Taking a taxi at Lisbon Airport will cost (at least) 16 euros

Ataking a taxi at Humberto Delgado Airport in Lisbon will start to have a fixed price and will cost at least 16 euros. The measure applies from October 15.

According to Correio da Manhã, which advanced with the news, this new tariff is the result of an understanding, which will be signed this Friday, between the Municipality of Lisbon, the National Association of Road Transport in Light Cars, the Portuguese Taxi Federation, the Association of Tourism of Lisbon and ANA – Aeroportos de Portugal. 

O News to Minutes is trying to get more information about this new table from nearby sources. 

Carlos Coins, president of the Lisbon City Council, explained, in statements to Correio da Manhã, that the amendment aims to provide “more security” to passengers using taxis in the Portuguese capital airport.

“For more than 30 years there have been problems of insecurity and scams at the airport. In August, an inspection was carried out in 100 vehicles and there were infringements in 67 ", said the mayor.

New law of the TVDE regime is already in force (and becomes part of taxis)

The new law on the TVDE scheme, which refers to paid passenger transport in electronic vehicles, it is already in force and, among the main changes, becomes part of the taxi sector.

Eight years after the start of the regulation of this type of transport, Law No. 59/2026 – which amends the previous Law No. 45/2018, dropping the previous formulation of uncharacterized vehicles and turning the TVDE regime into paid passenger transport in electronic vehicles – enters into force in the middle of some dispute.

The first complaints about the new law came from the associations representing TVDEs (which operate in uncharacterized vehicles), noting that the sector will continue to be “highly wronged, completely under the domain of platforms.”.

The Portuguese Association of Discharacterized Car Carriers (APTAD), which asked the President of the Republic for the veto of the legal regime of TVDEs, warned for “a serious and objectively verifiable error” in the new law, published in Diário da República on Tuesday, which “may have a direct impact on thousands of operators and drivers”.

This “error” includes “two dates of entry into force that contradict each other” and “two misaligned transitional regimes”, which, according to APTAD, protect large platforms to the detriment of small operators and drivers and create a “severe distortion” of competition between cars per app and taxis.

Also the taxi sector pointed “unconstitutionalities” to the new law.

The National Association of Road Transport in Light Cars (ANTRAL) and the Portuguese Taxi Federation (FPT) – which will request the Constitutional Court to assess the law already enacted by the President of the Republic – considered, in a joint statement, that the approved amendment will create “unwarranted competitive advantage” and “interoperability”.

According to the two structures, “the substantial change in market access conditions” and “the use of a public licence for two activities with different regimes” are also at stake.

Among the major changes in the law that now enters into force, the most contestation generated was the integration of taxis, which can now be “registered for the TVDE activity, provided they meet the requirements for vehicles affected by this activity and are registered with the licensed electronic platform manager”.

Both the Mobility and Transport Authority (AMT) and the Institute of Mobility and Transport (IMT) have expressed their opposition to such integration and have argued in parliament, before the law was passed, that the two schemes (taxi and TVDE) are distinct.

Even the Secretary of State for Mobility, Cristina Pinto Dias, acknowledged that the approach between the two sectors raises “challenges” and cannot “put into question the public service provided by the taxi”.

Another of the novelties, which also generated divergences, is the seal, passing the vehicles affected to the activity to circulate “with an unmovable identifier, endowed with anti-fraud security elements, namely holographic or technologically equivalent, issued by the IMT, visible from the outside and associated with the vehicle registration”.

The law also opens the door to “optional video recording within vehicles”, which can only occur “by express consent of the driver and passenger, and sound capture is prohibited”.

In addition, future drivers will have to attend a “minimum initial training of 50 hours”, with theoretical and practical component, followed by a final examination consisting of 30 questions, and it is necessary to correct at least 27.

The training course includes the verification of the functional domain of the Portuguese language appropriate for the exercise of the activity of driver.