Opportunities 14 July 2026

IEFP +Emprego hiring support: how it works and who can apply in 2026

Portugal's +Emprego measure helps companies that hire unemployed jobseekers on permanent contracts. Here is who qualifies, the conditions and how to apply.

Apply / Learn more

The +Emprego measure is a support from Portugal’s public employment service (IEFP) for companies that sign a permanent, full-time contract with an unemployed jobseeker registered at the job centre. It lowers the cost of hiring on a stable basis — and the value of the support is tied to the IAS index, which in 2026 is 537.13 euros.

What is the +Emprego measure?

It is an incentive for permanent hiring. The state covers part of the cost when a company genuinely creates a new job and keeps it — it is not for replacing someone who leaves, it is for growing. It differs from internships (which are temporary) and from youth-only measures: here the focus is the open-ended contract, at any age.

Who can apply?

Employers who hire, on a permanent contract, someone who is unemployed and registered with IEFP. There are rules to meet: create net employment, keep the supported job level for at least 24 months, provide training to the worker, and not have carried out collective dismissals in the three months before applying.

How much does Medida +Emprego pay in 2026?

The subsidy is worth €6,445.56 per hire, which is 12 times the Social Support Index (€537.13 this year). If the job sits in an inland territory there is a 35% uplift, adding €2,255.95. The call currently in force runs from 15 July to 15 December 2026, or until the budget allocation is exhausted — in practice the money may run out before the date does.

How do you apply?

Applications are made online, on the iefponline portal, before the hire. It is worth confirming the exact amounts and deadlines on the official sheet, as they vary with the type of contract and the profile of the person hired — it is all on the IEFP hiring-support section. If you are after a youth-focused measure instead, see the AVANÇAR hiring-support programme.

By Miguel Sarmento

Illustrative · Photo: Anna Shvets / Pexels

Tugadaily chart: €28 per irrigated hectare, €12 rainfed, €12 per dairy cow and €10 per suckler cow

Opportunities 2 September 2026

Farming in Portugal? Brussels just cleared the aid that pays €28 a hectare

The European Commission approved a €30 million Portuguese scheme for farming, fishing and aquaculture on Wednesday. IFAP has to pay every cent of it by 31 December.

The European Commission signed off on Wednesday on a €30 million Portuguese state aid scheme for farming, fishing and aquaculture businesses. It was the last formal step, taken under the temporary framework created in response to the Middle East crisis and the fuel and fertiliser prices it pushed up. For anyone actually working the land, the approval is not the interesting part. The rates are. The farming side has been mapped out since June, in Council of…

Bar chart of first-round places left over by field of study: engineering 1,997, business 676, personal services 629, agriculture 406, computing 383

Opportunities 1 September 2026

1,997 of Portugal's 6,639 leftover university places are in engineering

The second-round total everyone quoted is not the final one. DGES publishes today the first-round seats nobody enrolled in, and applications stay open until 20 September.

Everyone printed the same figure: 6,639 places going into the second round. It is accurate and it is incomplete. The DGES note itself says the September round also takes in the seats that were awarded in August but never enrolled against, and that those numbers are only published today, 1 September, on the agency's website. Which means anyone weighing up whether to apply spent last week looking at a total that is about to grow. Once today's list is out,…

Bar chart of the tax-free bonus ceiling by monthly base salary in Portugal: 920 euros a month gives 773 euros exempt, 1,200 gives 1,008, 1,835 gives 1,541 and 2,500 gives 2,100

Opportunities 29 August 2026

Is your Portuguese bonus tax-free? Only if your employer raised pay this year

Up to 6% of annual base salary escapes both income tax and social security in 2026. The ceiling counts fourteen months rather than twelve, and tax is withheld anyway when the bonus lands.

