He is the son of the former Portuguese Prime Minister and President, Mário Soares, and the actress Maria Barroso.

He also lost the election for president of the Municipality of Lisbon to Pedro Santana Lopes, in 2001, being the first mayor of Lisboa to lose a reelection.

During the 2008 and 2012 United States elections, he acted as the special coordinator for the OSCE International Observation Misson.

[4] In April 2016, in a Facebook post, João Soares, Minister of Culture, said that he looked forward to landing "salutary blows" on two newspaper columnists.

Mr Soares, resigned after Prime Minister António Costa reprimanded him and issued a public apology.