Festival Big Bang turns 15 at Lisbon's Centro Cultural de Belém, with Friday 2 October for schools and Saturday 3 October for families. Tickets are €4.50 (€5 for Main Auditorium shows) and some activities are free.

Festival Big Bang, at Lisbon's Centro Cultural de Belém, is back for its 15th edition on Friday 2 and Saturday 3 October. Friday is for schools and Saturday is family day, with programming across several spaces and times. Saturday tickets cost €4.50, or €5 for shows in the Main Auditorium. Cloudbusting is a concert of about 20 minutes for ages 6 and up. Belgian singer Aline Goffin takes a voice, a mini guitar and a pair of drumsticks through Kate Bush's…

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Spain's fuel discount was down to 5 cents and due to end in October. The cabinet raised it to 20 cents a litre off petrol and diesel in October, then 13 in November and 6 in December. In Portugal, diesel falls 5 cents this week and still sits above €2.15.

Spain's government approved a third decree on the Middle East crisis on Tuesday, and the part that matters at the pump is simple: the fuel discount, which had already shrunk to 5 cents in September and was due to disappear in October, goes back up to 20 cents a litre in October, then drops to 13 in November and to 6 in December. It covers both petrol and diesel, it works through a cut in the Hydrocarbon Tax (VAT is untouched), and the figures are in the…

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It is the band's 16th studio album and their first full-length record of new songs in nine years. Rosalía features on "The Mirror Maker", Brian Eno co-writes three songs, and "Torn", a country duet, is the last vocal Dolly Parton recorded before her death in August.

U2 will release their 16th studio album on 13 November, and it is called Carnaval De Luz. It is their first full-length album of new songs in nine years (they had already put out two six-song EPs this year, Days of Ash and Easter Lily), and the official announcement on U2's site carries the full 12-song list. The last track is the one people will talk about. "Torn" is a country duet written by U2 with Dolly Parton and Johnny McDaid, and the band describes…

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The FPF says Ronaldo did specific gym work at the team hotel because the stadium lacked the equipment. Denmark v Portugal is Thursday at 19:45 Lisbon time at Parken, live on RTP1 and Sport TV 1.

Cristiano Ronaldo, João Félix and Francisco Conceição did not train with the group on Tuesday in Malmö, Sweden, two days before the game against Denmark. Portugal play in Copenhagen on Thursday at 19:45 Lisbon time, and the match page is on UEFA's site. Ronaldo walked out onto the pitch and stood by the substitutes' bench before the session began, then went to the dressing room and back to the hotel. He did not appear in the 15 minutes open to the press.…

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Félix opened the scoring, Haaland levelled from a loose ball after a free kick, and Gonçalo Ramos won it by chipping Nyland. Portugal lead Group A4 on six points and head to Copenhagen.

Portugal won 2-1 in Oslo and now sit alone at the top of Nations League Group A4 with six points from two games. The result is on UEFA's official match page; what the scoreline doesn't tell you is that Cristiano Ronaldo, 41, watched the whole thing from the bench. Jorge Jesus made four changes to the side that beat Wales. Gonçalo Ramos, João Neves, Francisco Conceição and João Palhinha started, and Ronaldo stayed on the bench for all 90 minutes.…

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Knight Frank's Residence Report 2026/27 counts 3.8 homes per ultra-high-net-worth owner, up from 2.9 in under a decade, and names Lisbon, the Algarve and Comporta among the places well placed to catch that money.

Less than a decade ago, the average ultra-wealthy owner had 2.9 homes. Today that figure is 3.8. It is the headline number in the Residence Report 2026/27, published by Knight Frank in association with Quintela + Penalva, and it says something about where top-tier money is actually going: not into one bigger house, but into more houses, spread across more places. Portugal shows up well on that map. The report sees Lisbon, the Algarve and Comporta as a…

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A running tracker of AIMA — case backlog, renewal deadlines, biometrics, golden visa and service changes. Updated whenever there is news.

