Tolls in Portugal: which motorways are free since 2025, and which ones still charge a rental car

Law No. 37/2024, published in the Diário da República (Portugal's official gazette) on 7 August 2024 and effective from 1 January 2025, scrapped tolls on the former SCUT motorways ("Sem Custo para o Utilizador", free until 2010-2011 before real tolls were introduced during the economic crisis). The government had proposed a gradual toll reduction, but parliament's opposition pushed through outright abolition on the routes most used by tourists in May 2024.

Now toll-free, over all or part of their length: the A22 (Via do Infante, the backbone of the Algarve, 137 km), the A23 (Beira Interior), the A24 (Interior Norte), the A25 (Beiras Litoral e Alta, toward the Spanish border), the A13 and A13-1 (Pinhal Interior), the A4 (Transmontana and the Marão tunnel), and two sections of the A28 in the Minho region. For a classic Lisbon → Algarve road trip, or an inland loop toward Spain, that is genuinely good news: these roads, often flagged as an electronic-toll trap in older guides, no longer are.

The country's main historic routes, run by Brisa, the largest motorway operator, still charge: the A1 (Lisbon-Porto, the country's backbone), the A2 (Lisbon-Algarve via the interior), the A3 (Porto-Valença, toward Galicia), the A5 (Lisbon-Cascais), the A6 (Marateca to the Spanish border near Badajoz), plus the A8, A9 and A17 on the central coast. These motorways mix manual lanes (cash or card), automatic lanes (card only) and dedicated Via Verde lanes, marked with a green "V" on white.

Two landmark Lisbon bridges still charge private cars: the Vasco da Gama bridge and, in the north-south direction, the 25 de Abril bridge. Unlike the classic motorways, both run pure free-flow tolling: no booth, no stopping, just an overhead camera reading the plate.

A few targeted reductions are still due in the course of 2026 (notably on the A2 and A6 in the Alentejo, partly reserved for local residents), but they do not cover most tourist routes — better to check the exact itinerary before leaving than to assume a motorway is free.

Most rental companies in Lisbon, Porto and Faro offer, at pickup, to activate a built-in or add-on Via Verde transponder: budget roughly €1.50 to €2 per day, usually capped after a week, plus the actual toll amounts. Everything is charged to your card a few days after the car is returned — the simplest option, with nothing to sort out on the ground.

Another option for visitors, especially those driving their own car in from Spain, is EASYToll: it links your plate to a bank card at one of the "Welcome Points" near the country's main entry points, valid for 30 days, with a small fee per toll crossing on top of the toll itself. TollCard, a prepaid card (€5, €10, €20 or €40) sold at post offices and some petrol stations, needs no bank account and stays valid for a year — handy for a short trip without leaving a card trail.

Without a transponder or a registered card, driving under an electronic gantry is not illegal by itself — but the toll has to be settled afterward, at a post office (CTT) counter, by giving the plate number. The payment window opens on the second day after the crossing and stays open for five business days; after that, the unpaid toll becomes an offence.

Under Law No. 27/2023, which amended the 2006 sanctioning regime, the fine ("coima") for an unpaid toll is capped on both ends: a minimum of €25, or five times the toll amount if that exceeds €5, up to a ceiling of twice that minimum. A forgotten toll of a few euros can turn into a considerably steeper bill — reason enough, with a rental car, to simply let the rental company handle the Via Verde device rather than rely on memory at the end of the trip.

Scrapping tolls on the former SCUT motorways was not just a cost-of-living move: a study by Alfredo Pereira, Rui Pereira and João Pereira dos Santos, published in 2020, found that introducing tolls on these motorways had pushed a significant share of traffic onto surrounding secondary roads — and measurably raised accident rates in the municipalities concerned, since those national roads are statistically more dangerous than the motorway they replaced (study available via Google Scholar: scholar.google.com/scholar?q=For+whom+the+bell+tolls+road+safety+effects+tolls+SCUT+highways+Portugal+Pereira). That road-safety argument was picked up by advocates of the repeal, alongside the direct cost to households and to tourism businesses in regions such as inland Beiras or Trás-os-Montes.

Portugal's 2025 state budget put the resulting revenue loss at roughly €180 million — a deliberate trade-off to make less-visited inland regions more attractive again.

Our "Portugal Self-Drive" guide breaks down, region by region, the country's two main routes — the Lisbon → Alentejo → Costa Vicentina → Algarve run, and the northern Porto → Douro Valley → historic villages loop — flagging for each the toll sections that remain and the Via Verde option to activate at the rental counter. Before you leave: just make sure the rental company switches on the electronic toll device; the Algarve's A22 is no longer something to worry about.