€30 million for tourism projects in Portugal, and the door stays open until December
Crescer com o Turismo takes rolling applications until 31 December 2026, with non-repayable grants capped at €400,000 per project. Councils, non-profits and SMEs can all apply.
Apply / Learn moreMost Portuguese funding programmes run as closed competitions with a hard deadline and a scramble in the final fortnight. Crescer com o Turismo, run by Turismo de Portugal, does not. It takes applications on a rolling basis until 31 December 2026 or until the money runs out, whichever comes first. The pot is €30 million and it covers the whole country, Madeira and the Azores included.
Two things make it unusual. The support is a straight grant rather than a loan, and the ceiling is €400,000 per project. The list of who can apply is also wider than the norm: councils and other public bodies, private non-profit associations with at least three years of activity, and micro, small and medium enterprises where the project carries a social-innovation angle with tourism value.
What it actually funds
The eligible areas are broad, and they explain the name. Building new tourism products. Smart territories. Making more of historic and cultural heritage. Sustainability work and destination certification. Urban regeneration and the revival of businesses with history behind them — the old grocer, the café that has always been on that corner. Training and skilling vulnerable groups to work in the sector. And community-led or multicultural tourism initiatives.
If you are working outside the big coastal corridors, the detail that matters is the uplift. Support rates vary by project type and are more generous in low-density territories, which is exactly where a €100,000 project changes the shape of a parish.
Applying
Applications go through the SGPI platform on a dedicated form. Before you start filling anything in, read the notice that applies to your specific project type. The rates and the criteria are not uniform across typologies, and that is where most applications come apart.
If your idea is closer to starting a business than to developing a place, other doors are open right now — we have covered the StartUP Voucher Innovate and the +Emprego hiring incentive. The full Crescer com o Turismo notices and documentation sit on the Turismo de Portugal business portal.
One last note on timing. Rolling applications sound like breathing room, but the budget is finite and closes the moment it is exhausted. December is the formal limit, not the real one.
Photo: Cidônio Rinaldi da Silva / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