If you are dealing with residence or nationality, this is the page to bookmark. Instead of one article per announcement, we gather the essentials of AIMA here: case backlog, renewal deadlines, biometrics, golden visa and service changes. For the citizenship rules, see the new nationality law. Official information is at AIMA. EU citizens and their family members can now open an account on AIMA's Renewal Portal and handle the renewal online: application,…

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The second Skills for Work round adds 50,000 free places to August's 50,000, across 80-plus certified Coursera courses. Applications close on 9 December, and there is an assessment test to pass.

You don't need a Santander account, and you don't need a degree. You do need to be over 18, live in one of the 12 countries where the programme runs (Portugal is one), and sit an assessment test on the platform. Santander and Coursera have opened a second round of 50,000 free places in their Skills for Work programme, adding to the 50,000 released back in August. That's 100,000 places in total, spread across more than 80 courses in artificial…

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FC Porto overturned a ten-point half-time deficit to beat Sporting 80-76 in the Supertaça Mário Saldanha in Albufeira, taking their 9th basketball title of all time.

FC Porto were ten points down at half-time. They ended the night with the basketball Super Cup. The Porto side beat Sporting 80-76 on Saturday at the Pavilhão Desportivo de Albufeira, in the 41st edition of the Supertaça Mário Saldanha. At half-time the board read Sporting 41, FC Porto 31 — a ten-point lead for the reigning Portuguese Cup holders. The national champions went in behind and came out on top.

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The decree changing how free prescriptions are costed for Portugal's poorest pensioners takes effect on 17 October, and it carries a guarantee for anyone the pharmacy fails to warn about the cheaper option.

The clock started on 18 August. Decree-Law 169/2026 says in its final article that it takes effect 60 days after publication, which lands on 17 October. From that date, it's the rule pharmacies apply at the counter. That's 20 days away. We explained how the free-medicine rule changes when the decree came out: recipients of the complemento solidário para idosos, Portugal's top-up for pensioners on the lowest incomes, still take their medicines without…

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The first pilot launches in October in the Leiria region, with around 100 workers, while a second tests AI inside five or six mould-making factories in Marinha Grande. The national target is 100,000 SME workers, backed by over €400 million already paid out through IFIC and another €800 million reprogrammed from the PRR recovery fund.

Portugal already had a €400 million plan for artificial intelligence, announced back in June. What it lacked was a date and an address. Now it has both. The Minister of Economy and Territorial Cohesion, Manuel Castro Almeida, told Parliament the goal is to train 100,000 workers at small and medium-sized businesses in artificial intelligence — and that the first pilot launches as soon as October, in the Leiria region, with around 100 workers from various…

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Portugal's Council of Ministers approved compensation of up to 70% of extraordinary fuel costs from October to December for hire-and-reward freight hauliers and public bus operators. Firms that carry their own loads are not covered.

If you haul freight for other companies or run public bus services in Portugal, there is more help on the way. Thursday's Council of Ministers approved a decree-law covering up to 70% of extraordinary fuel costs incurred between October and December. It is meant to close a gap: doubts over the EU's de minimis state-aid rules had left some operators unsure whether they could receive the earlier packages at all.

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The government approved 421 million euros for new Porto Metro lines to Gondomar and Trofa. On the Trofa line only two of nine stations are metro; the other seven are served by electric metrobus, with a change at Muro.

Portugal's Council of Ministers approved 421 million euros on Thursday for two new Porto Metro lines, one to Gondomar and one to Trofa. The government's statement does not draw the distinction. On the Trofa line, though, the metro only reaches the second station: from Muro onwards, you continue by electric bus. The Gondomar line is the conventional one. It runs for about seven kilometres and nine stations from Estádio do Dragão to Souto, in central…

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A running tracker of Portugal's housing market — the INE price index, bank valuations, rents and affordability. Updated with each new data release.

We gather here, in one place, how Portugal's housing market is moving. Instead of one article per data point, we update this page with the essentials: the INE price index, bank valuations, rents and affordability for buyers and renters — which since 1 August also runs through the new mortgage rules, with the debt-service cap down to 45%. Official data is at INE.

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Paul Greengrass's "The Uprising" dramatizes the 1381 peasants' revolt against Richard II. It opened in the US to $3.25 million on a $20 million budget, and has been in Portuguese cinemas since 17 September.