A performance bonus in Portugal can reach you without a cent of income tax on it. Whether it does is largely out of your hands. The rule works like this: up to 6% of annual base salary, productivity and performance bonuses, profit shares and balance-sheet gratuities are exempt from IRS and sit outside the social security contribution base, provided they are paid voluntarily and without regular character. Anything above the 6% line is taxed the way it…

Bar chart of the share of programmed Portugal 2030 money already put out to tender by regional programme: Lisbon 102%, North 93%, Centre 87%, Algarve 81%, Alentejo 71%, Azores 69%, Madeira 60%

Opportunities 27 August 2026

€2.5bn of Portugal 2030 money has not been put out to tender yet

Government transparency data shows 20.5 of 23 billion euros advertised across 1,467 calls. Madeira sits at 59.57% of its programmed envelope and the Azores at 68.95%, against 101.83% in Lisbon.

Every time another Portugal 2030 call opens, one question goes unasked: how much of the total has actually been advertised, and how much is still sitting there. The government's own transparency portal answers it. Of the 23 billion euros programmed under Portugal 2030, 20.5 billion has been put out to tender across 1,467 published calls. That leaves roughly 2.5 billion that has not yet reached an application form. The figures come from AD&C and are…

Opportunities 26 August 2026

Portugal just widened the Kristin overtime rules to cover all five months of the emergency

A decree approved on 20 August extends the exceptional overtime regime to the entire Kristin calamity period, 28 January to 28 June, and puts central government, municipal and state-owned company staff under one set of rules.

If you spent January nights clearing drains, reopening roads or answering phones in a council office while the water rose, you worked well past your hours. What stayed unresolved for months was how those hours would be paid — and whether the answer changed depending on which employer's badge you happened to be wearing. The Council of Ministers settled it on 20 August. A decree-law was approved amending the regime for overtime worked in response to Storm…

Opportunities 25 August 2026

Australia has paused Work and Holiday visas for Portuguese applicants

The subclass 462 visa now shows as paused on the Australian Home Affairs site, with Portugal one of 24 countries affected. A pause is not a closure, and the annual quota for Portugal is only 500 places.

Anyone planning a year in Australia got unwelcome news this week. The Work and Holiday visa for Portuguese citizens now shows as paused on the Australian Department of Home Affairs website. Portugal is one of 24 countries whose subclass 462 has been put on hold, a status published on the official country caps page. The Australian embassy in Lisbon confirmed it and pointed to the number that explains most of it: the annual quota for Portuguese applicants…

Tugadaily chart of the share of employers unable to fill vacancies by region: Centro 88, Greater Porto 83, North and South 81, Greater Lisbon 79

Opportunities 25 August 2026

Where in Portugal is it hardest to hire? Not Lisbon, and not Porto either

ManpowerGroup's 2026 talent shortage study puts the Centro region at 88% of employers unable to fill vacancies, against 79% in Greater Lisbon. Nationally the figure is 82%, the fifth highest in the world.

Job hunters tend to assume the openings are all in Lisbon. Employers report something close to the opposite. Companies in central Portugal complain hardest about not finding people, and the gap to the capital runs to nine percentage points. The figures come from ManpowerGroup's 2026 talent shortage study, built on a survey of more than 39,000 employers across 41 countries. In the Centro region, 88% of organisations say they cannot fill their vacancies.…

Opportunities 24 August 2026

Your Portuguese savings certificates are about to stop following Euribor upwards

The Series F base rate tracks three-month Euribor, but the IGCP term sheet caps it at 2.5%. Three-month Euribor traded at 2.507% on 22 August, which puts it above the ceiling for the first time.

Portugal's most popular savings product has a brake written into its own term sheet. Euribor has just reached it. Nobody sits in a room deciding the base rate on Series F savings certificates. It is the average of three-month Euribor over the previous ten business days, rounded to three decimal places. But the same IGCP term sheet that sets out that formula adds a line that rarely makes the coverage: the base rate may not be higher than 2.50% or lower…

Official Laç(z)os Artísticos artwork announcing that applications are open

Opportunities 23 August 2026

This grant pays artists up to €2,250 to move between Portugal, the CPLP and Latin America

The second edition of Laç(z)os Artísticos is open until 15 September with 20 mobility grants covering travel and insurance. Three are ring-fenced for young artists from Portuguese-speaking Africa and Timor-Leste.

