# Effort rate — how much of your income can go to the mortgage > The number a Portuguese bank calculates before approving a mortgage, how to work it out yourself from your statement, and why the limit that matters is lower than the limit you will be approved for. Source: https://trybica.com/guides/taxa-de-esforco/ Updated: 2026-08-22 --- The *taxa de esforço*, or effort rate, is the share of a household's net income that goes to credit payments. It is the first calculation a Portuguese bank makes when you apply for a mortgage, and it is a good one to run on yourself long before that. The formula is not complicated: > **Effort rate = (all monthly credit payments ÷ net monthly household income) × 100** Getting the two numbers right is the complicated part. ![Effort rate bands: comfortable below 33%, stretched to 40%, usually refused above that](/guides/taxa-de-esforco-en.svg) ## The numerator: every credit, not just the house The commonest mistake is counting only the mortgage. The bank does not. Everything that is credit goes in: - the mortgage payment, including one on a previous property if you still hold it - car finance - personal loans - credit-card debt, to the extent you do not clear it monthly - consumer credit, including whatever is left of something bought in instalments The insurance attached to the mortgage — life and buildings — is not a credit payment, but it leaves every month and the bank looks at it. For deciding whether you can live with this, count it. ## The denominator: net, and household Net income is what reaches the account after income tax and social security. It is not the gross figure on the contract. If two of you are buying, it is both. Two traps: **The fourteenth-month subsidies.** Some banks divide annual income by fourteen rather than twelve, which raises the monthly income considered and lowers the effort rate on paper. For your own calculation, use twelve. The payment is charged twelve times a year, and the holiday and Christmas subsidies [are money with another job to do](/guides/extra-salary-months/). **Uneven income.** Self-employed or on commission, the average of the last twelve months is the honest starting point, and the average of the worst three is what you should be able to carry. ## The bands, and what they actually mean Below **33%** is the comfortable zone, and where most risk assessment wants you. Between **33% and 40%** is stretched. Mortgages are approved here every day, often on slightly worse terms, and people live here without drama for as long as nothing goes wrong. Above **40%** rarely passes, and Portuguese supervisory guidance has pointed at this ceiling for several years. **35%** is the line most people watch in practice. It is worth knowing where you sit relative to it before there is an offer on the table. ## The limit you are approved for is not the limit you can carry This is the part the formula does not tell you. The effort rate looks at credit, and credit is not the only thing committed in your month. Building charges, council tax, insurance, childcare, the travel pass, electricity — none of it enters the bank's calculation and all of it leaves the same account. The useful calculation is a different one: add up everything that leaves every month regardless of what you decide, and see what is left. That is exactly the [fixed versus variable spending](/guides/fixed-vs-variable-spending/) distinction, and it is what decides whether a 34% effort rate is comfortable or suffocating — it depends entirely on what else is already committed. And there is the part almost nobody adds up before buying: a house costs more than the payment, every month, forever. [What a house actually costs per month](/guides/cost-of-owning-a-home/) does the full sum — council tax, building charges, insurance, maintenance — and the total usually runs 20% to 30% above the payment alone. ## If the rate is going to rise and has not yet On a variable rate tracking Euribor, the payment moves without you doing anything, and the effort rate moves with it. A mortgage signed at 30% can be at 38% two years later with nothing having changed on your side. [Reading your mortgage statement](/guides/reading-your-mortgage-statement/) explains why the payment changes and where to find the next revision date — which is what lets you calculate the effort rate you will have in six months, not just today's. ## Running it on real numbers If your accounts are all visible in one place, the two numbers in the formula stop being estimates. Salary deposits are identifiable, credit payments are named recurring debits, and the sum is a sum. It is worth running twice: once on average income, once on the worst three months of last year. If the second one is still under 35%, the decision is easy.