What a PDM is
The PDM is the municipal spatial plan. It does not replace licensing: it describes the applicable regime and the maps that locate it. Anyone reading a PDM should cross-check three documents:
- the regulation, with the rules for each land class
- the zoning map (planta de ordenamento), which locates the classes across the concelho
- the constraints map (planta de condicionantes), which overlays restrictions such as RAN, REN and other easements
How to read land classification
Land classification (urban or rustic) and qualification (the concrete class in the PDM — agricultural, forest, rural settlement, dispersed building, tourism, among others) determine the admitted use and, where admissible, building capacity. The class of a specific point is confirmed on the map and in the regulation — not from a municipal percentage, nor from the caderneta predial.
Building on rustic land
Rustic land does not, by itself, mean that one may never build. In practice, though, new housing on land classified as rustic is as a rule tightly restricted and, in agricultural or forest classes, often prohibited — unless a specific exception in the concelho's PDM applies.
The RJIGT provides that land qualification determines use and, where admissible, building capacity. It is the PDM that sets that qualification in the concelho. Typical cases:
- an ordinary detached house “because the plot is large”: on agricultural or forest land, as a rule not permitted for that reason alone
- a house tied to a working farm: some PDMs allow it, subject to conditions
- agricultural buildings (barns, livestock facilities): often possible if they serve the agricultural use and comply with the regulation
- rural tourism: may be admitted in some categories
- a ruin or building with legal existence: rehabilitation or reconstruction is sometimes more accessible than a wholly new building, depending on the PDM and the status of the pre-existence
- rural settlements (aglomerados rurais) or areas of dispersed building: there may be residential rights even where the wider area is classified as rustic
«Prédio rústico» on the caderneta predial is not the same as «solo rústico» in the PDM. Building rights are read from the zoning map and the regulation — not from the tax register.
Even where the PDM admits a use, RAN, REN, protected areas, flood zones or rural fire hazard can still block the works or add conditions.
Since 2025 the RJIGT allows the Câmara Municipal, under strict conditions, to reclassify rustic land as urban for housing (as a rule contiguity with urban land and a substantial affordable or public-housing component). That is not an individual landowner's right to build a house.
The safe route, faced with a listing or a concrete proposal, is to cross the map with the regulation and file a pedido de informação prévia (PIP) with the Câmara Municipal. A PIP formally asks whether the works are viable and which parameters apply (area, height, setbacks, infrastructure). These pages do not replace that request.
RAN, REN and other constraints
The National Agricultural Reserve (RAN) and the National Ecological Reserve (REN) are national regimes that overlay the PDM. Protected areas, flood zones and rural fire hazard overlay it as well. Linear REN (watercourses, strips) does not translate into an area percentage. When cartographic coverage is insufficient, Foral omits the figure rather than inventing one.
A PDM does not describe a specific plot
These pages describe the concelho. For a property or a cadastral parcel, the correct reading is to cross the point on the map with the regulation and confirm with the Câmara Municipal — in particular through a pedido de informação prévia (PIP). Foral Terra does that reading point by point; it does not replace a PIP or a building permit.
How Foral assembles these pages
Overlay percentages and the zoning map are precomputed from ingested official cartography. The public request does not run live geographic intersections. A figure is published only when layer coverage justifies it. Rules of use that are not confirmed in the applicable regulation appear as “regime still to be confirmed”, never as prohibited or permitted.
Concelhos
Every concelho in Portugal. Search by name or browse the list by district.