"The Uprising" (in Portugal, "A Revolta") has been in Portuguese cinemas since 17 September, distributed by Medeia Filmes, after a US opening that fell well short of expectations. Paul Greengrass's film dramatizes England's Peasants' Revolt of 1381, a popular uprising against King Richard II in a country still recovering from the Black Death and squeezed by the taxes paying for the Hundred Years' War. Andrew Garfield plays the ploughman who ends up…

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ManpowerGroup's net employment outlook for Q4 rises to +32%, up 14 points on the previous quarter, with industry, construction and the Centro region leading hiring intentions.

Anyone job-hunting has reason to look at the year's final quarter with a bit more hope. ManpowerGroup puts Portugal's net employment outlook at +32% for October through December, up 14 points from the previous quarter and 19 above the same period last year. Of the employers surveyed, 44% plan to grow their teams, 44% plan to hold steady, and only 12% expect cuts. The survey, run across 42 countries and territories, finds manufacturing at the top of hiring…

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Addressing the UN General Assembly, the prime minister criticized how global oil prices are set, backed a two-state solution in the Middle East, and reaffirmed Portugal's full support for Ukraine.

Luís Montenegro took the podium at the UN General Assembly in New York and opened with something that hits every Portuguese wallet: the price of fuel. He called it a "senseless crisis" and asked the world to end "this collective masochism," a direct jab at the mechanism that sets oil prices globally, according to UN Portugal's account of the speech. His argument was that entire economies remain hostage to speculation and volatility in a market nobody…

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Goals from Gabri Veiga, Froholdt and Hwang, a red card for Lenglet after 34 minutes and a seventh win in seven: FC Porto moved to 21 points, five clear of a Benfica side that had not lost a league game since the 2024/25 season.

They arrived at the clássico with a perfect record and left with it intact: FC Porto beat Benfica 3-1 on Sunday 20 September at the Estádio do Dragão, moving to 21 points in the Primeira Liga, five clear of their Lisbon rivals and six ahead of Sporting. FC Porto's official match report records the matchday 7 result, in front of 49,560 fans. For Benfica it cost more than three points. The defeat ended a 55-game unbeaten run in the league that went back to…

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Festival Cuca Monga takes over the Palácio Pimenta gardens, Amazonas Market sets up in Marvila, and the Feira Nacional de Vinil de Benfica reaches its 10th edition, free to attend.

Three days, three very different options for anyone sticking around Lisbon this weekend. Top billing goes to Festival Cuca Monga, which takes over the gardens of Palácio Pimenta, home to the Museu de Lisboa, in Campo Grande today and tomorrow, from 6pm to 2am, with two stages of Portuguese indie music, food stalls and band merchandise. Tickets are €32. On Saturday and Sunday, Marvila hosts Amazonas Market at number 8, with around 70 stalls selling…

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The Series D is led by UC Investments, making its first direct investment in Europe, and Baillie Gifford. In August the talk was of about €500 million at a €5.5 billion valuation; it closed at almost exactly those terms.

TEKEVER, the autonomous-systems company founded in Portugal, has closed the first tranche of a $580 million Series D round, valuing the business at $6.4 billion. The company confirmed the figures itself, with UC Investments (the University of California's fund, making its first direct investment in Europe) and Scottish investment manager Baillie Gifford leading the round.

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Banks, insurers and pension funds have signalled they will join a voluntary pact with the European Commission and the EIB Group to channel long-term institutional capital into Europe's growth-stage tech companies — the mechanism behind the 15-billion-euro target already promised.

Thirteen institutional investors — banks, pension funds and insurance companies — have signalled their intent to join a new voluntary pact launched this week by the European Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group, at the TechEU Equity Summit on 23 September. The goal: channel long-term institutional capital into the venture and growth-capital funds that Europe's tech companies need to scale up without having to go looking for money — and…

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AIMA's 2025 Migration and Asylum Report shows voluntary-departure notices jumping 52-fold in a single year, in the same report that shows foreign-population growth slowing to 2.7%.

