Tolls are expected to increase by 2,21% in 2025

Motorway tolls are expected to increase by 2,21% in 2025, based on the year-on-year inflation figure excluding housing for October confirmed today by the National Statistics Institute (INE), plus the 0,1% compensation to concessionaires.

The formula that establishes how the increase in toll prices is calculated each year is provided for in Decree-Law No. 294/97 and establishes that the variation to be applied each year takes as reference the year-on-year inflation rate excluding housing on the mainland recorded in the last month for which data is available before 15 November, the deadline for concessionaires to communicate their price proposals for the following year to the Government.

According to data released today by INE, that inflation benchmark stood at 2,11%.

This value is increased by 0,1%, following the agreement signed in 2022 with motorway concessionaires to compensate them for the brake that was then imposed on an increase of around 10% in 2023.

This is because, in 2022, the year-on-year increase in prices on the mainland, excluding housing, exceeded 10%, a figure that led the Government to negotiate with concessionaires a solution that limited the increase in toll prices in 2023 to 4,9%.

At the time, the then Minister of Infrastructure, Pedro Nuno Santos, specified that, in addition to the 4,9% increase borne by motorway users, a part (2,8%) was the responsibility of the State, with the remainder “up to 9,5% or 10,5%” borne “by concessionaires”.

As compensation for the 4,9% limit imposed in 2023, it was then established that concessionaires could, in the following four years, increase by a further 0,1% the toll update value resulting from their respective concession contracts.

In 2024, tolls were updated by more than 2%, as a result of an October Consumer Price Index (CPI) on the mainland, excluding housing, of 1,94%, plus an additional 0,1%.

In 2022, the evolution of the CPI had dictated a 1,83% increase in tolls, which, in 2020 and 2021, remained unchanged because the reference value was negative.