The first round of Laç(z)os Artísticos handed out eleven grants. This one has twenty, and applications close on 15 September. The programme pays for artists to travel and develop a project outside their own country, within a bloc that combines the CPLP member states with the Ibero-American countries. Each grant is worth a maximum of €2,250 and covers the cost of the journey, health and travel insurance included. Eligible fields are visual arts, performing…

Opportunities 22 August 2026

Only 6,639 places are left in Portugal's second university round, 42% fewer than last year

The first round placed 49,991 students and filled 88.9% of the seats. What remains opens on Monday, and more than half of it sits in inland institutions.

There is a lot less room to manoeuvre this year for anyone who misses out. The second round of Portugal's national university competition opens on Monday, 24 August carrying 6,639 places, 42.3% fewer than the same round in 2025. The reason is straightforward. The first round took almost everything. A total of 49,991 students were placed, which works out at 88.9% of the available seats and 6,092 more students than last year. The Ministry of Education,…

Official open call card for the BSC AI Factory Incubation Space Program, carrying the EuroHPC, FCT, FCCN, CNCA and PRR logos

Opportunities 21 August 2026

Building an AI product in Portugal? There is free supercomputer time in Porto until March

The BSC AI Factory Incubation Space Program gives startups and small firms free access to supercomputing, technical support and mentoring between 5 October and 30 March at UPTEC Asprela II. Applications close on 15 September.

Training an AI model costs money most small companies do not have. This programme aims squarely at that gap, and it does so in the most direct way available: it hands you the machine. The second call of the BSC AI Factory Incubation Space Program is open and accepts applications until 15 September. In Portugal it is run by the Foundation for Science and Technology alongside the National Centre for Advanced Computing, under the EuroHPC network of AI…

Opportunities 19 August 2026

Portuguese Earth-observation firms have until 2 October to reach the ESA's 1.25 million

Portugal Space has set three annual assessment rounds for the ESA's InCubed programme through to 2028. Applications never close; the assessment dates do.

An electricity grid operator can work out, without leaving the office, that a branch is growing too close to a high-voltage line. That is not science fiction and it is not expensive. It is what VESTA does — a system built by the Portuguese company Spotlite that combines satellite imagery with AI to watch vegetation along power lines, railways and roads. VESTA was funded through InCubed, the European Space Agency's industrial innovation programme for Earth…

Bar chart of teacher placements in Portugal's shortage regions: Greater Lisbon 3,317, Setúbal Peninsula 1,566 and the Algarve 1,011

Opportunities 18 August 2026

20,404 teachers now know their school for September

Portugal's education ministry placed 1,505 more teachers than last year, with 5,894 going to the regions with the deepest shortages. Acceptance closes on 18 August and staff report to schools on 1 September.

Anyone who applied has until the end of today to click accept. Portugal's education ministry has placed 20,404 teachers for the 2026/2027 school year, and the acceptance window on the AGSE platform opened on Sunday and closes on Tuesday 18 August. Those who accept report to their school on 1 September. Of the total, 19,152 are established staff moved through the internal mobility competition. The other 1,252 came in through initial recruitment, the route…

Tugadaily bar chart of the COMPETE2030-2026-7 budget: €45m in total, €38.25m from the ERDF and €6.75m in national funding

Opportunities 17 August 2026

Run a CoLAB in Porto, Coimbra or Évora? There's €45m open until 15 October

Call COMPETE2030-2026-7 puts €45m behind knowledge-transfer work at Portugal's collaborative labs and technology centres, 85% of it European money. Only the North, Centre and Alentejo can apply.

There is fresh money for the part of Portugal's science system almost nobody writes about: the institutions sitting halfway between a university lab and a factory floor. Call COMPETE2030-2026-7 opened on 12 August with €45 million and closes at 17:00 on 15 October. It is aimed at Laboratórios Colaborativos, known as CoLABs, and Centros de Tecnologia e Inovação, the technology and innovation centres. Both are interface bodies. They exist to take research…