In 2026 a meal allowance paid with your salary is tax-exempt only up to €6.15 a working day. On a meal card the ceiling is €10.455. Portugal's tax authority counted 2.4 million workers paid that way in 2025, and both limits rise in 2027.

By Miguel Sarmento

Illustrative · Photo: Micheile Henderson / Pexels

Applications for NASA's next astronaut class opened on 7 November and close at 11.59pm Eastern on Thursday 3 December (4.59am Friday in Lisbon). Candidates need US citizenship, a STEM master's or equivalent and three years' experience. Last time, more than 8,000 people applied for 10 places.

NASA is hiring astronauts again. Applications for its next class opened on 7 November and close at 11.59pm US Eastern time on Thursday 3 December. In Portugal, that is 4.59am on Friday the 4th. The agency wants more people for its Artemis missions to the Moon. It expects to make the final picks in late 2027, when training starts. The first condition rules out most of our readers straight away: you must be a US citizen. For Portuguese-Americans and dual…

The 14 stores open over the next three months in eight districts: Braga, Faro, Leiria, Lisbon, Porto, Setúbal, Vila Real and Viseu. Sonae's supermarket chain says it will prioritise people living near each store. Vacancies are posted on the group's careers page.

Continente, the supermarket chain owned by Sonae, will open 14 stores over the next three months and needs more than 500 people to run them, according to the announcement as reported by Grande Consumo, the retail trade magazine. For job-seekers, the detail that matters is this one: the chain says it will give priority to people who live near each new store.

Canada made its rural immigration pilot permanent on 9 November. Renamed the Rural Community Immigration Program, it gets 5,500 admission places in the 2027-2029 levels plan and runs through employers vetted by 14 local communities, which issued over 4,700 job offers and recommendations from 2025.

If emigrating appeals but Toronto and Vancouver don't, Canada has just made one of its side doors a fixture. Announcing it on Monday in Pictou County, Nova Scotia, the Canadian government said its rural immigration pilot becomes a permanent pathway to residence, renamed the Rural Community Immigration Program. The 2027-2029 immigration levels plan sets aside 5,500 admission places for it.

Portugal's 2027 programme for taking culture abroad has €1 million to share and pays up to 80% of a tour, fair, festival slot or residency outside the country, capped at €50,000 a project. Apply on gov.pt by 23:59 on 4 January. Only organisations based in Portugal for more than a year qualify, so solo artists cannot apply in their own name.

A theatre company invited to a festival in Avignon, a publisher with a stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair, a design collective heading for a biennale: these are the trips the Portuguese state wants to help pay for in 2027. The Programme to Support the Internationalisation of Portuguese Culture 2027 has €1 million to share and takes applications on gov.pt until 23:59 on 4 January.

Portugal's grant for future teachers pays the tuition fee on Basic Education degrees and teaching master's (at private schools, up to the public cap). It has been paid 5,096 times and carries on in 2026/2027. Master's students need an entry grade of 14 out of 20, and grant holders must apply for state-school posts for three years after graduating. The 2027 budget adds €3.1M to open more places.

If you are thinking about teaching in Portugal, one bill gets lighter. The state pays the tuition fee for anyone on a Basic Education degree (licenciatura em Educação Básica) or a teaching master's (mestrado em Ensino), the two routes into the profession. According to the Ministry of Education's statement on the grants, the scheme has paid 5,096 grants to 3,994 students, €3.6 million in all, and it continues in 2026/2027.

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…