In 2024, Portugal's immigration agency AIMA and the police issued 446 notices telling foreigners to leave the country voluntarily. In 2025, that number jumped to 23,133 — more than 50 times as many, according to AIMA's 2025 Migration and Asylum Report, which pulls together the year's full numbers for the first time. The jump sits in the same report we already used to show that Portugal's foreign resident population grew just 2.7% in 2025, down from 39%…

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Police counted 380 heavy vehicles, organisers 450 from 117 companies. Five hours along the A42, A41 and A1, no incidents, over a litre of diesel that has risen 63 cents since February.

Hundreds of trucks, most of them from the earthmoving and public-works sector, staged a slow-motion protest on Friday from Lordelo, in Paredes, to the Coimbra Sul junction, along the A42, A41 and A1 motorways. The GNR police counted 380 heavy vehicles during the morning; organisers put it at 450 from 117 companies. The convoy set off at 7:40am and reached Coimbra around 12:30pm, five hours later, without incident, though traffic backed up as it arrived.…

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Negócio Fechado is Portugal's own version of the German antiques format Cash or Trash, and premieres in RTP1's afternoon slot on 5 October, with Tânia Ribas de Oliveira swapping her afternoon talk show for a hunt through heirlooms and hidden fortunes.

After several years hosting RTP1's afternoon slot, Tânia Ribas de Oliveira is changing shows. From 5 October, weekdays at 3:15pm, she hosts Negócio Fechado, the Portuguese version of Cash or Trash, a German format created by ZDF Studios and distributed internationally by Warner Bros. International Television Production. Portugal is the 12th country to adapt it, following markets including Germany, France, Italy, the UK, Austria, Serbia and Croatia. The…

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Maria João Carneiro, a volunteer with the Resende fire brigade, was struck by a falling tree while fighting a blaze in Barrô and died hours later at Lamego Hospital. She is the second firefighter to die on duty in Portugal this year.

Maria João Carneiro, a 24-year-old volunteer firefighter, died in the early hours of Friday after being struck by a falling tree while fighting a fire in Barrô, in the municipality of Resende, in Portugal's Viseu district. She was pulled out alive and taken to Lamego Hospital, where she died hours later. She served with the Resende volunteer fire brigade. The fire, in scrubland, broke out at 8:36pm on Thursday and has its own entry on Portugal's fogos.pt…

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Consultancy HMR - Health Market Research says Portuguese pharmacies sold more than 3,000 boxes of the weight-loss drug in one day, the third time the one-million-euro mark has been hit since August.

Portugal had already crossed the one-million-euro mark for Mounjaro sales in a single day twice, back in August. It happened again this week. Portuguese pharmacies sold more than 3,000 boxes of the weight-loss drug in one day, according to consultancy HMR - Health Market Research, which tracks sales across more than 2,600 pharmacies and posted the figure on social media. It isn't a one-off. It's the third time since summer. Each box costs between 180 and…

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The singer plays the Coliseu dos Recreios on 15 June 2027, eleven years after her last show there. Tickets run from 45 to 65 euros, on general sale from 25 September.

Patti Smith is back in Lisbon on 15 June 2027, playing the Coliseu dos Recreios with her band. Tickets run from 45 euros (standing stalls, balcony and gallery) to 65 euros (front first-tier box), on general sale from Friday 25 September at 9am, with a 24-hour presale for the promoter's newsletter subscribers starting the day before. Doors at 8pm, show at 9pm. More than five decades into a career that runs through rock, punk and poetry, Smith won the 2026…

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Félix scored after 22 minutes at Alvalade, and Wales managed a single shot all night. Portugal head to Oslo to face Norway on Sunday.

Jorge Jesus has his first win. Portugal beat Wales 1-0 at Alvalade on Thursday night in matchday one of Nations League Group A4, with João Félix scoring after 22 minutes. It was the new head coach's first competitive game, and at 72 he is the oldest man ever to take the job. The goal came from a move down the left, with Félix arriving in the middle and placing his shot past Danny Ward. Portugal had more of the initiative and the territory (12 attempts,…

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At Lisbon AI Week, Observador general director Rudolf Gruner said roughly half the paper's visits came through Google tools, and that share is falling as AI answers people directly. The homepage, over 60% of page views in 2014, is now under 20%.

