Motorway tolls could increase by 2.3% in 2026, if the estimate of the year-on-year inflation rate for October, excluding housing, released by Statistics Portugal (INE), plus the 0.1% compensation to concessionaires, is confirmed.
The formula that establishes how the toll price increase is calculated each year is laid down in Decree-Law 294/97 and establishes that the variation to be applied each year is based on the year-on-year inflation rate without housing on the mainland in the last month for which data is available before 15 November.
This is the deadline for concessionaires to notify the government of their price proposals for the following year.
According to provisional figures released by INE, this inflation benchmark stood at 2.2%.
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To this figure is added 0.1%, following the agreement reached in 2022 by the government with the motorway concessionaires to compensate them for the brake that was then imposed on a rise of around 10% in 2023.
This was because, in 2022, the year-on-year increase in prices on the mainland, excluding housing, exceeded 10%, a figure that led the government to negotiate a solution with the concessionaires that limited the increase in tolls in 2023 to 4.9%.
At the time, the then Minister for Infrastructure, Pedro Nuno Santos, specified that, in addition to the 4.9% increase borne by motorway users, part (2.8%) was the responsibility of the state, with the remainder “up to 9.5% or 10.5%” borne by the concessionaires.
As compensation for the 4.9% limit imposed in 2023, it was then established that the concessionaires could, over the following four years, increase the toll update by a further 0.1% under their concession contracts.
In 2024 and 2025, tolls were also increased by more than 2%.
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