Tugadaily bar chart comparing the cost of a 50-litre tank of diesel and petrol this week and from 24 August 2026

Business 21 August 2026

Diesel goes up 3.5 cents on Monday. That is 1.75 euros more for a 50-litre tank

For the week of 24 to 30 August, ACP expects diesel to rise 3.5 cents to around 2.072 euros a litre and petrol 2.5 cents to 1.989. The fuel tax discount could still soften the blow.

If your tank is running low, fill it this weekend. The Automóvel Club de Portugal expects diesel to gain about 3.5 cents a litre on Monday, with unleaded petrol up 2.5 cents.

If that holds, diesel averages 2.072 euros a litre and petrol 1.989, measured against the daily average prices published by DGEG, the national energy regulator. Put in terms of a tank, 50 litres of diesel moves from roughly 101.85 euros today to 103.60. That is 1.75 euros. For petrol the gap is 1.25 euros a fill.

It does not sound like much. It starts to, once you multiply it across a working year: a driver covering 15,000 kilometres at six litres per hundred burns around 900 litres, so this single increase adds about 31 euros a year.

Why prices are climbing again

The reason sits a long way from the forecourt. October Brent is trading near 93 dollars, its highest in a month, after gaining almost five per cent over the week. Uncertainty about the war in Iran and about the Strait of Hormuz keeps weighing on supply, and the market reacts to every headline.

Then there is the exchange rate. Crude is priced in dollars, so the conversion matters: with the dollar sliding, the weekly rise in euro terms came to 3.9 per cent, at 79.54 euros a barrel. We follow these swings in our markets tracker, updated through the week.

The tax discount is the missing piece

Those figures are estimates made before Friday’s market close. Final prices are only set afterwards.

And then the government’s mechanism kicks in, adjusting the discount on the fuel tax whenever prices move. When fuel goes up, the discount tends to widen and the increase that reaches drivers is smaller. It cuts the other way too: in the week of 10 to 16 August, when markets took twelve cents off diesel, a trim to the tax discount kept two of them and drivers only saw ten.

As always, it pays to compare before filling up. Within a single municipality the spread between the cheapest and dearest pump can exceed ten cents a litre, which across a full tank is more than this week’s rise.

By Beatriz Mota

Infographic: Tugadaily · data from ACP and DGEG

Business 21 August 2026

Portuguese household debt is growing at its fastest rate since records began in 2008

Household borrowing rose 9.9% in June against the same month of 2025, the sharpest annual increase since the series started in December 2008. Mortgages account for most of it. In total, households, companies and the state owe 894 billion euros.

The headline figure is 894 billion euros. That is what general government, companies and households together owed at the end of June, up 39.6 billion since December, according to figures the Banco de Portugal released on Friday. The number that actually matters sits further down the release. In June, household borrowing was 9.9 per cent higher than a year earlier. That is the steepest annual rise since the series began in December 2008. Portuguese…

Business 21 August 2026

Monte dei Paschi is bidding for two banks at once, and the tab comes to €34bn

The board of the world's oldest surviving bank approved two simultaneous all-share exchange offers: €25.3bn for Banco BPM and €8.72bn for Banca Generali. The acceptance window should open in December, with completion targeted for mid-February 2027.

The oldest bank still trading anywhere in the world has decided not to wait to be bought. The board of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena approved, by majority, two voluntary and parallel public exchange offers: one for all the ordinary shares of Banco BPM, the other for all the ordinary shares of Banca Generali. Together they are worth roughly €34bn, and they are settled entirely in shares.

Business 21 August 2026

Markets tracker: gold, the Fed, oil and stocks

Our running tracker of the markets that move savings in Portugal — gold, Fed and ECB decisions, oil and stocks. Updated whenever there is news.

This is our running tracker of the markets that move savings in Portugal. Instead of a fresh article for every swing, we update this page whenever something matters: gold, Federal Reserve and European Central Bank decisions, oil and the main stock indices. For the background on the Portuguese economy, see our mid-year review. Official data is at the Bank of Portugal.

