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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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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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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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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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 VCI restriction started on 15 September and covers goods vehicles over 3,500kg with three or more axles. Hauliers loading or unloading in Porto or Gaia can still use it — but only with the plate registered first.

Since 15 September, heavy goods vehicles have been barred from Porto's Via de Cintura Interna between seven in the morning and nine at night on weekdays. This is not a trial run with a soft launch. In the first 48 hours the PSP logged 27 offences, 22 on day one and five on day two, which suggests the message travelled fast. The ban applies to goods vehicles over 3,500kg gross weight with three or more axles and a height of at least 1.1 metres measured at…

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Warren Buffett, 96, becomes chairman emeritus with immediate effect and stays on the board. His eldest son, a director since 1993, takes the chair, while Greg Abel continues to run the company.

Warren Buffett stepped down on Friday as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the failing textile mill he bought in 1965 and turned into a trillion-dollar conglomerate. He is 96. The change took effect immediately. The board elected his eldest son, Howard G. Buffett, a director since 1993, as chairman, and named the father chairman emeritus. Warren Buffett remains a member of the board. In a letter to shareholders he wrote that Father Time always wins.

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Portugal's securities regulator cleared VAA — Vista Alegre Atlantis to leave Euronext Lisbon on Thursday, with immediate effect. Visabeira Indústria must now buy the shares of holders who did not vote for the delisting, at €1.07 each, within three months.

Vista Alegre shares can no longer be bought or sold on the Lisbon exchange. The CMVM, Portugal's securities regulator, approved the delisting request from VAA — Vista Alegre Atlantis, SGPS on Thursday, and the decision took effect immediately under article 251-F of the securities code. Nobody should be startled by it. The route was opened at the annual meeting on 29 May, where shareholders backed the exit at the request of Visabeira and a block of holders…

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Abanca Mar launched in Portugal on Thursday, lending to fishing, aquaculture, shipbuilding, ports, logistics, maritime tourism and offshore energy. It takes vessels as security and fronts public subsidies that have not yet landed.

A bank announcing that it lends to businesses is not news. A bank building a team that looks only at people who make their living from the sea says something about where it thinks the money is. Abanca launched Abanca Mar in Portugal on Thursday, a segment aimed at companies and sole traders in what gets called the blue economy. The definition is deliberately wide. It takes in fishing, aquaculture, seafood processing and trade, shipbuilding and the yards…

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In her State of the Union address, the Commission president announced a European alliance for climate risk insurance. Around 25% of catastrophe losses in the EU are covered by private insurance, and the rest lands on national budgets.

One line in Wednesday's State of the Union address will get less coverage than the headline items, and it is probably the one that touches household finances in Portugal most directly. Only about a quarter of losses from catastrophes in Europe are covered by private insurance. The rest ends up where it always ends up, on the national budget.

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ERSE is raising the energy tariff by €0.005 per kWh, about 2.7% on the average monthly bill. A couple with no children pay 95 cents more; a couple with two children pay €2.70 more. It covers 779,000 customers, and the regulator is passing on less than a third of the gap it found.

Electricity gets more expensive on 1 October for anyone still on Portugal's regulated tariff. ERSE is lifting the energy component by €0.005 per kWh, which works out at roughly 2.7% on the average monthly bill — and it is the percentage, not the amount, that will travel. The amount deserves an airing, because it changes how the number reads. The regulator's own statement works it through for two household types. A couple with no children, on 3.45 kVA and…

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Applications were due to open on Monday. The environment and energy minister put the delay at three or four weeks, and used a visit to Abrantes to confirm that part of the grid capacity at the old Pego coal plant is going to a technology free zone.

Monday was meant to be the day applications opened for 1,050 megavolt-amperes of electricity grid connection capacity, reserved for projects that include storage. They did not open. Maria da Graça Carvalho, the minister for environment and energy, explained the hold-up during a visit to the Tagusvalley science and technology park in Abrantes, and put it at three or four weeks. The reason is mundane, and in its way encouraging. Sixty-two submissions came…

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Friday's order sets the extraordinary ISP rebate at 97.58 euros per thousand litres of diesel and 65.92 for petrol, in force from Monday. It is not a tax cut — it is the extra VAT the state collects when prices rise, given back.

Fill up this week and you are paying less tax than you were last week, by a wider margin than the headlines suggest. The order signed on Friday by the environment and energy minister and the secretary of state for tax affairs fixes the extraordinary fuel-duty rebate at 97.58 euros per thousand litres of road diesel and 65.92 euros per thousand litres of unleaded petrol. In the unit that shows up on the pump display: 9.8 cents off diesel, 6.6 off petrol.

