Seguro Signs the Second Round of Fuel Aid: 420 Euros a Bus, 120 a Taxi and 600 per Charity, While Fire Brigades Still Wait on the First

President António José Seguro on Monday signed into law the government's second round of fuel aid for the vehicles that keep goods, buses, taxis, fire engines and social services moving. The Presidência da República (Presidency of the Republic) said he had promulgated as a decree-law the diploma creating "extraordinary and temporary" financial support to offset the higher operating costs caused by fuel prices in road freight, road passenger transport, taxis, the social sector and the humanitarian firefighters' associations.

The package is worth 38 million euros. It was approved by the Conselho de Ministros (Council of Ministers) on 17 September, alongside an income tax cut, a December pension supplement and the extension of the 20 euro Green Rail Pass, and now needs only to be published in the Diário da República (the official gazette) to take effect.

Who gets what

The government's own breakdown is per vehicle or per organisation, not per litre:

• Road freight and breakdown trucks: 30 million euros, paid at between 118.20 and 457.80 euros per vehicle depending on its gross weight.
• Public road passenger transport: 5 million euros, at 420 euros per bus.
• Taxis: 120 euros per taxi.
• Fire brigades: 120 or 360 euros per vehicle, depending on the type.
• Social sector: 600 euros per organisation.

Taxis, fire brigades and the social sector share 3 million euros between them. At 420 euros a bus, the passenger transport envelope covers roughly 11,900 buses.

The government presented the measure as a repeat of the support that ran from April to June. It has not yet said which months the new payments cover or how operators apply; those details will be in the decree-law when it is published.

The first round was slow to arrive

How quickly the money lands matters as much as the amounts. The first round, created by Decreto-Lei n.º 80-A/2026 of 31 March, set the same fixed amounts for fire engines: 360 euros for a heavy appliance and 120 euros for anything else, on the assumption of 10 cents back for each litre burned. The envelope for taxis, the social sector and the fire brigades together was 3.6 million euros, slightly more than this time.

The payments ran through the Instituto da Mobilidade e dos Transportes (IMT, the Institute for Mobility and Transport), out of the Fundo Ambiental (Environmental Fund). Because the IMT does not register fire engines or charities, it had to wait for the Autoridade Nacional de Emergência e Proteção Civil (ANEPC, the civil protection authority) and the Instituto da Segurança Social (Social Security Institute) to identify who was eligible. The rules for claiming were only published on 17 July, and the claims window ran from 18 July to 28 August.

On 12 September two district firefighters' federations, in Setúbal and Vila Real, said none of the spring money had reached their brigades, as we reported at the time. We have found no public statement since then from the IMT or the government on how much of the first round has been paid.

The operator of INEM's emergency helicopters has meanwhile asked to be added to the schemes, saying it has been left out of every fuel support so far (our report from Sunday). The decree signed on Monday, as described by the presidency and the government, does not include it.

The rest of the fuel measures

The same 17 September package asked Parliament to extend, to 31 December, the temporary regime that lets the government lower the tax on petrol and diesel (ISP) when pump prices rise more than 10 cents a litre above the reference week of 2 to 6 March. The extension does not trigger a new cut by itself. A week earlier, the government had extended the 10 cent a litre support for coloured farm and forestry diesel to 31 December.