Lisbon, Portugal

What Lisbon is made of: the communities whose institutions are here, the sectors its 17,515 businesses sit in, the franchises already on the ground, and the services a newcomer could start.

Business register for this city: © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0 — named shops, offices, trades and services, which undercounts businesses that are not mapped.

17,515 businesses on file · 160 trades · 29 sectors · registry population 2,925,000 · built from geonet.portugal on 2026-10-27

Businesses17,515
100% carry coordinates
Specialised in12
trades above the national pattern
Places of worship0
Franchise brands65
already operating here

Visiting rather than moving? The free guidebook for Lisbon → — the free guidebook for this region: why go, what to see, what is open when it rains.

1

The local economy

What the business base is made of, what it is specialised in against the national pattern, and what that mix implies. This is the part a development office would read first.

Composition, not health. geonet records what trades exist and where; it does not record formation, closure, employment or revenue, so none of those appear here. What makes this economics rather than a directory is the NAICS coding: it lets the local mix be read against the BLS survival curves and against the 323 industry groups this research has screened.

The two biggest markets here

Every industry group on this page links through to its NAICS page, and to the screened market report where this research has one — that is what the trait-to-NAICS coding buys.

Business density6
businesses per 1,000 residents, against the registry population of 2,925,000
Breadth of the base2978
narrow — 39 industry groups, top three 68.6%
Survival the mix implies59.1%
at five years, against 51.4% for all private establishments
Coded to NAICS52.1%
of which 81% unambiguous

What this city is specialised in

Location quotient is this city's share of a trade divided by the same share across 26 metro tables worldwide. Above 1.25 is the conventional threshold for a local specialisation.

The base against the entry screen

Businesses by the entry signal of the industry group they sit in, from the /markets screen. A large "structure decides" share means most local trades are ones where being better than the incumbent does not by itself win. A trade is matched to the screened record at whatever level the research wrote it — the same code, a broader one, or a narrower one. Where a group holds several screened sub-markets the count is shown, because no single one of them speaks for the whole group.

Enter
13.1%
1,194 businesses
Caution
28%
2,557 businesses
Structure decides
58.9%
5,376 businesses
Not screened
0%
0 businesses

How to read the survival figure

Each sector's five-year establishment survival rate, weighted by how many of this city's businesses sit in that sector. It is a property of the MIX, not of these businesses — it says what survival this composition would imply at US private-sector rates, because no Canadian equivalent series exists.

Weighted over 100% of the coded base — public administration carries no curve. Source: Business Employment Dynamics — Table 7, Survival of private sector establishments by opening year, US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And what it does not measure

A "mixed" trait is one that genuinely spans codes — "computers" covers systems design, repair and supply. The clear share is how much of this reading rests on unambiguous coding. Business density also reflects how completely the directory covers a place, not only how many businesses are in it — so it compares poorly between a city the register knows well and one it does not.

2

Who lives here, and who the city is for

The census: the only figures on this page that count people rather than businesses, and the three cohort readings they make possible.

No census subdivision is mapped for pt-lisbon in local/census-map.json, so this page carries no census figures. The mapping is kept explicit because Canada has several places called London, Toronto and Kelowna, and attaching the wrong one would put another city's demographics on this page.

P

People and languages

Who lives here and the languages business runs in: population and age from the statistics offices, and the share who can hold a conversation in English and other languages from the EU’s 2024 language survey. Each figure says whether it covers the city, the region or the whole country.

Population1,965,363
metro 2025
Median age45
metro 2025
Foreign-born or foreign citizens17.3%
2021
Employment rate81.9%
region 2025

Languages spoken

  • Official: Portuguese
  • The census here does not ask about language, so no shares are given.

Doing business in English (and other languages)

Special Eurobarometer 540: share of residents aged 15+ who can hold a conversation in English as a non-mother-tongue language (EU27 average 47%). Fieldwork Sept-Oct 2023, published May 2024.