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The Dutch central bank has just moved close to ten billion dollars of gold out of the US, and Spain, Germany and Italy have started arguing about doing the same. Portugal moved its 3.7 tonnes in 2021 — and the reason it gave was not political.

The Dutch central bank has spent recent months moving gold. Around 60 tonnes physically travelled out of the United States and Canada, half to its own vaults and half to the Bank of England, and the rest was sold in North America and repurchased in London — the reserves change address without the bars being the same bars. Nearly 100 tonnes in total. The governor talked about "readiness" and preparing for "severe crises". Nobody in Amsterdam said the word…

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The resolution behind the 12-million-euro package caps the payment at 1,125 euros a hectare and ties it to the drop against each grower's five-year average. It also gives the Port wine institute until 31 December to design a fund that would make this kind of rescue unnecessary.

The Douro harvest is halfway through and some of the fruit has no buyer. The government's answer is an emergency package worth 12 million euros, agreed in the Council of Ministers on 4 September and published five days later. The part almost nobody has picked up is how it works, because it is unusual: the money follows the grapes that stay where they are. The resolution creating the scheme authorises the Douro and Port Wine Institute to spend up to 12…

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Portugal's energy regulator counted 46 tanker unloadings at the Sines LNG terminal in 2025, the entry point for 95% of the country's gas. The United States accounted for 43% of cargoes and Russia for 7%.

Portugal has an energy bottleneck and it sits in Sines. Around 95% of the gas that entered the country in 2025 arrived through the liquefied natural gas terminal there, according to the annual report from the energy regulator ERSE. The other 5% came by pipeline, over the Spanish interconnections at Campo Maior and Valença do Minho. The terminal closed the year on 46 tanker unloadings, seven fewer than in 2024, and filled 7,546 road tankers, 214 more than…

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The Ponta Delgada chamber of commerce has written to Portugal's competition authority. It says the cheapest fare classes are almost never on sale, even on searches made for August 2027.

The comparison São Miguel's business community has put on the table is awkward because it is internal. It does not set Azores Airlines against a rival. It sets Azores Airlines against itself. A flight from Praia, in Cape Verde, to Ponta Delgada takes close to four hours and, for comparable dates, costs around 218 euros. Lisbon to Ponta Delgada takes about two, and shows up as a return above 500. Same carrier, half the time in the air, more than double the…

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Volta launched on 10 April and has tripled in the last two months: 100 million at the three-month mark, 305 million at five. The system now averages about five million returns a day.

Portugal's deposit-return system for drinks containers went live on 10 April and, five months on, has taken back more than 305 million single-use bottles and cans. The curve says more than the total. Two months in, more than 10 million containers had come back. At three months, 100 million. At five, 305 million. The number tripled over the last two months, which is exactly how a scheme behaves when the habit takes a while to form and then forms all at…

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The deposit facility rate goes to 2.5% on 16 September, the second increase this year. What reaches your monthly payment is Euribor, and Euribor only reaches you on your contract's reset date.

The ECB Governing Council raised its three key rates by 25 basis points on Thursday, taking the deposit facility rate to 2.5% with effect from 16 September. It is the second rise this year, and energy is the reason. Inflation is still running above target, and the bank's own staff projections put it at an average of 3% in 2026, 2.5% in 2027 and 2.1% only in 2028. Growth is projected at 0.9% this year, 1.4% next year and 1.5% in 2028. That is not a stall.…

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The Council of Ministers, meeting in Bragança, extended the coloured-diesel support for farming, forestry, fishing and aquaculture to 31 December at an estimated cost above 15 million euros. The March decree being amended sets out the catch: the money is due only in weeks when the price beats a benchmark fixed in the first week of March.

Portugal's Council of Ministers met in Bragança on Wednesday and agreed to keep paying 10 cents a litre on coloured and marked diesel until 31 December. The Government says the scheme covers farming, forestry, fishing and aquaculture, and that the extension will cost more than 15 million euros from the state budget. None of this is new. The support was created in March and expired on 30 June, which was the cut-off written into the original text. What…

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Statistics Portugal published July's goods trade figures on Wednesday. The deficit came in at €3,052m, €393m better than a year earlier. Strip out goods that cross the border for processing without ever changing owner and it was €3,065m, or €65m worse.

July produced two trade deficits, and they point in opposite directions. The first one is the figure that will travel. Goods exports rose 6.5% on the year and imports rose just 0.6%. Because sales grew far faster than purchases, the goods trade deficit closed the month at €3,052m, an improvement of €393m on July last year, according to the release Statistics Portugal put out on Wednesday.

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Nova SBE's International Master's in Management placed second worldwide in the 2026 Financial Times ranking, after eighth in 2024 and fourth last year. Only St. Gallen finished higher.

