Seasonal Check
Lisbon weather by month for remote workers
Twelve months in Lisbon: the season, average low and high, rainfall and what each month means for remote work.
Best time to be in Lisbon
Lisbon month by month
Temperatures and rainfall are long term averages for a typical year, not a forecast. Months marked as best are the ones we would choose to be here.
| Month | Season | Low | High | Rain | For remote work |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | Winter | 8.2°C | 14.8°C | 99.2 mm | The month that teaches you what a Portuguese flat is. About ten days with 1 mm of rain or more, a low near 8 C and no central heating anywhere, so you heat one room with a plug in heater and watch the electricity bill roughly double. Damp is the real enemy: north facing walls grow mould and a dehumidifier runs for hours a day. This is when paying for a coworking desk stops being about focus and starts being about warmth. On the other side of the ledger, January is the cheapest month of the year for a short let and the easiest month to find a long lease, because nobody else is looking. |
| February | Winter | 9.1°C | 16.2°C | 84.3 mm | Rain eases to about 8 days and the light comes back, but the flat is still cold and the sea is at its annual low of 15 C. A good month to view apartments: stock is still there, landlords still negotiate, and you get to see how a place behaves in the cold before you commit for a year. Ask about the contracted power, the potencia, because an undersized contract trips the breaker the moment a heater and a kettle run together. |
| March | Spring | 11°C | 18.8°C | 52.1 mm | The turn. Terraces reopen, the rain drops to about 52 mm, and the afternoons are worth walking. One thing to diary if you work with the United States: American clocks move forward on the second Sunday of March and Portuguese clocks only on the last Sunday, so for two or three weeks Lisbon is 4 hours ahead of New York instead of 5 and every recurring call lands an hour off. |
| AprilBest month | Spring | 11.9°C | 19.8°C | 68 mm | Warm afternoons, cool evenings, showers that pass in twenty minutes. Eight rain days still mean carrying a jacket, but the flat stops being a problem and the heater goes away. Easter brings the first real tourist wave and the first jump in short let prices, so if you are arriving on a monthly booking, book before March ends. |
| MayBest month | Spring | 13.9°C | 22.1°C | 52.6 mm | Arguably the best working month of the year: 22 C, six rain days, long evenings and a city that is busy but not yet overrun. The sea is still only 17 C, so swimming is a brief and bracing affair. Short let prices start climbing towards the summer peak, and owners begin pulling flats off the long term market to rent them by the week, which makes May the last comfortable month to sign a year lease before autumn. |
| JuneBest month | Summer | 16.7°C | 25.7°C | 15.6 mm | Dry, bright, 26 C, two rain days. It is also the month of the Santos Populares: the whole of June is festival season in Alfama, Mouraria and Graca, with sardine grills and music in the street, and the nights around 12 and 13 June run until dawn. Wonderful if you are out in it, unworkable if you live above it and have a morning call. Anyone with early meetings should think twice before renting in the old quarters for June. |
| July | Summer | 18.2°C | 27.9°C | 3.9 mm | Peak tourist season and effectively no rain at all: about 4 mm, and less than one day in the month with 1 mm or more. Short let prices peak with it and long leases become scarce as owners switch to weekly rentals. The practical problem is the same housing stock that fails in winter: a top floor flat with no air conditioning becomes unworkable in the afternoon, so shutters down by ten, work early, and expect the coast to be windier than the city in the afternoon. |
| August | Summer | 18.6°C | 28.3°C | 6.1 mm | The Portuguese August. Lisbon empties of Lisboetas: your tasca closes for three weeks, the barber shuts, and your accountant, your landlord and the AIMA desk all answer slowly or not at all, so do not plan anything administrative for this month. The sea is at its warmest, about 20.5 C, which for the Atlantic here is the whole story. Working from a cafe is harder because the ones locals use are shut and the ones that stay open are full of visitors. |
| SeptemberBest month | Autumn | 17.6°C | 26.6°C | 32.6 mm | The month the city gives back to the people who live in it. Highs ease to about 27 C, the crowds thin after the first week, the sea stays at its August warmth, and about four rain days is all you get. Long term flats come back on the market as summer lets end, which makes September and early October the best window of the year for finding a place. Coworking spaces fill again and the meetup calendar restarts. |
| October | Autumn | 15.1°C | 22.5°C | 97.7 mm | The rain returns abruptly: from about 33 mm in September to nearly 98, and from four rain days to nine. Afternoons are still 23 C, which is why nobody is ready for the first cold evening. Two diary items: Portuguese clocks go back on the last Sunday of October while American clocks only move on the first Sunday of November, so the Lisbon to New York gap narrows to 4 hours for a week; and this is the month to test the heater and buy the dehumidifier before the shops run out in November. |
| November | Autumn | 11.8°C | 18.2°C | 127.5 mm | The wettest month of the year, about 128 mm over ten rain days, just ahead of December, and the month when badly insulated flats go properly damp. Condensation on the windows every morning, mould on the coldest wall, laundry that never dries indoors. Cafes and coworking spaces fill up with people escaping their own living rooms. On the upside, short let prices are near their floor and the city is yours again. |
| December | Winter | 9.4°C | 15.2°C | 126.2 mm | Short days, about four and a half hours of sun, and the first full electricity bill of the heating season, which is where people discover what the beautiful old single glazed flat they took in July actually costs. About eleven rain days, 126 mm and 15 C by day. The city slows from the third week: offices, services and most small businesses close between Christmas and the new year, so file anything time sensitive before the 20th. |
Where these figures come from
Monthly temperatures, rainfall and rain days are the IPMA (Instituto Portugues do Mar e da Atmosfera) 1981 to 2010 climate normals for the Lisboa, Instituto Geofisico station, 77 m, in the city centre, at one decimal as IPMA publishes them. The annual rainfall normal is 765.8 mm. Rain days are days with 1 mm or more. Sea temperatures and daily sunshine hours come from Climates to Travel. Live forecasts and warnings come from IPMA at ipma.pt.
- IPMA, climate normals 1981 to 2010, Lisboa, Instituto Geofisico station (normals page), accessed .
- IPMA, climate normal sheet 1981 to 2010, Lisboa, Instituto Geofisico (PDF), accessed .
- Climates to Travel, Lisbon climate (sea temperatures and daily sunshine hours), accessed .
- Portugal Expat Hub, utility costs in Portugal 2026 (winter electricity and electric heating), accessed .
- Wikipedia, Time in Portugal (WET and WEST, daylight saving dates), accessed .
Figures on this page last checked .