Portugal on a Chinese Licence — Electronic-Only Tolls & the IDP You Need

Portugal is one of the easier European countries to drive in — relaxed, well-surfaced, no side switch from China’s right-hand traffic. The trap isn’t the driving. It’s the tolls.

Several Portuguese motorways, the former SCUT routes, have no toll booths whatsoever. You won’t see a barrier to slow for or a ticket to take; instead, overhead gantries photograph your number plate and bill the toll electronically. For a tourist in a rental, this is exactly where the money quietly leaks: drive these roads without an arrangement and the charges pile up unregistered, then arrive as penalties through the rental company weeks later. The fix is to ask your rental firm to fit a Via Verde transponder when you collect the car, so every gantry charges automatically. If they don’t, you must pre-register the plate online or settle at a CTT post office within days. Booth-tolled motorways still exist too, but it’s the invisible electronic ones that catch people.

The licence question is the other thing to handle in advance. A Chinese licence is printed in non-Latin script, unreadable to Portuguese rental staff and police, so an International Driving Permit — the official translation of your licence — is needed to make it valid here. Get the IDP in China before you fly and carry it with the original licence and your passport. The Driving Permit Checker confirms the requirement for your corridor.

Beyond that, Portugal is forgiving. It drives on the right, like China, so orientation transfers straight across. Motorways are signed at 120 km/h, rural roads at 90 and towns at 50, and the driving culture is calmer than Spain or Italy. Enforcement still uses fixed and mobile cameras, and a 10 km/h overage spans EUR 60-300 depending on the road and your speed — estimate yours on the speeding fine calculator.

Alcohol sits at 0.05 BAC, higher than China’s 0.02 but policed with roadside stops, so treat it as none. Carry a warning triangle and reflective vest, both required. Petrol is around $1.88/litre, and 112 reaches all services. For route and toll detail, see our Portugal driving guide.