Seguro Signs the Subsídio Social de Mobilidade Reform on Tuesday 26 May But Warns That Removing the Eligible-Fare Ceiling Demands Careful Regulation — Açores and Madeira Drop Contributory Status and Receipt-Submission From the Parliamentary Amendments

President António José Seguro promulgated on Tuesday 26 May 2026 the Assembleia da República decree that overhauls Portugal's Subsídio Social de Mobilidade (SSM) — the airfare subsidy scheme that underwrites travel between the mainland and the autonomous regions of the Açores and Madeira. Belém Palace confirmed the signature in an afternoon press note, but Seguro attached an unusually pointed political reservation, warning that 'the elimination of the maximum limit on eligible costs of air passages may produce various effects deserving careful regulation' and calling for 'demanding monitoring of the new regime's execution.'

The promulgated text amends two earlier instruments: Decree-Law n.º 1-A/2026 of 6 January and Decree-Law n.º 37-A/2025 of 24 March — the latter the diploma that revoked the 2015 framework and built the digital-first SSM platform. The changes were carried in parliament through apreciação parlamentar initiatives filed by the PS and Chega benches, both of which targeted what they framed as the most punitive operational rules of the executive's original design.

Three substantive shifts emerge from the amended decree. First, beneficiaries no longer need to be regularised with the Autoridade Tributária or Segurança Social to access reimbursement — the contributory-status gate that critics argued excluded retirees, students and casual workers with administrative delays. Second, the obligation to submit physical receipts has been dropped, with the SSM digital platform now treated as the sole evidentiary record. Third, and most consequential for the Treasury, the cap on the maximum reimbursable fare price has been removed — meaning the State will reimburse the eligible percentage of a passenger's ticket regardless of how high the underlying fare runs.

It is the third change that drew the presidential warning. Seguro's note flagged the risk that an open-ended ceiling could distort airline pricing on the Açores and Madeira routes, inflate the State's annual SSM exposure, and weaken the cost-discipline mechanism that previously bounded the subsidy. The President asked for diligent regulatory follow-up and signalled that he expects the Government to introduce monitoring tools that detect price escalation early enough to course-correct.

The SSM is one of the most politically sensitive items in the air-services file. The 2024-2025 cycle had seen running disputes between island residents, the Açores and Madeira regional governments, and the central executive over delays, rejected claims, and the receipt-based reconciliation model. Decree-Law 37-A/2025 was meant to clean those problems up by digitising the application path; the 2026 parliamentary amendments now strip out the contributory-status check and the fare cap that, in residents' framing, kept the scheme from delivering its full social purpose.

The Government had argued through the original draft that the fare ceiling was the only structural protection against open-ended Treasury exposure. Removing it puts that line of defence onto the regulator's shoulders — likely ANAC and the Inspeção-Geral de Finanças — and pushes any cost-containment battle into the implementing regulation phase rather than the primary law. With Seguro's promulgation, the amended SSM now enters force pending publication in Diário da República. The first reimbursement cycles under the no-cap rule will be the early read on whether the President's warning was prophetic — and whether the digital platform can absorb the volume.