Portugese Electronic Tolls

[StuartO]

I'd read about this system (in outline) but not come across information about how it works in practice, so here goes:

 

Most if not all Portugese motorways operate with electronic-only tolls; an overhead gantry captures your number plate and your credit card gets charged, simple as that.  There is no other way of paying.  If they see you (on their cameras) using a motorway without registering for payment they send a fine - to UK, by getting your details from DVLA.

 

I believe you are supoosed to be able register your registration number and credit card on line or at a Portugese post offices but we did it as we first entered a motorway, using the un-manned check point provided for the purpose at the first services we encountered.  A big sign on the motorway had mentioned foreigners and directed us into the service  area.  It would have been very easy to miss this sign had we not been forewarned.

 

In the Service Area there was a drive-through channel with a bollard.  You stop at the line (where the camara clocks your number plate) and put your credit card into the bollard.  Mine was rejected first time but the same card was accepted the second time around.  They charge a few pence as an admin charge for registering you.  And that's it, you can then drive as much as you like on any Portugese motorway and they will simply charge the tolls to your card; you know how much you are paying because a roadside notice near each camera gantry tells you.  It's charged frequently along your journey, so you pay in small amounts, always less than €3.

 

A problem for us foreigners is that there are only a few of these Registration Points in service areas, probably only at places where  foreigners are likely ti be using a motorway for the first time.  If you don't use one of those, you are stuck with having to search out an alternative means - and at least one Brit we met had failed in his attempts to register on line.

 

Another Brit ("I don't use toll roads on principle") had by passed the service area registration facility so as far as I could see he had snookered himself and there are parts of Portugal where motorways takes where there are no alternative routes.  For the small cost of registering by going onto the first motorway you encounter after entering the Country and looking for the "foreigners" sign, you give your self options you might need when it's time to swallow your principles about paying tolls!

 

[Randonneur]

A problem occurs when you are in a hire car, which was us last January, luckily we knew the areas very well so did not use the motorways that demanded payment, There are Toll boxes in the hire cars but I wouldn't trust them to charge you correctly once you are home.

 

When the tolls were introduced we had a devil of a job trying to pay, they suggested the Post Office, they didn't want to know, then they suggested the office that oversees the roads, can't remember the name, green something or other, still couldn't do it. Then the lady in the Post office asked us to go outside and came out to us and said "forget it", so we did and never been bothered since, mind you we were in a French registered vehicle then.

[Solwaybuggier]

You can pay by buying a scratch card for €5, 10 or 20 from a post office - there’s also a transaction charge, about 60 cents I think. Never had a problem buying one, other than the queues in the post offices are often quite long. I think the points to register a bank card to pay are limited - possibly only 4, there’s one on the A22 in the Algarve, one on the northern border north of Viana do Castelo, and I’m not sure where the other is. But there are all sorts of routes into Portugal, so quite easy to be unable to do the card registration bit.

 

I think you can also get the cards from some motorway service areas - first one we bought was like that after we got diverted onto a toll motorway unknowingly.

 

There are also quite a lot of toll motorways with conventional tolls - the signs include the word “portagem”, whereas the electronic toll ones have a sign like an inverted Wi-fi symbol. And on the A23 from north of Santarem up to Guarda you can also buy a ticket from a couple of the motorway service areas to cover the whole journey (at least you could 4 years ago, I assume it is still available.)

 

And they wonder why we get confused!

 

This link may be helpful: http://www.portugaltolls.com/en/web/portal-de-portagens/faq-s