Madeira and the Azores can adapt the regime to the islands
One of the points approved in the revision of the TVDE legal regime allows the autonomous regions of Madeira and the Azores to adapt that regime to their respective island realities and specificities. The measure resulted from a PSD proposal, presented by member of parliament Vânia Jesus, and recognises that mobility in an archipelago has different characteristics from those on the mainland, whether because of the size of the market, the seasonality of tourism or the geography of the islands.
In practice, this means that each autonomous region's own bodies can now adjust aspects of the regime to their reality, instead of rigidly applying a model designed mainly for the large urban centres of the mainland. The concrete scope of that adaptation will depend on the choices Madeira and the Azores come to make within the framework set by the national law. Like the rest of the revision, this possibility only becomes effective once the law is promulgated by the President of the Republic and published in the official gazette (Diário da República).
For those who drive or operate on the islands, the practical message is one of attention: besides the national rules explained here, regional specificities may come to exist. Before making decisions, it is worth confirming what is defined at regional level.
National law and municipal rules are not the same thing
There is a distinction that causes a lot of confusion and that is worth clarifying. The so-called red and blue zones in Lisbon, which limit where TVDE vehicles can start and end trips on the city's central axes, are not part of the national TVDE law. They come from a protocol signed by the Lisbon City Council with Uber and Bolt on 26 March 2026, that is, from a municipal agreement between the local authority and the platforms, and not from the legal regime approved in parliament.
That protocol provides, among other things, for a ban on starting or ending trips on arteries such as Avenida da Liberdade and Marquês de Pombal and the definition of specific areas for picking up and dropping off passengers. These are rules for organising Lisbon's urban space, applicable in that city, and they may be different or non-existent in other municipalities. A driver working in Porto, Faro or Coimbra is not subject to the Lisbon zones, although they may come to find specific rules set by those councils.
In short: the national law sets the essentials of the regime, such as driver training, vehicle rules, the platform fee or the fines. Municipal rules, such as the Lisbon zones, and the future regional adaptations by Madeira and the Azores add local layers on top of that base. Confusing the two levels easily leads to mistakes about what is or is not allowed in each place.