The second-best master's in management on the planet is now taught in Carcavelos. Nova School of Business and Economics took second place worldwide in the 2026 Financial Times Masters in Management ranking with its International Master's in Management, a result the school calls the best in its history.

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36,124 firms were formed between January and August, down 3% on last year, while real-estate insolvencies doubled and closures fell to a 12-month low.

Portugal registered 36,124 new companies between January and August, 3% fewer than in the same stretch of 2025. The slowdown reaches almost every sector. Only two went the other way, according to the Informa D&B barometer published on Tuesday. Construction is the standout. It produced 5,398 new businesses, up 13%, which makes it the second most prolific sector of the year. Information and communication technology grew more modestly at 5.3%, or 135 extra…

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Fitch moved Portugal from A to A+ with a stable outlook on Friday, putting it level with France and Belgium. The agency now sees public debt at 87% of GDP by the end of 2026 and a budget surplus of 0.1%.

Fitch has raised Portugal's sovereign debt rating from A to A+, with a stable outlook. It is the fourth upgrade in two years, the second from this agency since April 2024, and it puts Portugal level with France and Belgium on the agency's scale. The reasoning comes in three parts: falling public debt, sturdier public accounts, and the growth outlook. Fitch expects the debt ratio to end this year at 87% of GDP, alongside a budget surplus of 0.1%. It sees…

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Standard diesel is expected to rise by around 15 cents a litre and 95 petrol by around 12 from Monday 7 September. At 2.169 and 2.142 euros, both clear the records set in April and May.

If the tank is half full and the car is sitting outside, this is one of those weekends when a trip to the pump pays for itself. From the early hours of Monday 7 September, standard diesel is expected to go up by roughly 15 cents a litre and 95 petrol by roughly 12, according to the weekly forecast published by the Automóvel Club de Portugal.

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Portugal's infrastructure company will invest the sum across Beja, Évora and Portalegre by the end of 2028. The announcement came at a roadside ceremony, not in a press release.

The Alentejo is the part of Portugal where you drive the furthest to do the least, and where the train, on several lines, is still a single railcar on a single track. Infraestruturas de Portugal said this week it will invest €700 million in the region by the end of 2028, split between roads and railways across the districts of Beja, Évora and Portalegre. Infrastructure Secretary of State Hugo Espírito Santo made the announcement, and it did not arrive in…

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An order published on 2 September gives Novobanco another €40m and Montepio €60m. The overall ceiling on Portugal's young-buyer housing guarantee rises to €2.4bn, double where it started in 2024.

Novobanco asked for another €40 million. Montepio asked for €60 million. The government added the two together and published the result in Wednesday's official gazette: €100 million more of state guarantee for young buyers' mortgages, in response to the lending both banks still expect to do before the year ends. This is not a new scheme or an extra credit line. It is the 2024 mechanism being given more room because the slice reserved for those two lenders…

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Blissfulbreeze, which ran the e-commerce for the Cristina brands, was declared insolvent by the Vila Nova de Gaia commercial court on 11 August and is heading for liquidation. Anyone who had already paid becomes an ordinary creditor, with a deadline that starts at the judgment.

The company behind the online shop for the Cristina, Love Cristina and Daily Cristina labels has gone under. Blissfulbreeze was declared insolvent on 11 August by the commercial court in Vila Nova de Gaia and is now heading into liquidation, with Santander, Vodafone and Amor Ponto, Cristina Ferreira's own company, among the creditors. The presenter has said her commercial relationship with Blissfulbreeze covered only the production and sale of footwear…

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Law 59/2026 scraps the surge-pricing cap, lets licensed taxis sign up to the apps and allows advertising on the cars. An operators' association says the statute gives two different start dates.

Eight years after Portugal first wrote rules for the ride-hailing trade, those rules have been rewritten. Law 59/2026 was published on 25 August and its article 7 brings it into force today, 1 September. It is the first substantial revision of Law 45/2018, which had promised a review after three years and never got one. It starts with the name. The sector is no longer defined as transport in unmarked vehicles but as paid passenger transport in…

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Tourist accommodation took €923.7 million, up 4.9% on last July. Greater Lisbon's takings fell 2% and its revenue per available room dropped 7.3%, while the Alentejo grew almost 20%.

Portuguese tourist accommodation took €923.7 million in July, 4.9% more than in the same month last year. The figures landed on Monday, and they carry a detail that rarely makes the headline: revenue rose in every region of the country bar one. In Greater Lisbon it fell 2%. Small as a percentage, large as a signal. Greater Lisbon is the second biggest earner in the country, taking 21.2% of everything Portuguese accommodation billed that month. Run the…

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