5 ways to pay your tolls in Portugal during your stay

Portugal’s electronic tollgate system is a recent development. It has only been in place since 2011.

I chose to write this article because I regularly see questions about it on the Amoureux du Portugal Facebook group and the Vivre au Portugal Facebook page. And no wonder! The toll system in Portugal may seem a little complex, since there are two types of toll. In this article, we’ll take a look at the different options for paying tolls in Portugal.

1 – Tolls in Portugal: what are the different types?

There are 2 types of toll in Portugal, which can sometimes be confusing. You’ll find :

1. classic” tolls: with a toll station and barriers. You stop to pay.
2. electronic” toll booths (SCUT): these are gantries installed on freeways which take a photo of your license plate. They are indicated at freeway entrances by one of the signs below. They are often referred to as SCUT (a name given when freeways were still free), and although this is no longer the case, the name has stuck in Portugal for these electronic toll gates.

Signs indicating the presence of electronic toll gates (porticos)

2 – What are the options for paying tolls in Portugal?

There are several ways to pay tolls in Portugal. Here are 4 options:

• EASYTOLL : payment via automatic debit on your bank card – only for “electronic” tolls,
• TOLLCARD: payment by prepaid card – only for “electronic” tolls,
• VIA VERDE: payment via automatic debit from your bank card – for conventional and electronic tolls,
• TOP EUROP and BIP AND GO: payment via automatic debit from your bank card – for conventional and electronic tolls – Multi-Country (not only Portugal)

Easy Toll

Easy Toll can be a good solution if you’re coming from abroad with your car and staying in Portugal for 3 weeks or 1 month. Payment is made via automatic debit to your bank card as you pass through. Easy Toll allows you to pay electronic tolls automatically, but not conventional tolls. So you’ll need to stop at conventional toll booths and pay with your bank card. You have 2 options for joining Easy Toll:

1. register at the followingPortuguese borders: A28 – Viana do Castelo rest area // A24 – 3.5 km from the Chaves/Verin border // A25 – Alto Leomil rest area // A22 – near the Castro Marim / Ayamonte border. Once you’ve reached one of these borders, you’ll see a large Easy Toll sign (see photo below). Follow the sign to the Easy Toll terminal. It’s valid for 30 days, and once you’ve registered you can drive on Portugal’s electronic toll freeways, since your license plate and credit card will be registered in the system.
2. register on portugaltolls.com before you leave. In this case, there’s no need to stop at the border. Go to the site and give your bank card. You will then be debited automatically as you pass through.

Sign to follow at the border to register for the Easy Toll

Toll Card

If you don’t want your credit card to be debited automatically, you can opt for the Toll Card, a prepaid toll card. You can choose from card amounts of €5, €10, €20 or €40. You can buy it :

• at post offices in Portugal (CTT),
• at freeway service areas,
• on the tollcard.pt website

Table summarizing the differences between Easy Toll and Toll Card

Via Verde Visitors or Via Verde Normale

The Via Verde box is probably THE best-known and most widely used solution for paying tolls in Portugal. This box allows you to pass both electronic tolls (those with gantries) and conventional tolls via specific Via Verde lanes, without barriers. So you pass all tolls with this box. Via Verde is similar to Télépéage in France (although in France you have a barrier even on the electronic toll lanes).

This Via Verde box is placed on your dashboard. Each time you pay a toll, the amount due is debited from your associated bank account. There’s the “classic” Via Verde (for those who live in Portugal) and the Via Verde Visitors if you’re only in Portugal for a short stay.

Via Verde Visitors is available for vehicles with a foreign license plate (French, Belgian, etc.) associated with a Visa / Mastercard from a non-Portuguese bank account. You can receive the Via Verde Visitors box at home (€2.50) or at an address in Portugal (hotel, apartment, etc.). Shipment to Portugal is free, but may take up to 10 days. For 2-day delivery, the cost is €5. The cost is €4.99 for the first month, then €1.25/month used (plus tolls). Unused months are free. To get your Via Verde Visitors box, click here.

IMPORTANT: If you’re renting a vehicle, remember to ask at the rental counter for the Via Verde box, although the rental agency will almost always offer it to you. This option is subject to a charge of around €1.5/day from the rental company, in addition to any tolls you may have to pay.

Lane reserved for cars on the Via Verde

Top Europ and Bip and Go

Top Europe and Bip and Go are boxes like the Via Verde, and like the Via Verde they allow you to pay all tolls in Portugal: electronic tolls and traditional tolls. The difference is that they can cover tolls in several countries: France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, and not just tolls in Portugal, which can be useful and simpler when your trip to Portugal takes you through several countries.

• The Top Europ box: the activation fee for the France – Spain – Portugal badge is 11€, and for France – Spain – Portugal – Italy, 15€. Once you’ve received the box at home (shipping costs €4 (pr France) and €10 (outside France)), you pay €2.40/month to drive on freeways in Italy, Spain or Portugal. This cost is added to the tolls. In the months when you don’t use the freeways, you pay nothing. To order your Top Europ box, click here.
• The Bip and Go box: the activation fee for the France – Spain – Portugal badge is €10, and for France – Spain – Portugal – Italy, it’s €14. Once the box has been delivered to your home (shipping costs €6 in France and €10 outside France), you pay €2.50/month. In the months when you don’t use the freeways, you pay nothing. To order your Bip and Go box, click here.

Table summarizing the differences between Top Europ and Bip and Go

3 – I forgot to take one of these options to pay my tolls in Portugal: what can I do?

If you haven’t opted for one of the above solutions, the gantries will memorize your passages by photographing your vehicle’s license plate. And, of course, you’ll have to pay them, or face penalties. Penalties for non-payment are quite dissuasive. Fines for non-payment of tolls in Portugal can multiply up to 25 times the amount due. And the bills even arrive abroad now 🙂

To pay your tolls in Portugal “after passage”, this must be done between the 2nd and 5th working day after your passage. If you wish to pay the day after you pass through, it will be too early. For example, if you pass through an electronic toll gate on a Sunday, you can only pay from Tuesday until Monday of the following week. You have 2 options for payment:

1 – Make a PayShop at the counter of a CTT post office (equivalent to La Poste in Portugal). You’ll be asked for the vehicle registration number, and then you can pay. However, I’d advise you not to choose this option, as there are far more constraints than with the options previously mentioned in this article:

• you are dependent on the CTT’s opening hours,
• waiting times at the CTT can be long,
• you need to remember to go between 2 and 5 days after passing the tollgate,
• a fee of €0.32 is added to the price you pay.

2 – Pay via a Multibanco cash dispenser. Before you go, you’ll need the CTT application. Using this application, you enter your license plate and this will generate a payment reference and code. You then need to go to the Multibanco and enter these data to pay your toll.

In conclusion

There are several options for paying tolls in Portugal during your stay. I strongly advise you to take one of the 5 options listed before your stay, so that you don’t have to pay your tolls after you’ve passed through, as it’s more complicated to do this, as you’ve already noticed.

Here are two other articles about cars in Portugal that might interest you:

• Changing your driving license in Portugal
• Registering a car in Portugal

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