Tugadaily chart with three bars: a 12-cent gross fall, a 2-cent cut in the ISP discount and a 10-cent real fall per litre of diesel on 10 August 2026

Business 9 August 2026

Fuel gets cheaper in Portugal on Monday (the state kept two cents of it)

Markets took about 12 cents a litre off diesel and 12.5 off petrol 95 for the week of 10 to 16 August. A two-cent cut in the ISP discount trims the real fall to 10 and 10.5.

If you put off filling the tank until Monday, you called it right. From 10 August fuel comes down across mainland Portugal, and on paper it is one of the biggest weekly falls of the summer: roughly 12 cents a litre off standard diesel and 12.5 cents off petrol 95, counting only what the international markets did.

The pump display will tell a slightly different story.

Two cents that change the sum

While the markets were easing, the government trimmed the discount on the fuel tax, the ISP, by two cents, in an order published on Friday that takes effect on 10 August. That discount has been recalibrated almost weekly since prices spiked, and it cuts both ways. When the bill climbs, it softens the blow. When the bill falls, the state takes back a little of what it gave up.

So the fall that actually reaches drivers is around 10 cents on diesel and 10.5 cents on petrol 95. On a 50-litre tank that is about five euros either way. After a week when diesel went up two cents, it is the first real bit of breathing room since the start of July.

The final price is still each station’s call

One thing that is easy to forget: fuel pricing in Portugal is free. These figures are a forecast of the average movement, not a price list. Every brand and every forecourt decides what to do with the drop, and the gap between the cheapest and the dearest station in the same municipality regularly runs past ten cents a litre.

Before you fill up, the official DGEG comparator shows live prices station by station, filtered by town and by fuel type. It is free, and it is the database the fuel companies themselves are legally required to keep updated.

What the rest of August looks like

This week’s fall comes mostly from crude correcting on international markets, and those corrections rarely hold for long. With the ISP discount being reset almost every week, August will probably keep to the same rhythm: several cents of movement from the markets, partly cancelled by a tax adjustment pulling the other way. What matters for a household budget is the number at the pump, and that has stayed stubbornly close to two euros even as inflation slowed to 3%.

By Beatriz Mota

Chart: Tugadaily · data from ISP and DGEG

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