Lisbon AI Week is running across the city through Sunday, with dozens of events from hackathons to debates on creativity, health and security. At one of them, on AI and the media, a newspaper boss did something AI panels rarely do: he put his own numbers on the table. Rudolf Gruner, general director of Observador, said roughly half of the paper's visits used to arrive through Google's tools (Search, Discover and Google News). That traffic is now falling.…

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Pedro Portugal Gaspar was called before Parliament this week for a seat on Portugal's Competition Authority board. He is the second AIMA president to leave since the agency replaced SEF in 2023, and the government has not said who comes next.

Pedro Portugal Gaspar is on his way out as president of AIMA, the agency that handles immigration and residency in Portugal. He was due before Parliament's Economy and Territorial Cohesion Committee on Tuesday, 22 September — the hearing that comes before a formal appointment to the board of the Competition Authority. Gaspar took over AIMA in July 2024 from Luís Goes Pinheiro, the agency's first president, who had led it since it replaced the old…

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The 67th edition runs 7 to 11 October, with the shows spread across four venues from the 8th. Carlos Gil's show on Saturday 10 starts inside the MUDE design museum and spills onto Rua Augusta, with a limited number of public seats and registration opening on 5 October.

A fashion week normally offers outsiders one option, which is to watch it on a screen. In October there is an exception, and it happens in the middle of Rua Augusta. Carlos Gil's show begins inside the MUDE design museum and pushes out through the doors onto a stretch of the busiest pedestrian street in Lisbon. Saturday 10 October, 3pm. Unlike every other show on the calendar, it has seats for the public: the organisers open mandatory registration on 5…

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We counted the calamity legislation list the Government itself keeps on gov.pt: 37 instruments since 30 January, 24 of them in the first four weeks, none at all in July or August. The newest one rewrites the overtime rules for the people who answered the storm.

Storm Kristin crossed Portugal in the last week of January. The state of calamity lasted nineteen days. The legislation has not stopped. Decreto-Lei n.º 191/2026 appeared in the Diário da República on Tuesday, and we wanted to know where it sat in the queue. So we counted. The Government keeps a guide listing every piece of calamity legislation on gov.pt, updated as each one lands. We added up the entries on that page, one by one, with the date on each.…

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AIMA's annual report closes 2025 with 1,585,854 foreign residents and 42,157 added over the year, against 238,864 in 2024. It is the slowest rate in the whole series the agency publishes, which starts in 2017, and the ranking shifted too: Angola has moved ahead of India.

There is a way of reading AIMA's annual report that skips the headline total and tells you far more. Put four years next to each other. In 2022, Portugal's foreign resident population grew by 39%. In 2023, by 31.4%. In 2024, by 18.3%. In 2025, by 2.7%. That is the slowest annual growth anywhere in the series the agency publishes, which begins in 2017. At the end of last year there were 1,585,854 foreign citizens legally resident in the country. Over the…

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The Swiss bank added Lisbon and Seoul to its sample this year, and the two newcomers posted the largest rises in bubble risk of any city. Lisbon sits with Miami, Dubai, Seoul and Geneva after a decade of real house prices climbing almost 7% a year.

Being added to a housing bubble index is not the kind of debut a city puts on a poster. Lisbon has just made one. UBS has published its Global Real Estate Bubble Index every year for twelve years, and the 2026 edition covers 23 cities. The two new entries are Lisbon and Seoul, and those two recorded the biggest increases in bubble risk in the whole survey. Lisbon went straight into the elevated-risk band alongside Miami, Dubai, Seoul and Geneva. Only…

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SC Braga's listed company closed 2025/26 with a net result of €17.315m and total income above €100m for the first time. Of the €115.682m that came in, €67.339m came from player trading, mostly the sales of Roger Fernandes, Zalazar and Banza.

SC Braga published the best set of accounts in its history on Tuesday, and reading them honestly comes down to one question: where did the money come from. The listed company closed 2025/26 with a net result of €17.315m, after a loss of roughly €11m the season before. Total income passed €100m for the first time, reaching €115.682m. EBITDA of €39.614m is the highest the company has ever recorded. Equity rose to €86.33m, another record. Of that €115.682m,…

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A draft royal decree would force data centres to cover 80% of every hour's electricity with newly built renewables. The industry puts nine billion euros at risk and names Portugal as the alternative. The reason for the clampdown is in the decree's own preamble.

