The 2026 EUIPO SME Fund reimbursed 75% to 90% of what small firms spend on trade marks, designs, patents and IP pre-diagnosis. Since 8 September only patents and plant varieties remain open, to 4 December.

Deadline

4 December 2026

By Miguel Sarmento

Illustrative · Photo: cottonbro studio / Pexels

The third round of the Caixa Geral de Depósitos scholarships pays €800 to undergraduates and integrated-master's students and €1,200 to master's and PhD students. You need a 12/20 average and household income per head of up to about €13,428 a year. International students living in Portugal can apply.

The University of Porto is taking applications until 17 November for 126 scholarships funded by Caixa Geral de Depósitos, the state-owned bank. Undergraduates and integrated-master's students get €800. Master's and doctoral students get €1,200. This is the scheme's third year. Last year there were 111 awards, so 2026 adds 15 more (a 13.5% rise, by our sums).

Call MAR2030-2026-33 opened on 4 November with €3 million in public money for mainland owners who only run boats under 12 metres and didn't apply in September. The aid is a fixed share of each boat's sales, from 1.50% to 6.32% depending on fuel and gear, and closes at 6pm on 30 December.

If you own a small fishing boat on the Portuguese mainland and let the October deadline slip, there's a second chance. Call MAR2030-2026-33 opened on Wednesday 4 November and takes applications on the Balcão dos Fundos portal until 6pm on 30 December. It's aimed at one kind of owner only: someone who runs nothing but boats under 12 metres in overall length (bow to stern). And only those who didn't apply to the previous call.

Randstad expects 3,433 hires in retail and 511 in transport and warehousing in November alone, driven by Black Friday and Christmas. Adecco has had more than 1,500 openings live since 2 November, mostly around Lisbon, Porto and the south bank of the Tagus. Who is hiring, for what, and where to apply.

If you need work before Christmas, November is the month to look. Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the December rush will put almost 4,000 people into jobs in Portugal this month alone, according to an estimate by the recruitment firm Randstad, built on data from the national statistics office (INE) and the public employment service (IEFP). The figures, reported by ECO, split across two sectors: 3,433 hires in retail and 511 in transport and warehousing.…

The Jornada Foundation, set up for Lisbon's 2023 World Youth Day, is offering non-repayable grants of €10,000 to €30,000 for projects aimed at 15 to 35-year-olds. On our sums that funds between 16 and 50 projects. Applications in by 12 November get feedback. The project lead must be paid.

The Jornada Foundation has opened the 2026 round of MULTIPLICA, its grant programme for projects aimed at young people in Portugal. There is €500,000 in the pot, and each selected project gets between €10,000 and €30,000, non-repayable. Applications close on 3 December. The foundation was set up in 2019 to prepare Lisbon's World Youth Day and reinvented itself in 2024 as a funder of youth projects. It is Catholic in inspiration, but its rules say plainly…

DGLAB opened 42 annual creation grants of €15,000 on 2 November: 24 for drama, essay, fiction and poetry, and 18 for comics and children's and young adult books. Open to Portuguese nationals and residents writing in Portuguese, until 23:59 on 2 December. Our maths on the last round: 155 applicants per grant in fiction, around 17 in drama.

Forty-two writers are about to get a year and €15,000 of public money to work on a book. Applications for the annual creation grants from Portugal's books and libraries authority, DGLAB, opened at 10am today and close at 23:59 on 2 December. The notices in the Diário da República are short. Anyone over 18 who is a Portuguese national or lives in Portugal can apply, as long as they write in Portuguese. So a Brazilian or Angolan author living here competes…

Call ALT2030-2026-57 covers 75% of investment by micro and small companies under three years old built on R&D or specialist knowledge. Grants are capped at €1m per project, doubled for innovative firms, which means a single application could use up the whole budget. Deadline 26 February 2027.

Alentejo 2030, the EU-funded regional programme, has opened a €2 million call for young companies built on research or specialist know-how. It covers 75% of the investment as a non-repayable grant, and applications are open until 26 February 2027. The interesting bit is in the ALT2030-2026-57 call document itself. Each project can receive up to €1 million, and that ceiling doubles for companies that qualify as innovative. Two million euros is the entire…

Portugal 2030 call MPr-2026-11 opened on 30 October and takes applications until 18:00 on 30 December. It funds industrial research and experimental development projects of at least €150,000, at up to 80% in the Centro, Alentejo and Algarve and capped at 40% in the Lisbon metropolitan area.

