Lisbon, Nov. 4, 2025 (Lusa) - The second edition of the book voucher programme will start in January and the value will rise from €20 to €30, the Minister of Culture, Margarida Balseiro Lopes, revealed in parliament on Tuesday.
At a parliamentary hearing on the 2026 State Budget bill, Margarida Balseiro Lopes said that the value of the book voucher - a voucher for young people to use to buy books in bookshops - “is low” and will therefore be increased by 50% to €30.
According to the minister, the second edition of the book voucher programme will be launched by the end of the year, as already announced, but membership implementation will start in January.
"Just as important as" the increase to €30, Margarida Balseiro Lopes said that “the technical problems need to be resolved”, because “there have been various constraints” and that tests are being carried out to improve the platform for issuing the book vouchers.
According to the explanatory note on the 2026 State Budget for Culture, the second edition of the book voucher programme will have a budget of €2.3 million.
The first edition of the book voucher programme ran until 15 July, and more than 47,000 vouchers were issued, with an execution rate of 20%, according to preliminary data from the Directorate-General for Books, Archives and Libraries (DGLAB) released in July.
In July, at the Book 2.0 meeting organised by the Portuguese Publishers and Booksellers Association, Margarida Balseiro Lopes acknowledged that "a greater effort would have to be made to publicise this measure, so that it reaches more young people, in more places, from the north to the south of the country".
At the parliamentary hearing, Margarida Balseiro Lopes explained that the second edition of the book voucher "will be for residents of Portugal" and that each user will once again be asked to authenticate themselves with a digital mobile key. The ages covered by the programme "will be defined in the regulation", she said.
The minister stressed that the book voucher programme is not an isolated measure in promoting books and reading, and also mentioned the award of Annual Grants for Literary Creation, Comics and Children's and Young People's Literature, for which the deadline for applications is Thursday.
According to her, the results of the 2025 artistic creation grants will be announced in March, at which point applications for the 2026 grants will open.
Margarida Balseiro Lopes was speaking in parliament as part of the specialised assessment of the 2026 State Budget Bill, in the Budget, Finance and Public Administration Committee, with the Culture, Communication, Youth and Sport Committee.
SS/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