The short version doing the rounds this week is easy enough: Spain tightened the rules on data centres, and the industry is threatening to move to Portugal. The long version is sitting in the document nobody opened, and it is considerably more interesting. Spain's ecological transition ministry has put out for public hearing a draft royal decree setting energy, environmental and digital sovereignty requirements on any installation above 1 MW. The…

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The city cancelled about 40% of its short-term rental registrations in February, taking active listings from nearly 20,000 to 11,779. In the quarter that covers the cut, median rent on new contracts in Lisbon rose 8.2% to €17.42 per square metre, the highest in the country.

For years the standard answer to Lisbon's housing costs was Airbnb. Take the short-term lets out of the market, the argument ran, and the flats come back to ordinary tenants. Lisbon has now done exactly that, at scale, and there are finally numbers showing what happened next. On 1 February the city council finished an administrative clean-up of its register and cancelled 6,765 short-term rental licences, roughly 40% of the city's total. Most were ghost…

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The singer and composer died on Monday night of cardiorespiratory arrest, his family and agency said. Portugal's President called him one of the great poets of the country's music.

Jorge Palma died on Monday night at the age of 76. His family and his agency confirmed the death in a statement, giving the cause as cardiorespiratory arrest. If you have lived in Portugal for any length of time, you have heard him without necessarily knowing it. "Encosta-te a Mim", "Deixa-me Rir", "Frágil", "Dá-me Lume", "A Gente Vai Continuar" — these are songs that a room full of Portuguese strangers will finish for you, word for word, at two in the…

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Identifying and registering rural and mixed plots at the Balcão Único do Prédio costs nothing until 30 September 2026, after which the fees return. Since April a plot also cannot change hands without a georeferenced graphic representation on file.

There are nine days left, today included, on a deadline nobody is counting down, and missing it costs money. Until 30 September 2026, identifying and registering a rural or mixed plot at the Balcão Único do Prédio is free — the identification itself, and the registration fees with it. From 1 October, the charges come back. The free window is not new. It has been extended before, and the extension that runs out this month came in Decreto-Lei n.º 87/2026,…

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Decree-Law 161/2026 retires the registration-anniversary date. From 2027 the IUC is assessed once a year per taxpayer, covering every vehicle you own on 1 January, and the combined total decides whether you pay in one, two or three instalments.

For nearly two decades the IUC has run on one stubborn rule: you pay it in the month your car was first registered. Own three cars bought in three different seasons and you keep three dates in your head, and the penalty for forgetting never much cared whether the fault was yours or the calendar's. That is ending. Decree-Law 161/2026 was published on 4 August and takes effect from 1 January 2027, which is worth saying plainly up front: nothing at all…

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Web Summit runs at Lisbon's MEO Arena from 9 to 12 November. A general pass is €995, but the organisers' own volunteer programme hands out free tickets to people willing to work the floor, with access to the talks on time off.

There are two ways to be inside the MEO Arena in November. One of them costs €995. Web Summit is back in Lisbon from 9 to 12 November, and the price list is already up. A general attendee pass sits at €995, marked down from a list price of €1,595. VIP is €1,950. At the top there is a Chairperson ticket at €24,950, which buys meeting space, fast-tracked entry and the speaker lounge — twenty-five general tickets, for the same four days. The second way costs…

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Zach Cregger's reboot runs alongside the Raccoon City night of the second game without using any of its characters. It reached Portuguese cinemas on 17 September, rated M/16, at 93 minutes.

Eight films across twenty-four years, two reboots, and this is the first one where nobody will recognise the lead. That is the point. The Resident Evil that opened in Portuguese cinemas on 17 September follows Bryan, a medical courier on his way to Raccoon City General when the outbreak starts. Not Leon, not Claire, none of the faces Capcom built over three decades. Zach Cregger, who wrote and directed it, set out the reasoning in an interview PlayStation…

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