Age: under 15 14.2% · 15–64 62.6% · 65 and over 23.3% (metro, 2025) Eurostat · 795,188 households, 2.33 people each

Not established: Population, age and household figures are the Urban Audit 'Lisboa (greater city)' unit (1.97 million), not the Lisbon municipality.

3

The communities the register shows

A community appears in the business register before it appears in prose — a national church, a society, a credit union, a newspaper. Those are counted as institutions, and they are what suggests residents. A restaurant serving a cuisine is counted separately as trade, because every city has those and they say nothing about who lives nearby. The ranking is by institutions.

CommunityInstitutions WorshipTrade Where it shows
Portuguese 14 — 95
institutions on Largo do Carmo (3)
APCL - Associação Portuguesa Contra a Leucemia · União das Misericórdias Portuguesas · Associação Portuguesa de Apoio à Vítima
French 1 — 2
Nouvelle Librarie Française
Italian — — 28
German — — 24
Thai — — 22
trade on A (2)
Spanish-speaking — — 11
Chinese — — 4
Brazilian — — 4
Turkish — — 4
Japanese — — 3
South Asian — — 3
Irish — — 3
Arabic-speaking — — 2
Dutch — — 1
Persian — — 1
Welsh — — 1
4

Where the communities are

Streets, not neighbourhood names. The data knows that Greek institutions sit on one street and Greek restaurants on another; it does not know the word "Greektown", so it does not use it.

Portuguese

institutions on Largo do Carmo (3)
5

What the city is made of

Every business on file, grouped by the sector it trades in. This is the economic-development view: where the 17,515 businesses actually are, and the specific trades inside each sector.

SectorBusinesses ShareWhat is in it
Retail 4,152 23.7% convenience (425) · pharmacy (425) · bakery (389) · supermarket (326) · jewelry (143) · books (95) · gifts (93) · electronics (75)
Dining 3,407 19.5% restaurant (3387) · deli (17) · coffee shop (3)
Beverage 1,403 8% coffee (1342) · wine (30) · alcohol (22) · beverages (9)
Beauty 1,156 6.6% barber (708) · beauty salon (333) · cosmetics (71) · tattoo (36) · pet grooming (4) · interior design (3) · piercing (1)
Travel 1,100 6.3% hotel (370) · laundry (168) · museum (111) · bed and breakfast (98) · car rental (38) · travel agent (2) · motel (1)
Business 1,024 5.8% association (64) · consulting (31) · research (30) · foundation (12) · staffing (9) · religion (3) · logistics (2)
Fashion 872 5% clothing (748) · shoes (123) · underwear (1)
Health 805 4.6% optician (156) · massage (51) · hospital (46) · doctor (45) · podiatrist (2) · healthcare (1) · speech therapist (1) · nursing home (1)
Entertainment 519 3% bar (406) · nightclub (32) · music (17) · lottery (17) · cinema (16) · charity (10) · party (8) · video game (3)
Living 447 2.6% furniture (80) · theatre (75) · florist (66) · sewing (33) · houseware (25) · dry cleaning (20) · childcare (19) · appliance (13)
Finance 392 2.2% accounting (52)
Realty 325 1.9% real estate (204) · apartment (104) · studio (11) · property management (6)
Construction 275 1.6% paint (31) · electrical (10) · electrician (10) · carpet (9) · carpentry (9) · plumbing (7) · HVAC (3) · pottery (3)
Automotive 264 1.5% car repair (171) · motorcycle (31) · car wash (29) · auto parts (26) · tires (7)
Education 244 1.4% library (88) · university (59) · driving school (35) · music lesson (26) · college (17) · training (1)
Food 142 0.8% ice cream (75) · seafood (25) · candy (23) · health food (15) · cheese (3) · spices (1)
Energy 101 0.6% fuel (101)
Law 83 0.5% attorney (68) · notary (15)
Sports 81 0.5% bicycle (40) · sporting goods (36) · fishing (3) · Surf (1) · hunting (1)
BioTech 69 0.4% laboratory (69)
6

The franchises already here

Brands from a register of 2,024 franchise systems, matched into this city by name. A high count is a signal in both directions: the territory works, and it may be taken.

