According to the provisional results of the Household Budget Survey 2022/2023, the mean annual household expenditure in 2022/2023 was €24,190, about 2/3 of which were concentrated in housing (39.1%), food (12.9%) and transport (12.4%).

At the NUTS 2 level regions, the mean annual expenditure was highest in the Norte (€ 25,057), but also exceeded the national average in the Área Metropolitana de Lisboa and in the Região Autónoma da Madeira. On the contrary, the minimum regional mean expenditure was observed in the Região Autónoma dos Açores (€ 20,439), which also has the regional expenditure profile that most differs from the national average.

The results suggest that, considering the household type, households with dependent children spend annually on average € 8,861 more than households without dependent children, which leads to a mean monthly expenditure € 738 higher. This difference extends to all COICOP Divisions (Classification of individual consumption by purpose).

This edition of the survey accommodates methodological improvements, which include changes in: 1) COICOP (COICOP-2018 was implemented for the first time); 2) the annualisation factors (in that the questionnaire now collects data about how often expenditures are incurred by each household, allowing more accurate information to be obtained); 3) sample sizing (the survey sample included a new methodology for reinforcing dwelling units in order to mitigate, albeit partially, the problems resulting from the asymmetry in income distribution and the higher incidence of non-response among households with greater resources); 4) weighting (the calibration includes a monetary variable in the adjustment model for the first time).

Even though these improvements indicate a break in the series, based on a simplified exercise to reconcile the time series, the data suggest that the relative importance of housing in the structure of household expenditure has increased in recent decades and that, on the other hand, the amount spent on food, clothing and footwear lost weight in the households’ mean expenditure.