Your valid driving licence can be taken

Here is a rule most drivers in Portugal have never heard of. It's Sunday, 13 September. Thirty-four degrees. Air quality: 36 (Good). Here's what you need to know.

🗞️ YOUR DRIVING LICENCE CAN BE SEIZED EVEN IF IT HASN'T EXPIRED

A licence does not have to be out of date for the police to take it. Under a little-known provision of Portugal's Highway Code, Article 159, the authorities can carry out a "preventive seizure" of a driving licence if the physical card has worn out to the point where the information or endorsements on it can no longer be read. In other words, it is the state of the card, not the expiry date, that matters here.

Before anyone panics: this is narrower than it sounds. Minor scratches, scuffs and general signs of use are not enough. The rule only applies when the damage actually makes part of the licence illegible, a smudged photo, a number you can no longer make out, that sort of thing. A slightly tatty card is fine. A card you can barely read is the problem.

And crucially, having the card seized on these grounds does not mean you have lost the right to drive. This is not a ban or a revocation. When the police take a physical licence for this reason, they must issue a temporary driving guide in its place, valid for as long as needed and renewable, which lets you keep driving, though only within Portugal. So you are not stranded at the roadside, you are just driving on a paper stand-in until you sort out a new card.

The fix is straightforward. If your licence is looking worn, you can request a replacement through IMTOnline, the transport authority's portal, before it ever becomes an issue. It is also worth knowing that Portugal now recognises a digital driving licence: through the government's gov.pt app, a licence shown on your phone has the same legal value as the physical card when you are stopped within Portugal, provided you have set up the Digital Mobile Key. It does not replace the physical card for driving abroad, but for a roadside check at home it is a useful backup, and one less thing to worry about if your card is getting tatty.

Bottom line: nobody is coming for your licence over a scratch, but if yours is genuinely hard to read, Portugal can take the card, though not your right to drive, and hand you a temporary one. If it is looking rough, replace it through IMTOnline and skip the drama.

⚡ QUICK HITS

Portugal wants EU money to pay for firefighting goats. After another punishing wildfire season, Agriculture Minister José Manuel Fernandes pitched Brussels on one of the oldest and lowest-tech fire-prevention tools there is: grazing animals. Goats, sheep and other livestock clear the undergrowth and scrub that feed summer fires, and Fernandes, speaking at an EU ministerial meeting in Dublin, argued that money from the EU's carbon market, the Emissions Trading System, could pay shepherds to graze their flocks in fire-prone areas. It sounds quaint, but the logic is serious: it is cheaper and greener than machines, and it revives a rural practice that has faded as the countryside has emptied out.

A new poll puts Portugal's Socialists narrowly ahead. A fresh Pitagórica survey has the opposition PS on 27.9%, just in front of the hard-right Chega on 27.1%, with the governing AD coalition, led by the centre-right PSD, slipping to third on 25.7%. There is no election imminent, the government survived a no-confidence vote just this week, so this is a snapshot of mood rather than a prediction. But three parties within roughly two points of each other, and the governing coalition in third, points to a political landscape under real strain after the fuel protests, the Neves affair and a run of public-sector disputes. One poll is one poll, but the direction is worth noting.

Interior Minister Luís Neves has called meetings with police unions after they announced nationwide protests. Seven police unions, representing officers across the PSP and GNR, are planning demonstrations over pay, risk allowances and staffing, and Neves, himself the subject of weeks of political pressure and a failed no-confidence motion, has moved to head them off with talks. It adds another front to an already difficult period for the minister and for a government facing labour unrest across several services at once. The protests are still on the table; the meetings are an attempt to take the heat out of them.

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🍽️ SPOT OF THE DAY

IZAKAYA (PRÍNCIPE REAL)

An izakaya is a Japanese tavern, the kind of informal, after-work spot where the drinking and the eating happen together, small plates ordered a few at a time while the sake keeps coming. This one is the Lisbon outpost of a Cascais original that earned a place in the Michelin Guide before opening a second home in Príncipe Real late last year, and it takes the format seriously: a compact, neon-lit room built around an open counter.

That counter is the seat to ask for. Sitting there, you are right in front of the chefs as they grill, fry and plate everything, the yakitori skewers, the gyu tan (grilled beef tongue), the karaage (Japanese fried chicken) that reviewers keep coming back to. Order a few things, then a few more, and let the drinks lead. The menu can be adapted for vegetarians if you say so when booking, and it fills up fast, so booking is the move.

It is open daily for lunch and dinner, though it is worth checking the current hours on the link before you go.

→ Find them here ←

Insider tip: ask for a counter seat when you book. The tables are perfectly good, but the counter puts you right in front of the grill where the whole thing actually happens, and those seats go first.

📅 WHAT'S ON

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