--- title: "Portugal Trims Its Weekly Fuel-Tax Discount from 10 August" description: "From 10 August 2026 Portugal's fuel-tax discount is €59.16/1,000 L on diesel and €35.39 on petrol. Why the rate resets every Monday, and what it means at the pump." url: "https://ultimateportugal.com/posts/portugal-fuel-tax-discount-august-10" author: "Rex McIntosh" author_role: "Founder & Editor, Ultimate Portugal" author_url: "https://ultimateportugal.com/authors/rex-mcintosh" publisher: "Ultimate Portugal" license: "Free to read and quote with attribution to Ultimate Portugal." review_status: "dated-report" type: "news" published: 2026-08-10 updated: 2026-08-10 facts_last_verified: 2026-08-10 category: "Daily life" tags: ["fuel prices", "ISP", "fuel tax", "driving", "cost of living"] --- # Portugal Trims Its Weekly Fuel-Tax Discount from 10 August > Dated report. This article describes events and rules at the time reported. It is not maintained as current guidance. Review policy: https://ultimateportugal.com/corrections ## The short answer From Monday 10 August 2026, Portugal's temporary ISP fuel-tax discount is €59.16 per 1,000 litres on diesel and €35.39 per 1,000 litres on petrol — roughly 5.9 and 3.5 cents a litre (the conversion is ours), about 1.7–2 cents less than last week. The government resets the discount weekly and trimmed it this time because it expects fuel prices to fall. It applies automatically at every mainland pump; there is nothing you need to do. > Published 2026-08-10. News posts describe the rules as they stood on that date; the sources at the end are the primary record. From Monday **10 August 2026**, Portugal's fuel-tax discount is **€59.16 per 1,000 litres on diesel** and **€35.39 per 1,000 litres on petrol** — roughly 5.9 and 3.5 cents a litre off the tax, down about 2 cents on diesel and 1.7 on petrol from last week. The cents conversions are our arithmetic, not the government's. The new figures come from *Portaria* n.º 331-A/2026/1 — a *portaria* is a ministerial order — published on Friday 7 August 2026 and in force from Monday the 10th. The twist: the discount shrank because the government expects diesel and petrol prices to **fall** this coming week. If you drive in Portugal — as a resident, a mover budgeting for a car, or a visitor collecting a hire car — there is nothing to do. The discount sits inside the tax, and every pump applies it automatically. ## What changed on 10 August? The tax in question is the **ISP**, the excise duty built into every litre of fuel sold. From 10 August 2026 the rates are **€462.13 per 1,000 litres for unleaded petrol** and **€302.44 per 1,000 litres for road diesel**. Each figure already includes the road-service levy — €87 per 1,000 litres on petrol, €111 on diesel — and applies on the **mainland only**. Against last week's order, which took effect on 3 August 2026: | Per 1,000 litres | From 3 August 2026 | From 10 August 2026 | |---|---|---| | ISP rate — petrol | €445.10 | €462.13 | | ISP rate — diesel | €282.84 | €302.44 | | Discount — petrol | €52.42 | €35.39 | | Discount — diesel | €78.76 | €59.16 | Week on week, the discount shrank by **€19.60 per 1,000 litres on diesel** (about 2.0 cents a litre) and **€17.03 on petrol** (about 1.7 cents) — exactly the amount the ISP rates rose. That arithmetic is ours; the *portarias* publish only the rates. So the tax inside a litre rises this week. Whether the number on the pump display rises too is a separate question — the market sets the rest of the price, and the government cut the discount precisely because it expects the market to fall. ## Why does Portugal's fuel tax change every week? The Monday wobble in Portuguese pump prices looks arbitrary. It is not — the rule behind it is public, just buried in the preamble of each week's *portaria*. The mechanism is a temporary, extraordinary discount on the ISP, created in response to the oil-price surge driven by the geopolitical and military crisis in the Middle East. It has a trigger: it applies while petrol and diesel prices exceed their level in the week of 2–6 March by more than 10 cents a litre. Its size follows one rule. When fuel prices rise, the state collects extra VAT on every litre, and the discount hands that extra VAT back. A bigger price rise means a bigger give-back; when prices ease, the give-back shrinks. The rates are reviewed weekly and set by joint *portaria* of the finance and environment-and-energy ministers, under article 92(1) of the CIEC (Portugal's excise-duties code) and articles 12 and 25 of Decreto-Lei n.º 87-A/2025. The last two orders show the cadence. Portaria n.º 320-D/2026/1 took effect on Monday 3 August 2026; Portaria n.