Public transport became free today for holders of the Porto municipal card, Mayor Pedro Duarte announced this morning at a ceremony held in the square outside Trindade metro station, delivering, months ahead of the original schedule, one of the signature promises of his 2025 election campaign.
What changed, and who's covered
"As of today, public transport is free in the city of Porto for anyone who holds the Porto card," Duarte said. The measure applies specifically to holders of the cartão municipal Porto, the city's own resident card, not to the wider metropolitan area.
If you already have the existing free pass available to residents up to age 23, nothing changes, it continues to work automatically. If you hold the municipal card but are older than 23, you'll need to visit an Andante store or a Payshop outlet to update it, a process Duarte described as taking "seconds." Residents who don't yet have a Porto municipal card can apply either online or in person at the Gabinete do Munícipe. The free-transport benefit will need to be renewed annually, according to the mayor.
The numbers behind it
City Hall estimates the measure will cost around €20.5 million a year, and expects roughly 59,381 residents to make use of it, about 23.5% of Porto's estimated 2025 population of 252,687. That figure comes from the city's own Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (PMUS), based on modeled public transport usage patterns.
Ahead of schedule
Free transport for residents was one of the central planks of the winning PSD/CDS-PP/IL coalition's platform, and the Porto Municipal Assembly formally approved it in May. The original official timeline had it launching January 1, 2027, but Duarte's administration had said for months it wanted the measure running by summer 2026, and it has now delivered on that timeline.
Why it matters if you're across the river
Worth being precise about scope: this covers Porto's own municipal card, not a blanket Área Metropolitana pass, so residents of Vila Nova de Gaia, Matosinhos, Gondomar, or other neighboring municipalities aren't automatically covered just because they commute into Porto daily. If you actually hold residency in the city of Porto itself, though, this is a genuine, immediate cost saving worth acting on, and given how recently this outlet covered the Porto Metro's ongoing summer heat complaints on these same trains, it's a rare bit of good news on the same beat.