On Wednesday, the parliament approved a proposal to amend next year’s State Budget to include ‘e-books’ in the book vouchers offered to young people turning 18 in 2026.
The proposal by Chega suggests that in the 2026 edition of the Book Voucher Program, an ‘e-book’ voucher should be created under the same terms as the physical book voucher, valued at 60 euros, available to individuals residing in the national territory, with a citizen card, and turning 18 in that calendar year.
In response to this approval, a statement released today by APEL, who initially proposed the book voucher, highlights, “Although unaware of the implementation model of the parliament-approved proposal, APEL emphasizes that the priority should be to ensure young people have access to reading materials in any format, and that the program should be a robust and flexible tool to promote reading habits. Therefore, it recommends that the Book Voucher value is set at 90 euros.”
“We appreciate the Government’s and now the Assembly of the Republic’s efforts to increase the book voucher amount and, with that, support young people’s access to reading. However, we argue that it makes no sense to separate values between physical books and e-books,” said APEL President Miguel Pauseiro, as quoted in the same statement.
Thus, APEL requests “urgent additional clarifications on how the new program definitions will be implemented and how the amount will be practically distributed to beneficiaries, stressing the importance of not delaying the program’s start as previously announced by Minister Margarida Balseiro Lopes.”
Earlier this month, during a parliamentary hearing, the Minister of Culture, Margarida Balseiro Lopes, stated that the second edition of the book voucher program will start in January, and the value will increase from 20 to 30 euros.
According to the explanatory note on the 2026 State Budget for the Culture sector, the second edition of the book voucher program would have a budget of 2.3 million euros.
The first edition of the book voucher program concluded on July 15, with more than 47,000 vouchers issued and a 20% execution rate, according to preliminary data from the Directorate-General for Books and Libraries released in July.
In 2022, after the end of lockdown, APEL submitted a document with “three measures” deemed crucial to mitigate families’ issues in accessing Culture and books, and to boost the book sector. This was delivered to the Ministries of Culture and Education, the Secretariat of State for Commerce and Tourism, and the Presidency of the Republic.
Among the proposals was the “creation of a 100-euro book voucher for all turning 18,” along with a VAT reduction from 6% to 0%, and “enhanced investment in library acquisitions, whether under the Culture or Education Departments.”
