The mobility subsidy: who qualifies and how much comes back

An air bridge you pay for first and recover later

Between an island and the mainland there is no alternative to flying. There is no train and no road, and the boat, where one exists, is no use for getting to a medical appointment. That dependence is the reason the support exists: without it, the cost of taking part in national life would be structurally higher for someone living in the Azores or Madeira than for someone living in Coimbra or Faro.

The mechanism the legislator chose is simple to describe and has one important practical consequence. The passenger buys the trip at the market price and pays for it in full. After travelling, they claim back the part that exceeds a fixed amount the law makes them bear. It is not a discount at purchase: it is a later refund². Anyone travelling therefore needs the whole amount available upfront, which for a family of four means fronting four complete tickets and waiting for the refund.

The calculation is a subtraction

This point is worth labouring, because it is where intuition fails. The support does not return a percentage of the fare. It returns everything the fare costs above a fixed amount:

refund = eligible cost of the fare − maximum amount borne by the beneficiary

From this follows a property many people find odd at first: the dearer the trip, the larger the proportion returned. A Madeira resident paying €150 for a return trip to Lisbon recovers €71, a little under half. If the same trip costs €350, they recover €271, more than three quarters. What never changes, and this is the logic of the support, is what they are left paying at the end: the same €79, whether the trip was cheap or expensive.

What each person bears

The amount borne depends on only two things, the route and the type of beneficiary, and is set out in a table published by the entity that pays the refund². All figures are per passenger and per return trip.

The gap between the Azores and Madeira reflects the distance and the average price of the links. And the gap between resident and student is a deliberate policy choice: people studying away usually make the journey several times an academic year and have less income of their own to cover it.

Who counts as a resident, an equivalent resident and a student

The three categories have their own definitions and their own evidence².

A resident is anyone, of any nationality, who has lived in the Azores or Madeira for at least six months at the date of travel. Proof is the tax domicile in the region on that date, which means changing your address with the tax authority is the step that actually opens the entitlement.

An equivalent resident is someone whose tax domicile is elsewhere but who works regularly in the region, in which case the evidence is a statement from their employer. Under-18s whose parent lives in the region are also treated as equivalent residents.

A student studying away from home is someone who lives in one of the autonomous regions and studies on the mainland, in the other autonomous region or abroad, and equally the reverse journey. There is no age limit whatsoever, contrary to what many people assume, and the evidence is enrolment for the current academic year.

What changed in June 2026

Lei n.º 23/2026 of 1 June came into force on 6 June 2026 and is the biggest change to the support in years¹. The social mobility subsidy became the territorial continuity mechanism, but the change of name is the least significant of the novelties.

The change with the most impact day to day was the end of the requirement to be up to date with tax and social security. A debt to the tax authority or to social security, however small, was enough to block the refund of a trip already taken and already paid for, and it was one of the most frequent reasons for refusal⁵. It also became possible to provide proof of payment later, rather than having it accompany the claim from the start, and the door was opened to travel agencies submitting the claim on the passenger’s behalf, with their authorisation.

The third change is the most discussed and deserves a section of its own.

The eligible-cost ceiling: what the law says and what practice does

Before this law there was a limit on the eligible cost of the fare: €400 on Madeira links, €600 on Azores links and €500 on flights starting or ending in Porto Santo. Anything the ticket cost above that limit fell on the passenger, which penalised precisely the trips bought at the last minute, out of medical or family urgency.

Lei n.º 23/2026 removed that ceiling. The President signed the measure into law leaving an express warning: removing the maximum limit on the eligible cost of air fares could have various effects that would deserve careful regulation⁴. The concern is a familiar one, namely that a refund with no ceiling removes the airlines’ incentive to hold fares down on these routes.

As it happens, that regulation has not yet caught up with the law. The paying entity still publishes the old limits and the platform still applies them². For most trips this makes no difference, because an ordinary return fare falls below the ceiling. But on an expensive ticket the gap is wide: on a €700 fare from Madeira, applying the €400 ceiling means receiving €321 instead of the €621 that the law without a ceiling would produce.

That is why the mobility subsidy calculator shows both figures whenever the ticket exceeds the limit, rather than silently picking one of them. While the mismatch lasts, the prudent advice is to plan around the lower figure, keep the invoice and check what is actually paid.

What to keep and where to claim

The claim is made after the trip and rests on two documents that have to exist and be kept²:

• the boarding evidence;
• the invoice and receipt for the purchase of the trip, showing the beneficiary’s taxpayer number and the cost broken down in euros.

To these you add proof of status where relevant: the employer’s statement for an equivalent resident, enrolment evidence for a student.

The normal route is now the electronic platform, with authentication by Chave Móvel Digital or Cartão de Cidadão³. CTT counters keep working as an alternative until June 2027 and are the indicated channel for some particular cases, such as claims submitted by legal entities and older trips. One note that saves a wasted journey: travel bought up to 5 June 2026 follows the rules that were in force at the date of the ticket, not the new ones².

What this support does not cover

It is worth drawing the boundary, so that no expectations are misplaced. The mechanism covers air links between the autonomous regions and the mainland and between the two regions. It does not cover inter-island Azores links or the ferry crossing to Porto Santo, which are supported by their own regional schemes, with different rules and figures. Nor does it cover baggage, change fees and anything that is not part of the fare itself.

Finally, a distinction that confuses many people: this support has nothing to do with checking income. Unlike the Social Integration Income or child benefit, the territorial continuity mechanism has no means test. It is not a poverty benefit, it is compensation for insularity, and so it applies equally to people who earn a lot and people who earn very little.