A Train Two Hours Late Will Owe You Half the Fare From October, Under the Passenger Rights Law Gazetted Today

A train that reaches your destination two hours late will owe you half of what you paid for the ticket. A coach that leaves more than ninety minutes behind schedule will owe you the whole fare back. Those are two of the harder edges in Decreto-Lei 173/2026 (Decree-Law 173/2026), a 74-page act published in Tuesday's Diário da República (Official Gazette) that rewrites three separate transport statutes at once and, for the first time, gives Portugal a single passenger-rights regime covering rail, road, sea and inland waterways.

The decree takes effect on Wednesday, but almost nothing changes for travellers that day. The government has staggered the substance: the rail changes bite on 1 October, and the road, maritime and river changes on 1 December. It was approved in Council of Ministers on 29 May, promulgated by President António José Seguro on 24 August and countersigned by Prime Minister Luís Montenegro the following day.

What a delay is worth on the railway

From October, the compensation grid for trains is written into law rather than left to each operator's general conditions. A delay of 60 to 119 minutes between the departure and arrival points printed on your ticket earns 25 percent of the fare actually paid. A delay of 120 minutes or more earns 50 percent. On a return ticket the calculation runs against half the price, unless both legs were late.

There are four ways an operator escapes paying. If the sum owed comes to 4 euros or less, nothing is due, which quietly excludes most single suburban fares. Nothing is due if you were told about the delay before you bought. Nothing is due if you were rerouted and the resulting delay came in under an hour. And nothing is due if the operator proves the cause was extraordinary and outside railway operation: extreme weather, a large-scale natural disaster, a serious public-health crisis, the passenger's own fault, or the behaviour of a third party.

A separate provision may prove more useful than the money. The operator now has 100 minutes from the scheduled departure of a delayed or cancelled service to tell you how you will be carried onward. Miss that deadline, and provided you have not already travelled, you may buy your own ticket with another public rail or bus operator and bill the first one for the documented cost.

Complaints get a clock

Rail companies and station managers averaging more than 10,000 passengers a day must run a dedicated complaints mechanism, on top of the livro de reclamações (complaints book) they already have to offer. You get 30 days from the incident to complain and they get 30 days to answer. If the complaint is rejected or simply ignored, you have another 30 days to take it to the Autoridade da Mobilidade e dos Transportes (Mobility and Transport Authority, or AMT), which must acknowledge receipt within 14 days and finish the file within three months, extendable to six in complex cases.

The regulator that will be handling those files logged 26,933 passenger complaints in 2025, led by late CP trains, and this year put Lisbon's river ferries on a monthly report card. Operators must also publish a service-quality performance report on their own website every two years.

Coaches, boats and the rules from 1948

On scheduled road services from December, a departure delay over 90 minutes triggers a full refund, or a free revalidation of the ticket if you ask at least 30 minutes before departure. An arrival delay over 60 minutes earns 50 percent of the fare, calculated pro rata against a pass or season ticket, with the same 4 euro floor. Cancel a reserved seat at least three hours out and you can recover up to 75 percent. Fares and timetable changes must be published ten working days ahead, and temporary suspensions five.

Sea and inland-waterway passengers get their own clock: two months to complain to the carrier or terminal operator, one month for the carrier to report on the status, two months for a decision. Inland navigable waterways are written explicitly into the scope for the first time.

Accessibility runs through the whole text. Booking surcharges, premium-rate helplines and restrictions on buying several tickets in one transaction because one passenger is disabled are all prohibited. Wheelchairs, portable chairs, micromobility devices and children's equipment must be accepted as personal baggage whatever their dimensions, and if one is lost or destroyed the operator has to supply a temporary replacement immediately. A companion is entitled to the adjacent seat or the nearest available. Assistance dogs travel free and unmuzzled, and in standing-capacity vehicles the four seats nearest the door are reserved.

Refusing to carry a bicycle on a service where the operator offers bicycle carriage is now a fineable offence, and transport authorities have to keep live plans for expanding it. Operator fines run from 2,500 to 15,000 euros on the railway, and from 750 to 3,740 euros for individuals or 1,500 to 7,500 euros for companies on the road. The AMT prosecutes operators, the Instituto da Mobilidade e dos Transportes (Institute for Mobility and Transport, or IMT) prosecutes passengers, and the GNR and PSP can both inspect. Sixty percent of the proceeds go to the state, 10 percent to whoever raised the report and 30 percent to the prosecuting regulator.

The regime reaches metros, light rail and trams with the necessary adaptations. And it clears out some genuine archaeology: articles 166 to 173 and 187 to 190 of the Regulamento de Transportes em Automóveis (Motor Transport Regulation), approved by Decreto 37272 of 31 December 1948, are repealed outright.

What this means for you

• Keep the ticket and note the arrival time: compensation on the railway is calculated against the fare actually paid for the delayed service, and the clock is the arrival time printed on your title of transport.
• Diarise 1 October and 1 December: the rail rules and the road, sea and river rules do not start on the same day, and a claim filed against the wrong date will simply fail.
• Thirty days is the binding number for rail: complain to the operator within 30 days of the incident, then escalate to the AMT within 30 days of a rejection. Miss either and the statutory route closes.
• Air travel is a separate regime: flights are governed by EU261, not by this decree. Our guide to air passenger rights covers what applies there.
• Commuters, check the floor: the 4 euro minimum means most short suburban journeys will produce no payment at all, which is one reason the 20 euro rail pass arriving this month matters more to that group than the compensation grid does.