From January next year it will be all change again for holders of Portuguese driving licences.
After the ‘golden years’ in which a licence ran for the rest of the holder’s life, new rules limited them to just 10 years. Now, very possibly because of a bureaucratic backlog that can see people waiting months for renewed licences, the decision has come to extend 10-year licences by five years.
Thus from January 2017, licences issued will run for 15 years and not include the holder’s home address – this too to cut down on attention to relatively minor details.
Licence information to be incorporated onto Citizen’s Card
Also covered under the Decreto-Lei (new law) published in State newspaper Diário da República today is the move to have all driving licence information incorporated in people’s citizens cards (Cartão de Cidadão).
The law allows for the network of places where people can go to request licences to be extended. In future – once again a return to past practice – people will be able to change details and make requests at their local registry or notary’s office.
There is even the facility for people to start receiving emails and text messages, to remind them their licences are running out, or that there is a new licence waiting for their collection “at a place of their choosing”, reports TVI24.
