Book vouchers for 18 year olds begins rollout
The measure was adopted by the previous Government but only came into effect now.
What?
Young people living in Portugal who were born in 2005 or 2006 will be able to access a 20-euro book voucher from November 4, according to the Directorate-General for Books, Archives and Libraries (DGLAB).
From next week, 18-year-olds (who reached this age in 2023 and 2024) can apply for the book voucher via the www.souleitor.gov.pt platform, where the more than 200 participating bookshops are also listed.
They can do so until April 23, 2025. The voucher excludes textbooks, dictionaries, study aids and books not published in Portugal.
Tell me more
‘This programme aims to foster reading habits and encourage young adults to visit bookshops,’ the DGLAB said in a press release.
The Book Voucher Programme was approved by the previous Government, but its implementation is only now taking place due to delays in setting up the platform that will run it, which also led to an amendment to the regulations so that its implementation can be extended until April 2025.
The book voucher is a measure proposed by the Portuguese Publishers and Booksellers Association, which advocated giving 18-year-olds 100 euros to buy books.
However, the previous Government decided to set the amount at 20 euros and limited the benefit to around 200,000 people.
When it approved this measure in December 2023, the previous Government allocated 4.4 million euros to the scheme through the Cultural Promotion Fund.