Car Inspection in Portugal

Easy, peasy...

You may hesitate when you live in another country and are doing something for the first time. I find I do. However, if you own a car in Portugal, there are some things you must do when they are due. Car inspection is one of them.

Owning a Car in Portugal

You don’t have to own a car in Portugal. About 30% of the population does not. If you live in or near a major city, you can utilize public transportation or car sharing, only renting a car when you want to go further afield. When we lived in Cascais, we relied on our Lisboa Viva passes to travel in and around the metropolitan area. Because the pass covers metros, trains, buses, and ferries, we could travel all the way to Setúbal without pulling out our wallets.

We purchased a car when we decided to move to Algarve and renovate a building. We expected we would be making regular trips to building suppliers. In addition, the golf course we visit at least three times a week made owning a car a necessity.¹ However, we know many American couples living in VRSA who do not own a car!

Inspection Basics

Knowing when and how to have your car inspected in Portugal is very straightforward. There is even a government website in Portugal that provides all the information you need to know. Permit me to summarize it below:

• Inspection is required at certain intervals based on the age of the car. The first inspection is four years after the car is first registered, then every two years until the car is eight years old, and then every year.

• There are inspection stations throughout the country. We found the closest one to us using Google Maps by entering “nearest car inspection station Portugal” in the search function. You can also find them on the government website.

• You can make an appointment, and we recommend that you do. Denise did not, instead choosing to arrive when the Tavira station opened at 8:00. Those with 8:00 and 8:15 appointments were taken first, and she needed to wait 30 minutes to be taken.

• You will need to take your car’s registration and a copy of the last inspection.

• You will also need to take your wallet. Our “light-duty vehicle” cost 36,64€ including tax. All fees are shown on the website. You will pay the inspection fee and then wait for your license plate to be called.

When it is your turn, you are directed to pull into the inspection area. You will be asked to turn on your headlights, turn signals, and hazard lights, depress the brake, and so on. They will also check your emissions. The inspection process itself took about 15 minutes. At the end of the visit, you are provided with a form with the inspection certificate attached. You place this in the small envelope attached to the front windshield.

Não Faz Mal

Many things seem complicated when you move to another country. Fortunately, this is not one of them.

Até logo, fica bem,

Nanc

Final Note: Last week, I promised to return to writing about life in Portugal. And so I did. Frankly, it was not easy. It seems so trivial, given what is happening in the United States. I am angry and filled with fear. So, if you voted for the current president, I have to ask:

1. Are you happy with the many unqualified men and women he has nominated to our highest government offices? RJK, Jr? Kash Patel? Tulsi Gabbard? Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion have been replaced by Disqualified, Enemies of the State, and Incompetent.

2. How do you feel about a South African immigrant (who admits to experimenting with cocaine, LSD, mushrooms, ketamine, and ecstasy) and his band of 20-somethings accessing your treasury data?

3. Do you feel safer now that he has pardoned or commuted the sentences of men and women who physically attacked police officers? Good news … their pardons mean they can legally buy a firearm.

4. You must be ecstatic that US Troops might be deployed to Gaza, Greenland, and Panama.

5. Has his flood of crazy, unconstitutional (and poorly crafted) executive orders and the near-immediate suspension of these orders, tariffs, etc, enabled you to remember the chaos of the first term? Given the dozens of court challenges the Justice Department will need to defend, when will they have time to prosecute anyone?

You may say you were worried about the debt and deficit…but perhaps you forgot that his prior tax cut increased the deficit by over $1 trillion. (And that was before Covid!) Extending these cuts further will cost $400 billion a year. So don’t give me your fiscal responsibility bullshit.

And for those that cheered when he said he would round up millions of undocumented immigrants … good news, at the current rate it will only take him 28 years to complete his mission. By the way, it will cost billions because while the optics of military transports are “better on Fox News,” they are seven times more expensive than the commercial airliners the Biden administration used.

So you can wear your ugly red hats, ignore those who imitate Nazi salutes, or continue to believe his lies and ignore the facts. Congratulations, you have elected an old, mentally ill individual who is executing Project 2025 (even though he never heard of it), surrounded by wanna-be oligarchs who are working to destroy the American government.

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Find my writings presumptuous? Why not create your own Substack? It’s free!

Want to defend the President? Go right ahead …. but don’t expect me to be quiet.

1. There are many weeks that the only time we move the car is to travel to the golf course. We find we can complete routine doctor’s appointments, grocery shopping, etc, on foot.