Sec State Tiago Macieirinha Refuses Foundation Status to Fundação Livraria Lello — Despacho in Wednesday's Diário da República Closes the File Opened on Porto Bookstore's 118th Anniversary

The Government has rejected the application by the Fundação Livraria Lello to be officially recognised as a foundation under Portuguese law. The despacho was signed by Tiago Macieirinha, Secretary of State at the Prime Minister's Office, and published in the Diário da República on Wednesday, 22 April 2026.

The denial closes — for now — the institutional project tied to one of Portugal's most photographed cultural symbols: the Livraria Lello bookstore in central Porto, which began selling tickets to manage its tourist crowds nearly a decade ago and continues to function as one of the city's most visited private spaces.

What was being requested

The Fundação Livraria Lello, headquartered in Matosinhos, was publicly presented on 13 January 2024 to coincide with the bookstore's 118th anniversary. Its stated objects were the promotion of reading, the encouragement of critical thinking and the preservation of cultural heritage.

Without the recognition signed by the Government, the entity cannot operate as a fundação in the technical sense set out in Lei n.º 24/2012 — the legal framework that governs Portuguese foundations and confers on them their fiscal status, their public-interest classification and the supervisory regime that comes with it.

The legal grounds

The decision rests on what the Government has described as “strict legal reasons,” in particular the impossibility of transforming an association into a foundation — a structural change that, under the framework law, is not contemplated. Foundations require an initial endowment of assets dedicated to a public-interest purpose; they cannot simply be conjured from a pre-existing associative body.

The contrast is sharp with another file from the same office. In March, the Government recognised the FLL — Fundação para a Leitura e o Pensamento Livre, with the corresponding despacho published in the Diário da República on 13 March. That parallel approval underlines that the rejection of the Fundação Livraria Lello is not, on the Government's reading, a question of cultural merit but of legal form.

A short institutional history

The Fundação Livraria Lello acquired prominence in March 2024 when it bought, at auction, “Descida da Cruz” by Domingos Sequeira — a piece now on long-term display at the Museu Nacional de Soares dos Reis in Porto. Its first president was Rita Marques, the former Secretary of State for Tourism, who left the role in February 2026.

The bookstore itself, opened in 1906, was reclassified as a Monumento Nacional by the previous Government in 2025, a status that protects the building and its decorative interiors regardless of any decision affecting the foundation that bears its name.

What happens next

The Fundação Livraria Lello can re-submit a new application that addresses the structural objections — typically by founding a new entity with a dedicated patrimony rather than seeking to convert an existing association — or it can continue to operate under its current legal form without the public-interest framework that recognition would unlock. Either route requires fresh paperwork, and a new political moment.