39 of these brands are a single common word — Metro, Avenue, Budget — so their counts include businesses that merely share the word. They are marked rather than dropped.

BrandCategory HereWorldwide
McDonald's hamburger 36 31,800
Burger King fastfood 21 11,000
Pizza Hut pizza 18 10,000
Jean Louis David hair 8 —
Holiday Inn businesshotel 5 —
Sunglass Hut retail 5 —
Taco Bell tacos 5 5,845
The Body Shop retail 5 —
Cinema City entertainment 3 16
Holiday Inn Express familyhotel 3 —
Toys "R" Us retail 3 1,400
Cash Converters retail 2 16
Hertz Rent A Car car 2 7,000
JD Sports retail 2 400
Kiehl's retail 2 —
Michael Kors retail 2 —
North Face retail 2 —
Tommy Hilfiger retail 2 122
Armani Exchange retail 1 108
Bruno's supermarket 1 —
Calvin Klein mensunderwear 1 —
Domino's Pizza pizza 1 8,000
Hard Rock Cafe food 1 140
Harley Davidson locations motorcycle 1 —
Max Mara retail 1 —
Steve Madden retail 1 —
Auchan name only supermarket 125 472
Aldi name only supermarket 14 5,000
Starbucks name only coffee 12 3,500
FNAC name only retail 11 —
Sephora name only inc 8 —
Benetton name only retail 7 —
Europcar name only car 6 2,825
MANGO name only retail 6 850
Honda name only car 4 —
Lacoste name only — 4 —
Aldo name only retail 3 —
IKEA name only retail 3 250
Midas name only auto 3 1,800
Primark name only retail 3 160
Roots name only retail 3 145
Volkswagen name only — 3 —
Armani name only fashion 2 —
Mitsubishi name only auto 2 —
MONTBLANC name only retail 2 —
Paiva name only retail 2 —
Toyota name only car 2 —
ActionCOACH name only school 1 1,000
Burberry name only retail 1 —
Cartier name only retail 1 —
Coach name only luggage 1 —
Diana name only supermarket 1 3
easyHotel name only budgethotel 1 7
Gucci name only — 1 207
Hyatt name only upscalehotel 1 —
InterContinental name only luxuryhotel 1 —
Krystal name only fastfood 1 400
Lexus name only luxurycar 1 —
Makro name only home 1 33
Marriott name only upscalehotel 1 2,800
Nissan name only auto 1 —
Radisson name only upscalehotel 1 —
Rockport name only retail 1 —
Sheraton name only upscalehotel 1 —
Sofitel name only luxuryhotel 1 —
7

Real estate as a local trade

Four unrelated jobs share the name: selling existing homes, owning and letting them, managing them for someone else, and building new ones. For anyone weighing a move or a licence these are the counts — and the ownership question goes to /property, which answers it building by building.

Real estate is a local job market in its own right, and four unrelated trades get the same name. Counts are businesses filed under each trade in the register, which lists a brokerage once however many agents work there — so this measures firms, not licensees.

Selling homes

5312
204 firms · LQ 0.4

Offices of agents and brokers — the resale market, and the biggest single trade in most Canadian cities.

Named in the register

Owning and letting

5311
115 firms · LQ 1.43

Lessors of real estate: the buildings themselves, filed under the building rather than the owner.

Named in the register

Managing for owners

5313
6 firms · LQ 0.21

Property managers, who run buildings the landlord does not.

Named in the register
  • Housemanager — Rua Cecilía Meireles 17
  • ImoReis
  • Lispátios
  • Loja do Condomínio
  • Real Condomínio
  • Vendimóvel — Rua Augusto Costa 13A

Who actually owns it

The full property record →

From the /property research for this city, which asks a different question: not who trades in property here, but who owns it. An owner is named there only where a document says so. Register open to anyone: EUR 1/property owner lookup, EUR 15 certidão; no bulk.

