Lisbon city councillor Carolina Serrão, of the Bloco de Esquerda, has filed a proposal with the Câmara Municipal de Lisboa calling for a municipal program of universal free public transport for city residents, to take full effect by the end of 2027. Diário de Notícias, which first obtained the proposal, reports that it lands just days after Porto introduced free transit for holders of the city's municipal card, a measure that took effect this month. The proposal faces long odds: PSD holds the executive majority on Lisbon's Câmara.

In the proposal's reasoning, Serrão argues that mobility "cannot continue to be treated as an individual or family expense dependent on each person's economic capacity," framing it instead as an essential public function the city should guarantee directly.

What the proposal would actually do

The plan is staged rather than immediate. During 2026, it calls for consolidating Lisbon's existing free-transit regimes, already in place since 2022 for residents under 23 and those 65 and older, and extending free transport to residents registered as unemployed with IEFP, people with disabilities, recipients of social welfare benefits, and students not already covered by another scheme. By the end of the first half of 2027, the Câmara would be required to present the financial, operational, and regulatory model for the full program, with universal free transport for all residents taking effect by the end of that year through a municipal pass integrated into the Navegante ticketing system.

One condition runs through the proposal: free transport, to actually work, "cannot substitute for public investment in the network", meaning the plan calls for a significant expansion of service alongside the fare change, not simply the removal of fares from the existing network.

Who pays for it is left unanswered for now. BE's proposal doesn't include a detailed cost estimate for the eventual universal program, that's explicitly deferred to the financial model the Câmara would be required to present by mid-2027 under the plan's own timeline. The party argues that reduced congestion and pollution, plus higher public-transport ridership, would offset part of the expense, but puts forward no figure of its own to weigh against Porto's €20.5 million-a-year price tag for a considerably smaller population.

Why this is unlikely to pass

PSD holds the executive majority on Lisbon's Câmara, and the proposal is expected to be voted down. This wouldn't even be the first rejection on nearly this exact timeline: as recently as last December, Moedas's own executive voted down a separate push, that one from Lisbon's Socialist councillors, to extend free transit to all residents by January 2027, citing financial concerns. Moedas and Porto's Pedro Duarte are both PSD vice-presidents nationally and have discussed joint metropolitan-area solutions before, but it remains to be seen whether that extends to this specific measure. Chega, for its part, has not backed expanding free transit or dedicated bus lanes either.

This isn't Bloco de Esquerda's first attempt. The party has pushed for full free transit in Lisbon since at least 2022, when a similar proposal was voted down at the Assembleia Municipal with opposition spanning PSD, CDS, PCP, PEV, IL, PAN, MPT, PPM, Aliança, and Chega. BE has repeatedly accused Moedas of delaying scheduled council discussion of the issue. The party is framing this new push as a potential "national precedent", arguing that universal free transit for residents is, in its words, "a concrete, feasible, and financeable political option at the municipal level."

Why this matters if you live here

For now, nothing changes. Lisbon residents under 23 and those 65 and older continue to receive free public transport, while everyone else remains on the existing Navegante fare system. The proposal now enters a political process where it faces a council majority that already rejected a similar universal-transit push last December, one that will only face more pressure to explain the difference now that Porto has actually gone ahead with its own version.