º 331-A/2026/1 takes effect on Monday 10 August. Each states what the government expects prices to do next — last week's order expected diesel up and petrol down, while this week's expects both to fall. Read the discount as a shock absorber. Its shrinking is not the state quietly raising your taxes — it is the official signal that fuel prices are expected to ease. ## What does this mean at the pump? Filling up this week costs you about **2 cents a litre more in tax on diesel** and about 1.7 cents more on petrol — on a 50-litre tank, roughly €1. Those figures are our conversions from the published rates, and they cover the tax only, not the final price. There is nothing to claim and nothing to apply for. The discount is built into the ISP rate itself, so every mainland pump applies it automatically — the price on the sign already reflects it. What it means by reader: - **Residents who drive.** A two-cent tax move is background noise next to the rest of a car budget. Our [cost of living in Portugal](https://ultimateportugal.com/guides/cost-of-living-portugal) guide already counts running a car as the costlier choice, mainly because of fuel and tolls — that judgement does not change this week. - **Movers budgeting for a car.** The same guide serves you: build the budget around fuel and tolls as recurring lines, not around any one week's tax move. - **Visitors collecting a hire car.** Your fuel policy matters more than this week's rates — full-to-full is the fairest, per our [getting around Portugal](https://ultimateportugal.com/guides/getting-around-portugal) guide. And the honest limit: we cannot tell you what a litre will cost at your nearest station this week, because the market part of the price moves daily. The government's own comparator, [precoscombustiveis.dgeg.gov.pt](https://precoscombustiveis.dgeg.gov.pt/), shows live pump prices near you. ## What should you do next? - Hiring a car or driving between cities this week? [Getting around Portugal](https://ultimateportugal.com/guides/getting-around-portugal) covers tolls, Via Verde and why full-to-full is the fairest fuel policy on a hire car. - Budgeting a move that includes a car? [Cost of living in Portugal](https://ultimateportugal.com/guides/cost-of-living-portugal) puts fuel and tolls in the context of a full monthly budget, city by city. - Want today's prices before you fill up? The official DGEG comparator at [precoscombustiveis.dgeg.gov.pt](https://precoscombustiveis.dgeg.gov.pt/) shows live prices across the country. *The ISP rates and the discount above are reset weekly by portaria — this post describes the order in force from Monday 10 August 2026. Before treating any figure here as the current week's rate, verify the latest order in the Diário da República at [diariodarepublica.pt](https://diariodarepublica.pt).* ## Frequently asked questions ### Is fuel getting more expensive in Portugal this week? The tax component rises — the weekly ISP discount shrank by about 2 cents a litre on diesel and 1.7 cents on petrol from 10 August 2026 (our arithmetic from the published rates). But the government trimmed the discount precisely because it expects market fuel prices to fall this week, so the price on the pump may still drop. Check live prices near you at precoscombustiveis.dgeg.gov.pt, the official comparator. ### How big is Portugal's fuel-tax discount now? From 10 August 2026 the temporary ISP discount is €59.16 per 1,000 litres on road diesel and €35.39 per 1,000 litres on unleaded petrol — roughly 5.9 and 3.5 cents a litre (our conversion). The rates are set by Portaria n.º 331-A/2026/1 and apply on the mainland. They are reset weekly, so these figures hold until the next Monday's order. ### Why does the discount shrink when prices fall? Because it is a give-back, not a subsidy. When fuel prices spike, the state collects extra VAT on every litre, and the discount returns that extra VAT to drivers. A smaller expected spike means less extra VAT to hand back, so the discount shrinks. Its shrinking is the official signal that prices are expected to ease. ## Sources - [Portaria n.º 331-A/2026/1, de 7 de agosto — Diário da República](https://files.diariodarepublica.pt/1s/2026/08/15201/0000200003.pdf) — The new mainland ISP rates in force 10 August 2026 (petrol €462.13, diesel €302.44 per 1,000 L), this week's discounts (€59.16 diesel, €35.39 petrol per 1,000 L), the road-service levy included in each rate, the mechanism and its 10-cent trigger against the week of 2–6 March, the Middle East context, the legal basis (art. 92(1) CIEC; arts. 12 and 25 of Decreto-Lei n.º 87-A/2025), the signing ministers, and the expectation that prices will fall this week. - [Portaria n.º 320-D/2026/1, de 31 de julho — Diário da República](https://files.diariodarepublica.pt/1s/2026/07/14703/0000600007.pdf) — The previous week's rates in force 3 August 2026 (petrol €445.10, diesel €282.84 per 1,000 L), that week's discounts (€78.76 diesel, €52.42 petrol per 1,000 L), and that week's expectation of diesel up, petrol down. - [Preços dos Combustíveis Online — DGEG](https://precoscombustiveis.dgeg.gov.pt/) — The official live pump-price comparator we point readers to for current prices. No numeric claim in this post is taken from it. --- Ultimate Portugal — https://ultimateportugal.com HTML version of this page: https://ultimateportugal.com/posts/portugal-fuel-tax-discount-august-10