Corporate profitability in Portugal rose in Q1 2026, nearing record highs, as the cost of financing fell from 4.8% to 4.3% and unemployment dropped to 5.8%.

By Beatriz Mota

Image: GualdimG / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Standard diesel is expected to rise by around 15 cents a litre and 95 petrol by around 12 from Monday 7 September. At 2.169 and 2.142 euros, both clear the records set in April and May.

If the tank is half full and the car is sitting outside, this is one of those weekends when a trip to the pump pays for itself. From the early hours of Monday 7 September, standard diesel is expected to go up by roughly 15 cents a litre and 95 petrol by roughly 12, according to the weekly forecast published by the Automóvel Club de Portugal.

Continue reading

Portugal's infrastructure company will invest the sum across Beja, Évora and Portalegre by the end of 2028. The announcement came at a roadside ceremony, not in a press release.

The Alentejo is the part of Portugal where you drive the furthest to do the least, and where the train, on several lines, is still a single railcar on a single track. Infraestruturas de Portugal said this week it will invest €700 million in the region by the end of 2028, split between roads and railways across the districts of Beja, Évora and Portalegre. Infrastructure Secretary of State Hugo Espírito Santo made the announcement, and it did not arrive in…

Continue reading

An order published on 2 September gives Novobanco another €40m and Montepio €60m. The overall ceiling on Portugal's young-buyer housing guarantee rises to €2.4bn, double where it started in 2024.

Novobanco asked for another €40 million. Montepio asked for €60 million. The government added the two together and published the result in Wednesday's official gazette: €100 million more of state guarantee for young buyers' mortgages, in response to the lending both banks still expect to do before the year ends. This is not a new scheme or an extra credit line. It is the 2024 mechanism being given more room because the slice reserved for those two lenders…

Continue reading

Blissfulbreeze, which ran the e-commerce for the Cristina brands, was declared insolvent by the Vila Nova de Gaia commercial court on 11 August and is heading for liquidation. Anyone who had already paid becomes an ordinary creditor, with a deadline that starts at the judgment.

The company behind the online shop for the Cristina, Love Cristina and Daily Cristina labels has gone under. Blissfulbreeze was declared insolvent on 11 August by the commercial court in Vila Nova de Gaia and is now heading into liquidation, with Santander, Vodafone and Amor Ponto, Cristina Ferreira's own company, among the creditors. The presenter has said her commercial relationship with Blissfulbreeze covered only the production and sale of footwear…

Continue reading

Law 59/2026 scraps the surge-pricing cap, lets licensed taxis sign up to the apps and allows advertising on the cars. An operators' association says the statute gives two different start dates.

Eight years after Portugal first wrote rules for the ride-hailing trade, those rules have been rewritten. Law 59/2026 was published on 25 August and its article 7 brings it into force today, 1 September. It is the first substantial revision of Law 45/2018, which had promised a review after three years and never got one. It starts with the name. The sector is no longer defined as transport in unmarked vehicles but as paid passenger transport in…

Continue reading

Tourist accommodation took €923.7 million, up 4.9% on last July. Greater Lisbon's takings fell 2% and its revenue per available room dropped 7.3%, while the Alentejo grew almost 20%.

Portuguese tourist accommodation took €923.7 million in July, 4.9% more than in the same month last year. The figures landed on Monday, and they carry a detail that rarely makes the headline: revenue rose in every region of the country bar one. In Greater Lisbon it fell 2%. Small as a percentage, large as a signal. Greater Lisbon is the second biggest earner in the country, taking 21.2% of everything Portuguese accommodation billed that month. Run the…

Continue reading

From today until 6 September, average diesel in mainland Portugal falls to around €1.995 while 95 petrol rises to about €2.004. The two swap places, and diesel is the cheaper fill again.