Landowners

  • Município de Lisboa (Câmara Municipal de Lisboa), housing via Gebalis, E.M. — 21,844 municipal dwellings in 69 neighbourhoods
  • Portuguese State (Estado Português) — Estamo – Participações Imobiliárias, S.A. / DGTF — 774 public properties inventoried and regularised 2019–2024 (national)
  • APL – Administração do Porto de Lisboa, S.A. (State public domain) — 273 km of riverfront in 11 municipalities; 31,600 ha of water
  • Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa — 661 properties (506 urban, 155 rural); investment property EUR 421.9M (2025)
  • Infraestruturas de Portugal, S.A. — 20,000 m² of surplus offices, shops, station space and land offered (national)

Homebuilders

  • Município de Lisboa — Programa Renda Acessível — c. 9,160 dwellings planned (370 rehabilitated + 8,788 new), 6,000–6,400 at affordable rent
  • Município de Lisboa — Restelo Sul municipal subdivision (proc. 8/URB/2020) — 391 dwellings (maximum) in 5 lots

Commercial landlords

  • MERLIN Properties SOCIMI — EUR 25.2M Lisbon office rents 9M25; 8 Lisbon office buildings c. 114,000 m²
  • Sonae Sierra (Centro Colombo – Centro Comercial, S.A.; Centro Vasco da Gama – Centro Comercial, S.A.) — [100–200]k m² + [50–60]k m² GLA (AdC ranges)
  • Mundicenter — 9 shopping centres, 226,522 m² GLA (national); in Lisbon Amoreiras, Spacio, Alvalade
  • Fidelidade – Property Europe, S.A. — Entrecampos Lots B1, B2, Parcels A and C; 90-year surface right on B3

10 marquee buildings examined, 10 with an owner established.

On "how many doors"

How many doors a landlord holds is not in any of this. The register files an apartment building under the building, not its owner, and carries no unit count; there is no open dataset of Canadian landlords by portfolio. Where this research has established ownership it is in the Lisbon property record for the city, building by building, which is a different and much slower exercise.

8

Work on the go, mobile services

The Ultimate 411 half of local: everything where the customer does not have to come to you. Each service opens a page on Ultimate 411 to request a quote or book a time.

A shop needs the customer to walk in. These 186 services do the opposite — the mobile mechanic, the mobile groomer, the bookkeeper, the junk haul — and they are the ones a person can start without a lease. 2 of them already match a trait filed in this city's register.

The 186 Service=1 rows in search.local: work on the go, mobile services, where the provider travels to the customer. "present" counts businesses already filed under that exact trait name; a blank is a coverage gap, not proof of absence, because the two vocabularies were built separately.

9

Schools and colleges

wander.schools is a post-secondary table — universities and colleges. K-12 public and private schools are not in it, and only 7 of its 1,686 rows carry coordinates, so these are listed and not mapped.

InstitutionTypeStudentsFounded
Lisbon University — —
Nova de Lisboa University — —

In the business register

Where schooling shows up as a business rather than an institution — which is where K-12, tutoring and childcare appear.

university 59driving school 35college 17
10

Health and care

What a person moving a parent here would ask first. The register files clinics and pharmacies; it has no category for a hospital at all, so hospitals are matched by name and the limit is stated rather than hidden.

Medical clinics0
Pharmacies425
Dental practices0

Matched on the name "hospital"

