Portugal Now Ties Non-EU Citizens' Driving Licences to Their Residence Permits

If you are a non-EU citizen living in Portugal, your Portuguese driving licence is no longer valid for the 15-year stretch printed on most cards. Since 9 June 2026, its validity is tied to your autorização de residência — your residence permit: the licence works while the permit is valid or in the process of renewal, and it stops when the permit does. New licences carry restriction code 794 in place of the usual expiry. Licences issued before the change are caught too, just without the printed code.

The rule comes from Decreto-Lei n.º 114/2026 — a decree-law is government legislation — published on 8 June 2026 and in force the next day. On 11 August 2026 a petition asking parliament to revoke it opened for signatures. The rule stands today. Here is exactly how it works and what to check.

What changed on 8 June 2026?

Decreto-Lei n.º 114/2026 is the seventh amendment to Portugal’s driving-licence regulation (the RHLC, from 2012). Most of it is routine modernisation: more digital verification, theory tests translatable for every category, anti-fraud technology in exams. The part that matters here is two new paragraphs in article 16, the article that sets how long a licence lasts.

Normally, a licence for the common categories (AM, A1, A2, A, B1, B and BE: ordinary cars and motorbikes) is revalidated every 15 years from the date you qualified in the category, until you turn 60. The new paragraphs cut that short for one group:

Category B licence held by	Validity
A Portuguese or EU citizen	15 years at a time, until age 60
A non-EU citizen with a visa or residence permit	The expiry date on the residence document

A licence issued this way must show restriction code 794, which the decree’s annex defines as validity limited to proof of a valid visa or residence authorisation — or one in the process of renewal. In practice: your driving licence now expires when your residence permit does, and stays valid while a renewal is in progress.

The government’s own reasoning, in the decree’s preamble, is that legally resident foreigners should have more flexible access to driving — it calls a licence an instrument of integration and access to work — while applying the residence principle EU rules use for recognising non-EU qualifications.

Does this apply to a licence you already hold?

Yes. The decree’s transitional article extends the same validity check to licences issued before 9 June 2026: authorities verify that your visa or residence permit is valid, without adding code 794 to the card itself.

That detail is easy to get wrong, and worth being blunt about: the date printed on an older licence may overstate what it is now worth. If you hold a Portuguese licence as a non-EU resident, treat your residence permit’s expiry date as your licence’s real horizon — whatever the card says.

What if your residence permit is stuck in renewal?

This is the scenario that worries people most, so start with the fact: a permit in the process of renewal keeps your licence valid. The decree says so in the same sentence that creates the limit — valid while the residence title is valid or in the process of renewal.

Renewal queues are a fact of life in Portugal — our AIMA appointments guide covers why the backlog exists and what an expired-but-in-renewal document does and does not mean. For the licence, the practical consequence is simple: keep dated proof that your renewal is under way, because that proof is now doing double duty — it protects your right to reside and your right to drive.

Who is pushing back, and could the rule change?

On 11 August 2026, a lawyer, Priscila Santos Nazareth Ferreira, opened Petição n.º 6760 at the Assembleia da República asking for the regime to be revoked. The petition argues the rule adds administrative burden and cost for foreign residents without improving road safety, and proposes that authorities cross-check driver and residence records automatically instead of making people renew a physical licence each time the permit turns over. It also points at the impact on transport-sector workers.

When we checked on 17 August 2026, it had 1,046 signatures and was open for more. A petition is a request to parliament, not a repeal: nothing about the rule has changed, and you should plan on it staying as it is unless and until the law moves again.

What should you do next?

• Check what your licence is actually worth at A Minha Carta de Condução, IMT’s official platform for consulting the validity of your categories.
• Renewing a residence permit? Read our AIMA appointments guide — the renewal-proof habit it recommends now protects your licence too.
• Still driving on a foreign licence? Our getting around Portugal guide covers driving basics; long-stay residents should check exchange rules with IMT, and any exchanged licence will fall under this regime.
• Want to follow the pushback? The full argument, and the signature form, are on the petition’s page.

This post is general information, not legal advice. Licence and residence rules change — verify the current position with IMT or a qualified lawyer before relying on it.