Getting Fishing licences in Portugal
There is some fantastic fishing in Portugal but you do need a licence.
A client today is about to head to Portugal and is hoping to do some fishing out there. You need a licence in Portugal to fish in either the sea or on land. I wrote this in October 2023, so things may have changed but it wouldn’t surprise me if it is still relevant. If you’re heading out then I hope this is useful:
From October 2023…
I am heading to the coast in Portugal later in the year and found trying to get a fishing licence a nightmare. Here's what I learned.
You can buy a saltwater licence before you travel (my research suggested there are also selected places you can buy one when you're there). I'm yet to work out how to buy a freshwater licence online.
If you are buying before you travel it takes 2-5 days for the licence to come through (online) depending on whether you pay for a normal or express licence.
STEP 1 - if you don't have an account already you need to create one here: BMar | Geral
NB: If you don't have a VAT number then the helpdesk advised me to use my passport number instead and that worked.
STEP 2 - Login here: and then click "New Request".
Follow the process step by step.
If you abandon/pause a request part way through and want to continue it then go to "Requests" -> "My requests". Nothing will appear until you click on the "search" button. Then simply select the relevant application and click "view".
Having entered all the relevant information and selected the licence type you want, the site will tell you how much the licence will be and tell you how to pay.
I paid via BACS using online banking. The bank website let me choose how much I wanted the recipient to receive and then automatically calculated how much I had to transfer. I used the Request ID less the first letter as the ID on the Bacs payment and entered the "Transfer Origin IBAN" into the request application on the BMAR website. NB - if you do a bacs transfer I think they only get processed during working hours so having initiated mine on a Saturday night I couldn't complete the application until Monday.
There was no notification of approval from the bmar.pt website. I had to go back into my account and look in "Requests". The licence could also be found in the "Documents" section.
I hope that helps others.