Tourism drives Portugal’s growth in services to the United States

American tourists and visitors have been largely driving the robust and stable growth of exports in services to the United States from Portugal over the past two years.

A staggering 3 million expected visitors from the United States for holidays, business, and increasingly relocation in 2025 has been an important component of Portugal’s growth in GDP in 2025, fuelling growth above virtually all of Portugal’s peers in the euro zone.

The numbers were reiterated at this year’s American Chamber of Commerce in Portugal (AmCham Portugal) ‘Transatlantic Business Summit’ which took place against the backdrop of an important milestone – the 75th anniversary of AmCham Portugal which was founded in 1951 in a year when the US was fighting the Korean War and the Soviet Union began nuclear testing.

That year Portugal experienced a significant political transition following the death of President Óscar Carmona in April and General Francisco Craveiro Lopes was elected as the new president in July, continuing the Estado Novo regime. The III Congress of the União Nacional also took place, rejecting a return to monarchy, the Monumental Cinema-Theatre was opened, and Benfica won the Portugal Cup after defeating Académica 5-1.

Trade too between Portugal and the United States saw a “significant increase” according to the New York Times, characterised by a big gain in exports from Portugal to the US. This improvement was driven by the liberalisation of trade and the impact of the European Payments Union, despite limitations in available goods.

But the summit at the Gulbenkian Foundation on Friday was also held in the 250th anniversary year of the founding of the United States of America when, legend has it, the Declaration of Independence was signed and toasted with glasses of Madeira wine.

With it, Great Britain lost its most important colony, its king George III, unable to get over the loss, descended into madness, and the US rose to eventually become the greatest, richest and most powerful country in the world.

A focus on business

In his opening remarks, the President of Amcham Portugal, António Costa da Martins, stressed that AmCham’s focus was the “world of business, companies, and people whose lives were shaped by all that happens in the world of business.”

AmCham Portugal, he said, was founded by a group of American entrepreneurs who had wanted “to set up in Portugal and bring American investment” to the country.

Over time, things changed to take into account a two-way trade with Portuguese exports and investment in the US.

Today, AmCham is built on three fundamental pillars: networking, advocacy and services. And from a handful of entrepreneurs back in the 1950s, today AmCham Portugal has around 300 corporate members making it one of the largest chambers of commerce in the country.

With 11 specialist committees, the American Chamber of Commerce in Portugal has supported most of the big trade and development initiatives over the past three-quarters of a century of change which in the 1950s saw the embryonic appearance of both artificial intelligence and the tentative first steps in the development of modern computers.

And trade and investment between the two countries has grown from a few tens of millions of dollars in 1951 to €15Bn in 2024 (final data for 2025 has still not been finalised) – €11Bn in Portuguese exports to the United States and €4Bn of imports from the United States to Portugal.

In the case of exports to the US, the balance between goods and services is fairly balanced, but the United States is now Portugal’s fourth biggest exports market, although in the case of imports, Portugal imports more goods (60%) and 40% services.

And the stock of US Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Portugal in which the US is the final counterparty, was €11.5Bn at the end of 2024 – a figure that has remained fairly constant and growing for a considerable number of years.

US third source of visitors to Portugal 

The United States is now Portugal’s third source of visitors and tourists with 2.3 million coming to Portugal for holidays, business or because they relocated to Portugal.

And although the final figures are not in, 2025 is expected to show a growth in US visitors of around 4%, meaning close to 3 million.

António Martins da Costa said there had been some changes in terms of commerce, with a fall in exports of goods from Portugal to the US of 12.5%. (Which might have to do with US import tariffs on EU countries of 15% – 50% on steel, aluminium and copper).

The export of services is still growing since Portuguese services exported to the US are essentially tourism and is directly linked to the growing number of US visitors to the country.

On the imports side, there has not been much variation.

US – biggest marketplace in the world 

Overall, the US continues to be the biggest market place in the world, worth around €7.5Tn to Europe (€4Tn from the US to Europe and US$3.5Tn from Europe to the US) while US subsidiaries in Europe are worth US$19Tn in assets.

European subsidiaries in the US are worth almost US$10Bn, both showing a “very large investment” between the two Economic blocks.

It should be recalled that the US is the biggest supplier of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG), oil and coal to Europe which, in turn, is the US’ most important client.

A transatlantic data highway

Europe and the United States also represent the largest data highway in the world where 50% of data traffic coming from the US goes to Europe and vice-versa.

A large part of this data travels through submarine cables – a good part of it entering Europe in Portugal at Sines and via the Azores.

And 16 million direct and indirect jobs are down to trade and services between the two blocs.

“We are seeing a change to what was called the New World Order created after World War II to another New World Order, and we don’t exactly know what this order entails, and what is being created.

“But there is no doubt that the order that we have know to date is changing but we are also seeing economic growth in the US, our great partner”, reminded the President of AmCham Portugal, António Martins da Costa.