Contribution to road service was prohibited by the European Court but continues to be applied in Portugal. The money goes to building roads.
CSR (road service contribution) revenue in 2024 is around R$675.3 million, which is equivalent to almost two million per day — yields more than tolls.
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) declared in 2022 that this tax is illegal, for “lack of specific reason” for its existence. Even so, the Portuguese government circumvented European lawintegrating this tax into another, the tax on petroleum products (ISP).
Thus, at the beginning of 2023, the ISP increased after the suppression of the CSR — at the end of 2022, those who paid for fuel directed 37 cents per liter to the ISP and 8 to the CSR. At the beginning of 2024, with the CSR already suppressed, the ISP went to 47 cents.
According to , this scheme allowed the State to protect itself from attempts by gas stations and private individuals, who have demanded in court the reimbursement of the CSR amount. But the government has other plans for the fate of this “disguised” and prohibited tax: roads.
In the new State Budget for 2025, it is stated that the amount equivalent to this tax is directed to the financing of the road network under the responsibility of Infraestruturas de Portugal (IP).
In the document of OE, even continue reading name in full of the fee, “road service consignment”, even if this has been prohibited by the EU.
In the CJEU, from February 2022, it is stated that “reimbursing to the operator the amount of tax he has already received from the buyer would be equivalent to a double payment that could be classified as unjust enrichment”.
He adds that “it is up to the authorities and national courts to ensure respect for the principle of prohibition of unjust enrichment, even when there is nothing about it in national law”.
In the document, approved last Friday, the 690 million euros expected in profit from CSR for road construction (railway and river transport have a small amount).
Lawyer Tiago Caiado Guerreiro assures JN that, “in an ideal world”, charging this fee is illegalbut that it is “impossible to prove that we are effectively absorbing the tax”.