Portugal 2030 opened a new call on Friday for companies that want to do proper research: build a product, process or service that does not exist yet, or make a big improvement to one that does. There is €13 million of EU money on the table for micro, small and medium-sized firms and for so-called small mid caps. For a research project, the window is tight. Applications close at 18:00 on 30 December, through the Balcão dos Fundos portal. The MPr-2026-11…

Portugal plans to cover up to 80% of an electric car for people on the electricity social tariff or earning under €11,572 a year, capped at €15,000 before VAT and 20,000 cars. On the most expensive eligible car, our maths leaves the buyer about €6,450 short.

Portugal now says who will qualify for its new electric-car subsidy. The Environment and Energy Ministry clarified this week that the support of up to 80%, announced during the 2027 budget debate, is meant for people already on the electricity social tariff and for people with an income below €11,572 a year, which is 80% of the reference median income. Minister Maria da Graça Carvalho unveiled the scheme in parliament on 28 October and says more than a…

Fulbright Portugal's FLTA programme sends up to five early-career Portuguese teachers to American universities for nine months in 2027/2028. Host universities cover tuition, and there is a monthly stipend, $1,000 for flights and health cover. The deadline has been extended to 15 November.

The deadline was meant to be tomorrow. Instead, Fulbright Portugal has extended applications for its Foreign Language Teaching Assistant grants to 15 November, giving early-career teachers two more weeks to go for one of up to five places at American universities in 2027/2028. The job is teaching Portuguese. In the US it counts as a "critical language", one Washington considers relevant to national security and the economy, which is why campuses keep…

The sixth Emunicipa-te round, run by the Gap Year Portugal association with Oeiras council, pays €3,000 for a solo trip and €5,000 for a pair, for six-month to one-year gap years starting between January and August 2027. Ages 18 to 35, with a tax address or a school year in Oeiras. Applications close on 8 November.

Six months on an organic farm in New Zealand, volunteering in Japan, a year learning a language on another continent. The Gap Year Portugal association has four Emunicipa-te grants for exactly that sort of break, and in this sixth round the partner council is Oeiras. It pays €3,000 if you go alone and €5,000 if you go as a pair, with a best friend, a sibling or a partner. Groups of three cannot apply. You need to be between 18 and 35 and have one of two…

Notice MAR2030-2026-31 puts 3 million euros on the table for fishing, aquaculture and fish processing in the Azores, closing at 18:00 on 30 November. For fishing boats the aid is a fixed share of each vessel's sales, from 2.33% for a multi-gear boat under 12 metres to 8.53% for those of 24 metres or more.

Fishing, aquaculture and fish-processing businesses in the Azores have until 18:00 on 30 November to claim compensation for this year's jump in fuel prices. Notice MAR2030-2026-31 opened on Wednesday with 3 million euros, and applications go in through the Balcão dos Fundos portal. This is the Azores edition of a scheme the mainland has already had. The mainland fishing fuel rebate opened in September and closed on 12 October. The rules are similar. The…

COMPETE 2030's STEP calls cover up to 70% of factory investments in the North, Centre, Alentejo and Algarve, with projects of €3M to €25M outside the Algarve. Applications close at 5pm on 4 January 2027.

Two open calls in Portugal will pay non-repayable grants towards building factories for technology the EU classes as critical. Together they are worth €207.95 million, and applications close at 5pm on 4 January 2027. They come from the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP), in its Productive Innovation strand. That means making things, not researching them. Both opened on 30 September. The clean and energy-efficient technologies call…

Madeira 2030 notice M2030-2026-35 refunds the cost of shipping goods for companies that produce or process them on the island: 90% of the spend (80% in the Free Trade Zone), up to €750,000 each, as a non-repayable grant. The pot is €5.695 million and applications close on 20 November at 5pm.

Making things on an island costs more, and freight is where it hurts most. Madeira 2030 has opened a scheme that hands some of it back: companies that produce or process goods in the region can recover up to 90% of what they spent shipping goods in 2025, as a grant that never has to be repaid. The money is EU regional funding (FEDER), and the notice, M2030-2026-35, carries €5.695 million. Applications opened on 19 October and close on 20 November at 5pm,…

The second round of DGARTES's Arte e Coesão Territorial programme has €1 million for projects worth €25,000 to €50,000, to run in 2027 and 2028 in 78 municipalities with little professional arts activity. Visual, performing, street, traditional and digital arts all qualify. Deadline 6 November.

If you are an artist, a collective or a cultural organisation with a project designed for somewhere beyond Lisbon and Porto, you have twelve days to get it on paper. Portugal's arts agency DGARTES has opened the second round of its Arte e Coesão Territorial partnership programme, worth €1 million in total, and applications close on 6 November, as the government's announcement of the new round confirms.