Technical article

Medicine and Dentist Prices in Portugal: What the State Pays and What Is Left

They have heard that medicine in Portugal costs less and dentists cost less.

By Neil Solomon · 3 min read

Picture a couple named Ray and Joan. Both are 66. Ray takes pills for blood pressure and cholesterol. Joan needs a crown. They have heard that medicine in Portugal costs less and dentists cost less. They want to see what the government itself says.

Medicines: four tiers

Portugal's medicines agency (Infarmed) publishes the rule. The state pays a share of the shelf price. The share depends on the tier the medicine sits in.

These come from Portaria 195-D/2015, article 2, which says, for example, "O escalão A é de 90 % do preço de venda ao público". The columns for what you pay are my arithmetic.

Older rules (Decreto-Lei 48-A/2010) give the same four percentages. They also add a bonus for low-income pensioners: 5 points more in tier A and 15 points more in tiers B, C and D. The cutoff is 14 times the monthly minimum wage. Infarmed's copy notes that part of that decree was repealed in 2015, so I cannot say the bonus applies today.

Which medicine sits in which tier depends on the drug group. The annex of the same Portaria lists groups for tiers A, B and C (tier D is for new medicines and special cases). The page shows these examples:

So Ray's blood pressure pills could sit in tier B and his cholesterol pills in tier C. Cardiovascular drugs appear in both B and C, so a pharmacist could confirm each one. Both pages are about people covered by the national health service. The sources do not show that a retiree from abroad gets the same tiers.

Dentists

The health directorate (DGS) runs a dentist voucher. It lists who receives it: pregnant women followed in the public service, people who get the solidarity supplement for older people, children 3 to 15, and people living with HIV/AIDS. A 2026 ministerial rule sets the values (Portaria 123/2026/1, 20 March 2026, article 16, read 11 October 2026):

The same article says the values are reviewed at least every two years. The solidarity supplement is a benefit for low-income older residents, so a retired couple from abroad would likely not be in these groups, and the sources do not address them.

The official pages do not list private dentist prices. A voucher of EUR 45 tells you what the state thinks a treatment visit is worth, and it is not a price list.

What is left open

• Which tier each individual medicine is in. The pharmacist or the medicines agency's search tool gives that for each product.
• Whether the old pensioner bonus is in force, which depends on the later repeal noted above.
• Whether a newcomer to Portugal gets the same state share.
• Private dentist prices, which no official page lists.