Realistic cost of living in Lisbon?

My first impression is that you are going to have problems with that level of rent, on that income. Remember, you will be paying taxes in Portugal now, regardless of the type of funds. In addition, you might also be paying some taxes in the source country. It would have been much easier if you could have got the NHR.

If you could get that rent down to about $1200 max, in Lisbon, you would be much more secure. The other thing would be to look in another city, and maybe get the rent down below $1000 at least. Remember, you lose 10% on the exchange rate upfront.

Porto is a fantastic city. I would love to live there, but my own rental deal is so good in the town I live in (nearby) that it makes no sense to move.

Other choices might be Braga or Coimbra. The bad news is that no matter what your budget, there is still very little available rental stock.

@Perpetual_traveler

This is great information. I have been to Porto and really loved it.

One of the biggest things for me is to be near major train hubs for travel within and outside Portugal, does Porto connect easily for that purpose?

If you are seriously considering it then spend a couple of months here as a tourist and and work out yourself how much things cost for the way you want to live, also physically look at rental places and prices in different towns/areas. No use someone saying rental places in Somewhere are 800 a month if you;ve no idea if a property of that type in that area are ones you'd live in. Travel and prices can be found on website  Rome2rio 

Hi @David, Welcome.

Rents in Lisbon are scarce and therefore a little inflated, so I doubt they'll go down. Porto also suffers from this problem, although with slightly lower prices. You can live very well with that yearly income. I suggest you see for yourself.

Eg.

https://www.idealista.pt/arrendar-casas … izado-desc

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Lisbon

@Perpetual_traveler
One of the biggest things for me is to be near major train hubs for travel within and outside Portugal, does Porto connect easily for that purpose? - @David_NOVA

Portugal doesn't have a major rail network. If you wanted that you would need to live in Spain.

@David_NOVA

Porto has extremely good travel links. Rail, road and air. All very well connected by an amazing metro system. In fact, Porto has a metro system that is very forward looking, it goes many km out in different directions, sometimes through farm land even, so it's being developed with growth in mind.

Fantastic bus services from Campanha intermodal travel center. If you are prepared to live a bit further out on the metro you will probably find a place.

The airport is about 25minutes on the metro to the downtown areas too, so easy to get around from it.

Extremely well managed city, like many in Portugal.

Rail connectivity depends partly on how much time you're going to be willing to spend, obviously.  You can look at daily connections and routes on cp.pt.  We're on the north-south line between Porto Campanha and Lisbon Apolonia, and anywhere along it seems fairly accessible.  Santarem, Coimbra ... (I have a car but hate to drive.)  Actually it goes to Braga, so you could put that on the list if you want.

Outside Portugal, I'm less clear on train routes.  There's one that goes to Vigo from Porto, but when I was interested it was out of service.  There's one that goes to Badajoz from Entroncamento.  But really going to Spain, or beyond, and not just to some border town, I don't know - that's been talked about, maybe only that so far.  At least Spain and Portugal use the same track gauge (different from most of Europe.)