Technical article

A Hospital Stay or an Emergency Room Visit in Portugal: What the Official Pages Show

Is he a member of the national health service (Serviço Nacional de Saúde, or SNS)?

By Neil Solomon · 4 min read

Picture a couple named Tom and Beth. Tom is 67. He fell on a cobbled street in Porto and the ambulance took him to a public hospital. Beth stood at the desk and wondered one thing. What will this cost?

The answer starts with a question the hospital asks first. Is he a member of the national health service (Serviço Nacional de Saúde, or SNS)?

If he is a member

The agency that runs the service (ACSS) published a list of user fees, updated February 2025. The fees come from a 2016 rule.

For a hospital stay, the page lists no fee. It says a patient who comes in through the emergency room is "dispensados do pagamento de taxas moderadoras", which means excused from the fees, and any fee already paid is refunded.

There is a catch in how I read this. A government news item, titled "Isenção das taxas moderadoras em quase todos os serviços do SNS", says nearly all the fees were dropped. The page could not be opened, and the 2022 decree behind it could not be read. A later official page helps. The health regulator (ERS) wrote on 18 December 2025 that fees now apply only in hospital emergency services. It also says no fee applies if the visit leads to admission, or if the SNS referred the patient first. That page gives no amounts. A second official source gives one: the page of a hospital group in the national service (ULS Santa Maria, Lisbon) lists the emergency-room fee as EUR 18.00, with EUR 40 as the most anyone pays for one emergency visit, tests included, and cites the 2022 decree. That matches the top level in the February 2025 table above. The regulator's own question-and-answer page, updated 18 February 2026, repeats that fees apply to hospital emergency visits made without a referral from the service, and that no fee applies after a referral or when the visit ends in admission.

Several groups are excused from the fees, such as pregnant women, people with a disability of 60% or more, and people who can show financial hardship.

If he is not a member

The ACSS says people from abroad without SNS cover are billed "de acordo com a Tabela de preços em vigor", which means by the price table in force. No amounts are on that page.

A new price table for hospital stays, outpatient visits and emergency rooms was published on 25 June 2026 (Portaria 274/2026/1) and took effect on 1 July 2026. The ACSS notice says it is the first structural review of these tables since 2017. The amounts sit in the annexes of the Portaria itself, which a person has to open on the official gazette site; I give no price for a non-member for that reason.

For context only, a 2025 ACSS circular lists what the SNS pays hospitals under its contracts. These are not bills to patients, and the new table may have changed them.

What is left open

• The price a non-member pays for an emergency visit or a hospital night. It is in the annexes of Portaria 274/2026/1 (published 25 June 2026, in force 1 July 2026), which I have not been able to read as text.
• Private hospital prices. No official source lists them.
• How a retiree from abroad becomes an SNS member.