The Transport Regulator Postpones New Taxi Fare Rules Until a Month After the Overhauled Ride-Hailing Law Takes Force

Portugal's new rules for how taxi fares are set will not come into force on the timetable first envisaged. The Autoridade da Mobilidade e dos Transportes (Mobility and Transport Authority, or AMT) has decided that its revised regime for taxi price formation will take effect only on the 30th day after the decree carrying the country's new legal framework for ride-hailing — the so-called TVDE law — enters force, giving the regulator extra breathing room to line the two rulebooks up.

The AMT justified the delay by saying it is still working through "various contributions" submitted by taxi associations and drivers, and wants the additional 30 days to finish that analysis and make any necessary adjustments. The goal, it said, is to avoid "interpretive doubts, overlapping obligations or the need for successive changes over a short period" — regulator's language for not wanting to publish rules that immediately clash with a newer law.

That risk of overlap is the crux of the matter. Portugal's revised TVDE regime — which governs platform-based transport in electronically arranged vehicles, the category that includes services such as Uber and Bolt — introduces its own provisions on price formation and transparency, dynamic tariffs, the provision of services through electronic platforms, vehicle identification, and information and reporting duties. Several of those touch directly on the same ground as the taxi tariff rules, so bringing the taxi regulation in first would have meant rewriting it almost immediately. The AMT had already suspended the tariff regulation for 60 days back in June while it weighed the objections.

The underlying TVDE overhaul, approved by parliament in mid-July, is far-reaching. It allows traditional taxis to operate through platforms if they meet the requirements, imposes a minimum of 50 hours of training for new platform drivers, permits optional in-vehicle video recording with consent, keeps the platforms' commission capped at 25% of the pre-tax fare, removes previous limits on dynamic pricing, raises the maximum vehicle age from seven to ten years — twelve for electric cars — and requires drivers to demonstrate Portuguese-language proficiency, with penalties for companies rising as high as €44,000.

Behind the technical language lies a familiar tension: the long struggle to reconcile a regulated, metered taxi trade with app-based competitors that price rides dynamically. By synchronising the taxi tariff rules with the TVDE law's start date, the AMT is effectively trying to referee both sides under one coherent timetable rather than two conflicting ones.

For expats, the immediate effect is that any change to taxi fares is on hold for now, and the exact date depends on when the TVDE decree formally takes force. Passengers who rely on ride-hailing apps should expect the wider reforms — from language requirements to the end of dynamic-pricing caps — to reshape the market over the coming months, potentially affecting both availability and what you pay at peak times. Drivers, whether in taxis or on platforms, face a period of adjustment as the two regimes are finally brought into step.