Anyone who filled up on Sunday picked the wrong day. From today until 6 September, standard diesel in mainland Portugal is expected to fall by roughly 7.5 cents a litre, taking the average price from €2.071 to somewhere near €1.995. On a 50-litre tank that is close to four euros. 95 petrol moves the other way, with far less conviction: up about 1.5 cents, to roughly €2.004 a litre. Look at what that does to the pair. Last week diesel sat eight cents above…

Continue reading

Economy minister Castro Almeida declared the plan fully executed on 28 August. The closing numbers: €22 billion, 403,000 approved applications, and a tenth payment request still to file.

Portugal's Recovery and Resilience Plan reaches its deadline today. This is the date the country agreed with Brussels for signing off every milestone and target, and the government turned up to it three days early with the verdict already written: at a Lisbon press conference on 28 August, the economy and territorial cohesion minister declared the plan "totalmente executado", fully executed.

Continue reading

M&A involving Portuguese companies reached €4.5bn in the first seven months of 2026, TTR Data says. Real estate leads with 44 deals and Macquarie's €310m purchase of Luz Saúde was July's biggest.

Fewer companies are changing hands in Portugal this year. Between January and July there were 289 mergers and acquisitions worth €4.5bn in total, 28% fewer deals than in the same stretch of 2025 and 20% less capital moved. The figures come from TTR Data, with one caveat worth keeping: only 31% of deals disclosed a price, so the real total is larger than the countable one.

Continue reading

The Oiã-Soure concession drew no valid bids at all in 2024 and was relaunched in January. This time it drew two: 2,038 million euros from Sacyr with DST and Alberto Couto Alves, 2,300 million from the Mota-Engil grouping. Price carries 80 per cent of the award decision.

In July 2024 the state rail body Infraestruturas de Portugal put the Oiã to Soure section of the Porto-Lisbon high-speed line out to tender and received not a single valid bid. The process was scrapped. In January, after the government told IP to rework it, the tender was relaunched on redrawn terms. Two bids came in.

Continue reading

Portugal's Council of Ministers declared a final assembly line for the A-29N to be in the national public interest, pointing at Air Base 11. It is a planning decision, not a signed contract.

Meeting on 20 August, Portugal's Council of Ministers recognised the national public interest in setting up a final assembly line for the A-29N Super Tucano in Portugal, pointing, under certain conditions, at Air Base 11 in Beja. It is worth being precise about what that decision does. A declaration of national public interest is an administrative lever: it unblocks procedures, signals priority, smooths permits. It is not a signed contract with Embraer.…

Continue reading

The Portuguese ceiling is tighter than the European one and already applies. Above €3,000 neither buyer nor seller may use cash, splitting the purchase into instalments does not get around it, and two lower thresholds catch businesses and tax bills.

The question comes up every time someone buys a second-hand car or settles a builder's invoice: what is the legal ceiling for paying in cash in Portugal? It is €3,000, and it bites lower than most people expect. The rule sits in Article 63-E of the General Tax Law and has been in force for years. It prohibits paying or receiving cash in amounts equal to or above €3,000. Note the wording: equal to or above. A transaction of exactly three thousand euros…

Continue reading

The Road Service Contribution was found incompatible with EU law in 2022, then folded into Portugal's fuel tax. It brought Infraestruturas de Portugal 710 million euros in 2025. The Finance Ministry says today's model is lawful.

Fill up anywhere in Portugal and a slice of the bill is earmarked for Infraestruturas de Portugal, the state company that runs the national road network. It works out at 8.7 cents on every litre of petrol, 11.1 cents on every litre of diesel and 12.3 cents on every kilogram of LPG. The original version of that charge was found to breach EU law four years ago. Here is how that happened. In February 2022 the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that…

Continue reading

Infarmed data shows 66,305 kilos left the country in the first half of 2026 alone, more than 80% of the 2025 total. Germany takes roughly three quarters of it.

An industry has been quietly scaling up in Portugal, and the regulator's latest figures make it hard to keep ignoring. In the first six months of 2026, 66,305 kilos of cannabis for medicinal use left the country. That single half-year is already more than 80% of everything Portugal exported across the whole of 2025. The climb has been steep and short. Foreign sales were 32,558 kilos in 2024. In 2025 they reached close to 80 tonnes, a jump of roughly 156%.…

Continue reading