Toll Roads With Transponder

Many of the roads in Portugal are electronic tolls only and there are a number of different ways to pay them. To me the system is VERY confusing. Here’s a link to the Portugal Tolls website. Good luck making sense of it. If I’m not mistaken, you cannot cruise through a toll and expect it to be billed to your rental agency without being subject to hefty fines with a minimum of €25 per occurrence.

The simplest and safest way to comply with the law is to either rent a Via Verde transponder from your car rental company or obtaining a temporary Via Verde device once you arrive in Portugal.

The toll system is complex and you would be best looking directly at portugaltolls.com/en to see which scenario applies to you.

Are you using a Portuguese registered car or one from, say Spain?

They don't send you a bill - the onus is on you to pay the toll, not wait for the hire company to sort it out. You have 5 days from when the toll is raised to pay or it then becomes a fine. It can be paid at Post Offices (they aren't open on Sundays) and levies often don't show for a couple of days, so try not to use at the end of your trip. It's much easier to have a transponder or not use the tolls altogether.

Your car hire company will also charge an administration fee if they have to deal with any fines on your behalf - check their terms and conditions.

I rented a car at the Faro airport in June 2016, and paid the €15 charge at the time for an electronic transponder. The device sat on the window visor for the two weeks that I drove around Portugal, breezing through all the (many!) toll stations, most of which had no option for payment at the station. About two weeks after I returned home, there was a charge of €75.40 on my credit card bill from the rental company (Europcar) for tolls. I have no idea whether they added charges over and above the actual tolls, as I did not receive an invoice for the tolls. I may have been able to get an invoice had I asked, but I did not pursue it because the charge was far less than I had expected, based on my mental estimates of the cost each time I drove past a toll sign. ( I did a lot of driving in the two weeks, zigzagging from the south coast to the north, and the back to Lisbon.) If you do not have a transponder in the car, you may face multiple charges for having to look up the license plate each time the car is photographed by the automated toll system, so paying €15 when renting the car is your best bet, provided you’re renting in Portugal.

We rented a car from Amoita in Lisbon and returned to Faro with a trip into Spain for over a week. The frequently asked question section on the web site explains the tolls. For 20 E, we had the transponder for the toll roads that travel east/west. The toll road in the Algarve seemed like it went crazy with charges. We had no further charges on our CC. By the way, many locals do not used these roads and they are nearly new. Even in Algarve, the toll road was nearly empty compared to the stop and go traffic on the local east/west route. We had no unexplained charges or problems with renting from Amoita.

Hello jean.h3131,

Yes, the best option would be for you to rent a car and ask for an electronic device... you won't have to bother with tolls anymore ;)
In Portugal many highways have tolls and, because of that, many Portuguese prefer to use the national roads since they're free... the itinerary is longer though...

Enjoy Portugal ;)

I emailed an address I found on a site about transponders. They gave me a site just across the border coming from Salamanca to Portugal where I can pick up a transponders and have it linked to my credit card. This is great as I won't have to worry about how where, when to pay!

Thanks all for your response to me.

Jean

The electronic device usually runs 1.5-2 euros per day so it won't break the bank and will give you some peace of mind

Two years ago we rented a car in Spain and drove into Portugal. It did not have a transponder. We were told by the rental company in Seville to stop at the booth on the way into Portugal. There was no one at the booth. We watched other cars for a few moments, then spoke with one local driver about what to do. He said you are supposed to insert your credit card and the overhead camera takes a picture of your car license plate and links it to the credit card. He also said the system never works which is why we noticed people backing up from one booth and going to another. Finally people just gave up and drove on. The same thing happened to us. About six weeks after we got home we got a bill on our credit card. It was probably less than $30 - $40 total. We were there for a week. Obviously they were able to connect with the rental company. No big deal.