Tugadaily bar chart comparing the rise in Portuguese imports, the goods deficit and exports in the first half of 2026

Business 20 August 2026

Portugal's external surplus halved in a year. Imports grew twice as fast as exports

The combined current and capital account surplus came to €1,201 million in the first half of 2026, down 45.8% on the same period last year. The Bank of Portugal points to the goods balance, where imports rose €4,715 million against €2,207 million for exports.

Portugal closed the first half of the year with an external surplus of €1,201 million. That is still a positive balance, which in the country's recent economic history is not something to shrug at. It is also 45.8% smaller than in the same period of 2025, and the Bank of Portugal is fairly precise about where the margin went. Almost all of it sits in the goods balance. Imports rose €4,715 million on the year, more than double the €2,207 million increase…

Bar chart showing what foreign-capital companies represent in Portugal: 46% of exports, 31% of turnover, 22% of employment and 3% of companies

Business 20 August 2026

17,000 foreign-owned companies do 46% of Portugal's exporting

An Informa D&B study counts 17,000 foreign-capital firms in Portugal. They employ 808,000 people, turn over 173 billion euros and account for 52 billion in exports.

There are 17,000 foreign-capital companies registered in Portugal. They are 3% of the country's business base and, according to the Informa D&B study released on Thursday, they are behind 46% of everything Portugal exports. The rest of the picture comes from the same source. These firms account for 31% of the combined turnover of all Portuguese companies, 22% of employment and 15% of the gross value added generated by business. In absolute terms: 808,000…

Tugadaily bar chart of the consumers covered by Portugal's new electricity time bands: 500,000 on two and three-rate tariffs, 70,000 business four-rate, and six million on the simple tariff

Business 20 August 2026

Portugal's cheap night electricity is moving. Set your washing machine half an hour later

The energy regulator has signed off new time bands. On the two-rate tariff the off-peak window shifts to 22:30-08:30, half an hour later at both ends. It reaches 500,000 homes between July and December 2027, and six million simple-tariff meters get updated too.

If you are on a two-rate electricity tariff in Portugal, you have probably internalised one rule: after ten at night, the dishwasher can go on. That rule is about to be wrong. On 31 July the regulator, ERSE, closed its review of electricity time bands for mainland Portugal, and the headline fits in two lines. On the daily cycle of the two-rate tariff, the off-peak window stops starting at 22:00 and starts at 22:30 instead. To compensate, it stops ending…

Tugadaily chart: revenue from Portugal's aviation carbon charge since 2021 — €266.58 million collected, €258.58 million passed to the Environmental Fund and €31.48 million in the first half of 2026

Business 19 August 2026

The €2 carbon charge on Portuguese flights has now raised €266.6 million

Portugal's per-passenger aviation carbon charge has collected €266.58 million since July 2021, including €31.48 million in the first half of this year. €258.58 million has reached the Environmental Fund; the €8 million gap is the share the law reserves for the aviation regulator.

It is two euros. It sits inside the ticket price, almost nobody notices it, and since July 2021 it has added up to €266.58 million. Portugal's aviation carbon charge is a flat amount per passenger, collected by airlines when they sell a commercial ticket and handed on to the state. In the first half of this year it brought in €31.48 million, against €30.6 million over the same months of 2025 — a rise of 2.9%, tracking traffic growth closely. The law is…

Business 19 August 2026

Who signs off Portugal's 13.7% REN stake? The Court of Auditors, and it rarely gets asked

Pontegadea and state holding company Parpública have signed for 91,723,676 REN shares, but the deal only takes effect once the Court of Auditors grants prior approval — a step seldom used for share purchases by state entities. The market filing carried no price; the figure since put on it is about €380 million, a premium of roughly 17%.

There is a contract, and the deal has not actually happened yet. Pontegadea Inversiones, the investment vehicle of Zara's founder, has agreed to transfer 91,723,676 REN shares — about 13.7% of the company — to the state holding company Parpública, according to the filing REN sent to the market on 14 August. Everything waits on the Court of Auditors granting prior approval, and it is the filing itself that says so.

Business 18 August 2026

€880m in competition fines were about to expire. A one-article law changed that today

Law 51/2026 takes effect on 18 August and settles a split between two Portuguese courts over when the clock stops on antitrust cases. Nineteen proceedings across banking, retail, energy, telecoms and transport are affected.

