Is it legal in Portugal? Drug law, penalties and sources

What governs drugs in Portugal

Two instruments govern drugs in Portugal and they do different jobs. Decreto-Lei n.º 15/93, de 22 de janeiro, is the criminal statute. It creates the trafficking offences, sets every prison term, and carries the tables, tabelas I to VI, that decide which substance is controlled and how severely. Lei n.º 30/2000, de 29 de novembro, is the decriminalisation law. It did not repeal the criminal statute. It took one thing out of it, personal consumption, and sent that to an administrative commission instead.

Law 30/2000 says exactly how far it reaches. Its article 1(2) provides that the plants, substances and preparations subject to the regime it lays down are those in tables I to IV annexed to Decree-Law 15/93. Tables V and VI, the precursors, are outside it. Its article 2(1) makes consumption, acquisition and possession for own consumption a contra-ordenação, an administrative offence. Its article 29 brought the decriminalisation into force on 1 July 2001, not on the date of the law itself.

The case goes to a comissão para a dissuasão da toxicodependência, a panel of three created by article 5 and composed under article 7 of one lawyer and two members drawn from doctors, psychologists, sociologists and social workers. Article 15 separates the two outcomes it can reach. A user who is not dependent may receive a fine or, as an alternative, a non pecuniary sanction. A dependent user may receive only a non pecuniary sanction.

The substance itself stays illegal throughout. Decriminalisation changed which forum hears the case and what that forum may impose. It did not make any of these substances lawful to hold, and they are still confiscated.

What decriminalisation did not do

Every account of Portugal starts in 2001. The part that goes missing is the wording of the repeal.

Article 28 of Law 30/2000 is headed Normas revogadas and reads, in the official gazette: “São revogados o artigo 40.º, excepto quanto ao cultivo, e o artigo 41.º do Decreto-Lei n.º 15/93, de 22 de Janeiro, bem como as demais disposições que se mostrem incompatíveis com o presente regime.” Article 40 of the criminal statute was the consumption offence. It was repealed except as regards cultivation.

So growing a plant for your own use was never decriminalised in Portugal, and it is still not. Lei n.º 55/2023, de 8 de setembro, rewrote article 40 with effect from 1 October 2023, and the surviving offence now reads: “Quem, para o seu consumo, cultivar plantas, substâncias ou preparações compreendidas nas tabelas I a IV é punido com pena de prisão até 3 meses ou com pena de multa até 30 dias.” Up to three months in prison, or a fine of up to 30 days, for cultivating your own.

The second thing accounts get wrong is newer than most of them. Until 1 October 2023 a quantity above ten days' average individual consumption took the case out of the administrative regime and into the criminal one. Law 55/2023 ended that. Article 40(2) now provides that acquisition and possession for own consumption is a contra-ordenação, and article 40(3) that a quantity above the ten day figure “constitui indício de que o propósito pode não ser o de consumo”, an indication that the purpose may not be consumption. It is evidence, and it is no longer a threshold.

Article 40(4) goes further and is almost never reported. Where the quantity is above the ten day figure but it is demonstrated that the acquisition or possession was exclusively for the person's own consumption, the competent judicial authority must, according to the stage the case has reached, order the file closed, decline to commit for trial, or acquit, and refer the person to the commission. Article 3 of the same law wrote the matching wording into article 2 of Law 30/2000.

Supply is untouched by any of this. Article 21 of Decree-Law 15/93 punishes cultivating, producing, selling, transporting, importing, exporting or unlawfully holding a substance in tables I to III, in its own words “fora dos casos previstos no artigo 40.º”, outside the cases provided for in article 40, with four to twelve years. The line the statute draws is purpose, not quantity.

Three familiar summaries are each wrong in a different way. That Portugal legalised drugs: it did not, the substance remains illegal and is confiscated. That more than ten days' supply is trafficking: not since 1 October 2023. That you may grow your own: no, cultivation is the one limb of the old consumption offence that was deliberately left standing in 2000 and re enacted in 2023.

The ten day quantity, and where the number comes from

The ten day figure is in neither statute. Article 71(1)(c) of Decree-Law 15/93 tells the government to fix, by portaria, the maximum quantitative limit for each average individual daily dose. Portaria n.º 94/96, de 26 de março, did that, and the map annexed to it is where every published Portuguese threshold ultimately comes from.

The map gives a daily maximum, expressed in grams unless it says otherwise. Heroin 0,1. Methadone 0,1. Morphine 0,2. Opium 1. Cocaine hydrochloride 0,2. Cocaine as the methyl ester of benzoylecgonine 0,03. Cannabis leaves and flowering or fruiting tops 2,5. Cannabis resin 0,5. Cannabis oil 0,25. Phencyclidine 0,01. Lysergide 50 µg. MDMA 0,1. Amphetamine 0,1. Tetrahydrocannabinol 0,05.

A ten day quantity is ten times that line: 25 g of cannabis herb, 5 g of resin, 2 g of cocaine hydrochloride, 1 g of heroin, 1 g of MDMA, 500 µg of LSD. The map is a daily figure and reading it as a total is the commonest arithmetic error made with it.

Article 71, as amended by Law 55/2023, now requires that portaria to be updated wherever possible every six months, and article 4 of that law gave the government thirty days to begin. Portaria 94/96 of 26 March 1996 is the map this page could reach and the figures above are its figures.

The penalty structure, by article

Every substance confirmed against a primary source

74 substances have a status for Portugal verified against a named statute. Each row links to the full entry, with the consequences, the prescription position and the source.

Not separately listed

Sources

• Lei n.º 30/2000, de 29 de novembro, arts. 1, 2, 5, 7, 15, 16, 28 and 29, Diário da República I Série-A n.º 276 Read verbatim from the official gazette as published. Its article 16 states the fine bands in escudos; the amounts currently applicable were not confirmed against a primary source and are therefore not stated on this page.
• Lei n.º 55/2023, de 8 de setembro, arts. 2, 3, 4 and 5, Diário da República 1.ª série n.º 175 The current text of article 40 of Decree-Law 15/93 and of article 2 of Law 30/2000 is quoted from this law, which took effect on 1 October 2023.
• Decreto-Lei n.º 15/93, de 22 de janeiro, arts. 21, 25 and 26, INFARMED Legislação Farmacêutica Compilada A compiled text whose latest amendment footnote is from 2011. It is cited here for those three articles only; article 40 is cited from Law 55/2023 above instead.
• Decreto-Lei n.º 15/93, de 22 de janeiro, as originally published, Diário da República I Série-A n.º 18 A scanned copy with no text layer. Used to check the compiled text above rather than quoted directly, because a transcription error in a penalty clause is exactly what gets quoted onward.
• Portaria n.º 94/96, de 26 de março, n.º 9 and the annexed map, Diário da República I Série-B n.º 73 The daily maxima above were confirmed against the rendered page image as well as the extracted text, because the micrograms sign in the lysergide row is lost in extraction.
• Decreto-Lei n.º 54/2013, de 17 de abril, the new psychoactive substances regime Named because it sits outside the two instruments above and reaches substances neither of them lists. Its text was not read for this page, so no penalty from it is stated here.

Statute text on this page is quoted from the copies linked above. Last verified September 21, 2026.