Portimão City Council now charges a €2 fee for each tourist staying in the municipality.

The City Council of Portimão, in the district of Faro, began charging a tourist tax for overnight stays in the municipality after the approval of the regulation was published on Wednesday in the Diário da República.

With the introduction of this new tourist tax, Portimão has joined the group of municipalities in the Algarve that charge a fee for tourists’ overnight stays, along with Vila Real de Santo António, Faro, and Olhão.

Albufeira is expected to join this group of municipalities in May, once the Council approves the regulation to apply the tourist tax in the municipality. The proposal for this regulation was under public consultation until February.

The municipality will need to include the contributions collected during the process in a final proposed regulation. This regulation will then be voted on in municipal bodies before being officially approved and published in the Official Gazette.

“The expectation is to start implementing the tourist tax in May,” stated the mayor of Albufeira, José Carlos Rolo, in an interview with Lusa news agency. He acknowledged that it will no longer be possible to complete the necessary steps for the municipality to receive €2 per night from tourists aged 13 and over in April.

The tourist tax regulation in Portimão has been approved, setting a unit value of €2 per night stay during the high season (from April 1 to October 31) and €1 per night stay in the low season (from November to March 31).

The proposed regulation from Albufeira City Council also states that the tourist tax will be €2, but it will only be charged from April to October, which is the peak season for tourism in the Algarve.

The funds raised by municipalities are meant to support expenses and investments related to tourist activities, such as environmental sustainability, promotion, preservation of historical heritage, cultural entertainment, beach cleaning, and maintenance of public facilities.

The tourist tax applies to people staying overnight in tourist resorts, local accommodation establishments, campsites and caravan parks.

Tourist businesses must collect the fee and submit it to the municipality, or they will face penalties ranging from €500 to €10,000 for individuals and from €1,000 to €20,000 for companies, as per the municipal regulations.

These values increase from €1,000 to €20,000 for individuals and from €2,000 to €40,000 for legal entities, if the fee is not charged for the municipality.

Before its implementation in Portimão, the tourist tax was already being charged in other municipalities in the Algarve, such as Olhão, Faro, and Vila Real de Santo António.

In 2019, the Algarve Intermunicipal Community (AMAL) approved the introduction of a tourist tax in the 16 municipalities that make up the district of Faro. In 2023, it advocated for implementing a “common fee” across all municipalities in the region, set at €2 per night.

Vila Real de Santo António was the first municipality in the Algarve to charge a tourist tax, a process that began in 2016 and led to the charging of €1 per night.

Faro started charging €1.5 per night in February 2020, before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which led some municipalities to suspend its introduction, such as the cases of Portimão or Olhão.

Olhão started implementing the €2 per night charge in May 2023, while Portimão began receiving the funds generated from tourists’ overnight stays this Thursday.

LUSA