overseas sales of goods will improve on 2025 despite international uncertainty and trade tariffs from the United States.
According to a survey on the Outlook for Exports of Goods for 2026 published on Wednesday by the National Statistics Institute (INE), data on international commercial trade suggested an accumulated growth between January and November 2025.
The INE also published a back-of-the-envelope estimate for the 4th quarter of 2025 which points to a reduction of 2.6% like-for-like while definitive data for the whole of 2025 has not yet been released.
Nevertheless, exporting Portuguese companies are more optimistic for 2026 than they had been the last time the survey was done in November 2024.
At that time data suggested overseas sales growth of 4.6% but that was before Donald Trump had become President of the USA.
And the tariffs and international uncertainty do not seem to be spooking most Portuguese exporting companies although depending on the sectors involved, some expect growth while others anticipate constraints with SMEs more optimistic expecting growth of up to 10.6%.
Larger companies, however, foresee growth of 4.7% and micro-companies 4.3% while digital-intense companies are the only ones expecting low rates of growth in 2026 at only 0.3%.
Essential Business
