Bar chart showing net employment outlook by sector in Portugal for Q4 2026: industry +40%, construction +39%, finance +35%, commerce +34%

Opportunities 25 September 2026

More Portuguese employers plan to hire this quarter, and Centro is way out in front

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 intentions in Portugal, at +40%, the highest in four years. Construction and real estate follow at +39%, finance and insurance at +35%, and commerce and logistics at +34%. At the other end, utilities and natural resources (+16%) was the only sector to pull back from the previous quarter.

Where the jobs are

By region, Centro leads by a wide margin: +50%, the strongest net hiring outlook in the country. Greater Lisbon follows at +40%, the South at +26%, Greater Porto at +24% and the North at +21%. Large companies, with up to 1,000 employees, point to +40%, ahead of small and medium firms at +36% and +35% respectively.

That contrast helps explain why hiring remains so hard specifically in the Centro region, where demand for workers is growing faster than the available supply. Globally, the outlook sits at +29%, up two points from the prior quarter, so Portugal, at +32%, sits above the world average and well above Europe’s +20%. The figure measures intentions, not hires: it is the gap between the 44% of employers planning to grow and the 12% planning to cut.

By Miguel Sarmento

Chart: Tugadaily, based on ManpowerGroup data

Opportunities 27 September 2026

Santander and Coursera open 50,000 more free AI and data course places (you don't need to bank with them)

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…

Opportunities 21 September 2026

Portugal's car tax moves to instalments in 2027. Miss one and the rest fall due at once

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…

Opportunities 20 September 2026

Portuguese SMEs get two free days of AI mentoring in Braga this October

The lab runs on 26 and 27 October at Forum Braga, takes teams of one to five, and asks each company to bring one real problem. Applications close on 16 October and the whole thing is held in English.

Most digitalisation schemes ask a small company for a plan. This one asks for a problem. The SpaceX AI Lab for AI and Digital Transformation runs on 26 and 27 October at Forum Braga, and it is built like a hackathon. Each participating SME brings one concrete challenge from its own operation and spends two days building something against it, with mentoring and AI tooling on hand. A prototype, a workflow, a working solution. Not a slide deck. Applications…

Opportunities 18 September 2026

The Gulbenkian New Talents grant closes on 30 September (your referees get another week)

Applications shut at 15:00 Lisbon time on 30 September, while recommendation letters are due on 6 October. The entry bar is a 16.5 average with no rounding.

One detail about the Gulbenkian New Talents scholarships rescues a good share of the late applications every year, and hardly anyone says it out loud. There are two deadlines, not one. The applicant's own form closes at 15:00 Lisbon time on 30 September. Recommendation letters work differently: the Foundation requests them directly from whoever you name in the references field, and they are not due until 15:00 on 6 October. So if you are putting off…

Bar chart of the percentage of sales paid to each segment of the Portuguese fishing fleet under call MAR2030-2026-25, from 1.99% for a polyvalent boat under 12 metres to 10.17% for a trawler of 24 metres or more

Opportunities 15 September 2026

Portugal's fishing fuel rebate is open, and your gear and boat length set the rate

The pot is 18 million euros and applications close at 6pm on 12 October. The rate runs from 1.99% of sales for a polyvalent boat under 12 metres to 10.17% for a trawler of 24 metres or more.

It opened on 11 September and closes at 6pm on 12 October. In between, fishing, aquaculture and fish-processing companies operating on the Portuguese mainland can claim compensation for this year's jump in fuel prices. The government announced 18 million euros and said the amount depends on the fleet segment and the size of the vessel. It is worth spelling out what that means, because the gap between one boat and another is fivefold.

Opportunities 14 September 2026

Run a startup in Portugal? The policy agenda to 2030 is being written right now

Startup Portugal has two questionnaires open, one for startups and one for incubators, and the answers feed straight into the ENE 2030 diagnosis. The final strategy lands at the end of this year.

There is a practical difference between complaining about stock-option taxation at a conference and having that complaint land inside a document that later sets policy. Right now, and not for long, the second route is open. Startup Portugal is building the National Entrepreneurship Strategy 2030, the document that will set the public-policy agenda for entrepreneurship in Portugal across 2026-2030. The process is currently in its diagnosis phase, which…

Opportunities 12 September 2026

The figure the CGTP now wants for 2027 is the government's own target for 2029

Portugal's tripartite agreement puts the minimum wage at 970 euros in 2027 and 1,020 in 2028. The CGTP wants 1,100 from 1 January 2027, and has called a national demonstration for 17 October.

Back in July, when we last wrote about this, the CGTP was asking for a 1,050-euro minimum wage in 2027. Its national council met on Friday and the number moved up: it is now 1,100 euros, from 1 January 2027. Fifty euros does not sound like much of a shift in a union demand. But 1,100 is not a round figure picked at random, and that is where it gets interesting. It is the number the government itself wrote into its programme as the target for 2029.

Opportunities 10 September 2026

Portugal's SME pitch prize gives you three minutes and €5,000. Entries close on 16 October

The second PME Pitch awards are open to startups incorporated in Portugal within the last ten years, and to teams whose project exists only on paper. The final is at Taguspark on 28 October.

Three minutes is not long to explain a business to people who have never heard of it. That constraint is the whole point of the second edition of the PME Pitch awards, which take applications until 16 October. The winner gets €5,000, handed over as a symbolic cheque at the closing ceremony of the Fórum PME Magazine. The final runs on 28 October at Taguspark in Oeiras, and each finalist walks on stage with those three minutes and nothing else. Slides,…

Opportunities 8 September 2026

The EU's SME Fund has run out of trade mark money. Patents are still open

The EUIPO has closed its two most popular vouchers — IP Scan, and trade marks and designs — because the money ran out. Patents and plant varieties still take applications until 4 December, or until they go the same way.

Small firms put off registering a trade mark for the same reason every time: it looks like something you do once you already have money. The European scheme built to undo that calculation has just closed that particular door. The EU SME Fund, the grant scheme the EUIPO runs for small and medium businesses, has stopped taking applications for IP Scan and for trade marks and designs — its two most popular vouchers — because the money set aside for each of…

A researcher in a white coat at work in an industrial laboratory, in the image Portugal 2030 published with its productive innovation call

Opportunities 6 September 2026

€182.5m is on the table for Portuguese SMEs, and the window shuts on 30 September

Portugal 2030's MPR-2026-6 call closes at 5pm on 30 September. Of the total, €71m is ring-fenced for low-density areas and €111.5m for the rest of the mainland. Applications go through the Balcão dos Fundos.

There is a Portugal 2030 call closing on 30 September, and the pot is one of the year's biggest for companies: €182.5 million in non-repayable funding for innovative productive investment by micro, small and medium-sized firms. It is called notice MPR-2026-6, it sits inside the SICE incentive system, and it is a joint call from COMPETE 2030 and the mainland regional programmes. It opened on 15 June and applications close at 5pm on 30 September.

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…