With this press release, Statistics Portugal is launching a new series of statistics on doctors, based on a combination of data from the Labour Force Survey, the Personnel Tables and the Directorate-General for Administration and Public Employment, which makes it possible to obtain estimates on practising doctors that complement the traditional series on doctors registered with the Portuguese Medical Association and ensures comparability with data from the other Member States of the European Union. In 2024, the most recent year for which this information is available, the number of practicing doctors in the country was 46,131, of whom 65% were female and 32.9% were under 35 years of age. Doctors practicing as specialists represented 86.8% of the total, which s the third highest figure in the European Union.
A similar methodological approach is currently being developed for the other categories of practising healthcare professionals. For this reason, the information presented for these categories continues to draw primarily on data from the respective professional associations, which offers the advantage of a more up-to-date reference period. Thus, in 2025, the following were registered:
- in the Portuguese Medical Dentists Association - 12,796 professionally active members, three times the number registered in 2002 (4,134); the ratio of resident dentists per 1,000 inhabitants was 1.12 in 2025, with the highest ratios in the Área Metropolitana do Porto (1.72) and Viseu Dão Lafões (1.57);
- in the Portuguese Nurses Association - 87,843 professionally active members, more than twice as many as in 2002 (41,799); the ratio of professionally active nurses per 1,000 inhabitants was 7.7, reaching 14.4 in the Região de Coimbra;
- in the Portuguese Pharmacists Association - 17,301 professionally active members, which represents more than double the 2002 figure (7,962) and a ratio of professionally active pharmacists per 1,000 inhabitants of 1.5, with regional maximums observed in the Região de Coimbra and Grande Lisboa (2.4 and 2.1, respectively);
- in the Portuguese Psychological Association - 27,838 permanent members or trainees, of which 76.6% were women under 55 years of age and 27.3% held at least one specialty title. Clinical and Health Psychology was the most represented base specialty (65.6% of the specialty titles awarded).