  • Sosvet Hospital Veterinário
  • Consultas Externas Hospital Ambulatório
  • Hospital dos Fatos — Rua Marquesa de Alorna 30C
  • Hospital de São José - Consultas Externas — Rua José António Serrano
  • Hospital de Dia Cirúrgico
  • SosVet Hospital Veterinário
  • Hospital do Gato — Rua Fernão Mendes Pinto 56
  • Hospital Veterinário São Bento
  • Hospital de Bonecas — Praça da Figueira 7
  • Hospital Júlio de Matos — Avenida do Brasil 53-53D
  • Hospital Veterinário da Estefânia — Rua Almirante Barroso 17a
  • Lahgo, Liga de Amigos do hospital Garcia de Orta — Avenida Cristo Rei
  • AniCura Arco do Cego Hospital Veterinário — Rua Dona Filipa de Vilhena 4E;4F
  • Laranjeiras Veterinary Hospital — Rua São Tomás de Aquino 8
  • AniCura Restelo Hospital Veterinário — Rua Gregório Lopes 1513
  • Hospital CUF Descobertas — Rua Mário Botas
  • Hospital da Luz Torres de Lisboa — Rua Tomás da Fonseca
  • Hospital Santa Marta — Rua de Santa Marta 50-50 I
  • Unisana Hospitais - Hospital de Almada — Rua Manuel Febrero 85
  • Hospital São Francisco Xavier — Estrada Forte do Alto Duque
  • Hospital de Jesus — Travessa Arrochela 2
  • Hospital Curry Cabral — Rua da Beneficência 6-8
  • Hospital de Santa Cruz — Avenida Errázuriz 921
  • Hospital Lusíadas Alfragide
  • Hospital Garcia de Orta
  • Hospital Saint Louis — Rua Luz Soriano 182
  • Hospital do SAMS — Rua Cidade de Gabela 1
  • Hospital das Forças Armadas – Polo de Lisboa — Azinhaga dos Ulmeiros
  • LAHGO – Liga de Amigos do Hospital Garcia de Orta — Rua Luís Villas Boas 20-22
  • Hospital da Ordem Terceira — Rua Serpa Pinto 7
  • Hospital Amadora-Sintra
  • Hospital CUF Tejo
  • Hospital Pulido Valente — Alameda das Linhas de Torres 117
  • Hospital da Luz Lisboa — Avenida Lusíada 100
  • Hospital dos Lusíadas — Rua Abílio Mendes
  • Hospital Cruz Vermelha — Rua Duarte Galvão 54
  • Hospital Santa Maria — Avenida Professor Egas Moniz
  • Hospital Lusíadas Amadora — Avenida dos Hospitais Civis de Lisboa
  • Hospital Lusíadas Amadora — Avenida dos Hospitais Civis de Lisboa
  • Hospital de Egas Moniz — Rua da Junqueira 126
  • Hospital de Santo António dos Capuchos — Alameda de Santo António dos Capuchos
  • Hospital de São José — Rua José António Serrano
  • Hospital Dona Estefânia — Rua Jacinta Marto

geonet carries no 'hospital' trait, so these are matched on the business name. A distance-to-hospital figure needs a source that states hospital locations.

11

Mayor & politics

Who holds office here, from the official lists on /politics: the mayor and city council, and the national parliament members elected for the city. Each name opens its row there.

Mayor
not yet on file
76 on council
Member of Parliament
—
Lisboa (multi-member círculo eleitoral, 48 of 230 seats in the Assembleia da República; covers the whole district of Lisbon, including the city)
Provincial member
not yet on file
Last election
—
European Parliament election 2029 (Portugal, 21 MEPs)

Everyone who represents Lisbon →

13

Funded & hiring here

Companies in this city that have raised money, and the careers pages of employers here, from the /employers research and the company database. For someone looking for work here, this is the shortlist.

Careers pages — 3 more employers here

Each link goes to the company's own careers page or official job board, not a third-party listing site. Largest local staff first.

14

What this record cannot tell you

Named in full, because the gaps are the part most likely to be misread as an answer.

  • No census figures on this page: this region is not mapped to a census subdivision in local/census-map.json, so the community counts here are business-register institutions, which is a different measurement and cannot substitute for a population.
  • wander.schools is now readable, but it holds universities and colleges only and 1,679 of its 1,686 rows have no coordinates. K-12 public and private schools need a separate source — in Ontario the Ministry of Education school finder, in British Columbia the provincial school list. wander.citytowns, hotels and territories remain denied to the ru user.
  • No 'hospital' trait exists in geonet; distance to a hospital needs an external source such as StatCan's Open Database of Healthcare Facilities.
  • 0.0% of businesses here carry no coordinates, so a map or address lookup would miss them. Postal codes reach 31.8%.

Built from

  • geonet.portugal — the local business register
  • wander.regions — city name, population, metro
  • search.local — trait vocabulary and the come-to-you services
  • search.cozfranchises — 2,024 franchise brands