More than a dozen Portuguese banks were convicted at first instance for swapping commercial information between 2002 and 2013. They never paid. Lisbon's appeal court ruled the case time-barred, and the whole thing evaporated. From today that particular escape route closes for the cases still running. Law 51/2026 was published in Diário da República on Monday and comes into force on Tuesday. The text creates nothing new. It states that Law 17/2022 — which…

Tugadaily bar chart of gross monthly pay per worker in Portugal: €1,835 total in Q2 2026, €1,342 base pay in June 2026 and €1,278 in June 2025

Business 17 August 2026

Portuguese pay is up 5.1% to €1,835 a month. After inflation it is up 1.8%

Average gross monthly pay per worker reached €1,835 in the second quarter, INE reports. Base pay alone was €1,342 — and the €493 gap is everything that is not written into the contract.

Average gross monthly pay per worker in Portugal rose 5.1% in the second quarter to €1,835. Strip out inflation and the real gain was 1.8%. Prices took the other 3.3 percentage points. The figure that usually falls out of the headlines is the second one. Base pay — what the contract says, before bonuses, variable allowances, overtime or top-ups — went from €1,278 in June 2025 to €1,342 in June 2026. That is also 5.1%.

Business 16 August 2026

Zara's owner sold out of Portugal's power grid. The state stepped in

Pontegadea, Amancio Ortega's holding company, has agreed to sell 91,723,676 REN shares to Parpública, or 13.7% of the capital. The deal needs Court of Auditors clearance and no price was disclosed.

Twelve years after selling out of REN, the Portuguese state is back in. Pontegadea Inversiones, Amancio Ortega's holding company, has signed a contract with state holding company Parpública to sell 91,723,676 REN shares, equal to 13.7% of the capital. The deal was announced to the market on 14 August and is conditional on clearance from the Court of Auditors. Neither side disclosed a price. Pontegadea was the second-largest shareholder in the operator of…

Tugadaily chart with three bars for diesel: a ten-cent rise from markets, two cents absorbed by the ISP discount, and a real rise of eight cents on 17 August 2026

Business 16 August 2026

Filling up before Monday will save you about four euros a tank

Diesel goes up around 8 cents a litre from 17 August and petrol 7.5, after the government raised the ISP discount on Friday to soften a much bigger rise.

If you can get to a pump this weekend, do. From Monday 17 August fuel goes up across mainland Portugal, and it is one of the sharper rises of the summer: roughly ten cents a litre on standard diesel and nine on 95 petrol, counting only what comes from international markets. What reaches the forecourt is a little gentler than that. On Friday the government published Portaria 345-C/2026/1, the order revising the rates of the fuel tax, ISP, raising the…

Tugadaily bar chart showing tourism's weight in the Portuguese economy in 2025: consumption 16.1%, total contribution 11.8%, direct gross value added 8.1%

Business 15 August 2026

Portuguese tourism is 8.1% of the economy. It is also 16.1%

Portugal's 2025 Tourism Satellite Account gives three different readings of the same sector, which is why the headlines never agree. Only one of them measures what tourism actually adds.

If you read this month that tourism is worth 8.1% of the Portuguese economy, you read correctly. If you read 11.8%, that was correct too. And 16.1%. All three come from the same INE release, published on 3 August, and they measure different things. Worth knowing which, because mixing them up is why the argument about tourism in Portugal keeps going round in circles.

Business 14 August 2026

Montijo finally has a long-distance coach stop of its own. The fare to Coimbra starts at €4.49

The route began running on 13 August and links Montijo to Torres Vedras, São Martinho do Porto, Nazaré, Marinha Grande and Coimbra. Four departures a day, two each way, from a new stop at Portas da Cidade beside the A33 and A12.

If you live in Montijo and wanted a long-distance coach, the drill until this week was tedious and familiar. Cross the Tagus, get to Gare do Oriente, start the journey there. That changed on 13 August, when FlixBus began running in the municipality and put its new stop at Portas da Cidade, on Avenida Pedro Nunes, behind the Decathlon and next to a Carris Metropolitana stop.