The water tariff in Faro will be updated by 2.14% in 2026, below the 2.3% inflation, with effects starting March 1, according to the proposal by Fagar, the company that manages the service, approved by the City Council.
The proposal clarifies that the adjustment will enter into force only “after municipal deliberation and the review by ERSAR [the Regulatory Entity for Water and Waste Services], on 1 March 2026,” with the 2025 tariff remaining in force until that date.
“Thus, in order to comply with ERSAR’s tariff recommendation, the 2026 tariff, which will only impact the user for a period of 10 months, was updated by 2.14%, at the expense of the 1.8% that would normally be applied over 12 months,” reads the proposal approved by the Faro City Council.
The approval of the water tariff increase was the subject of criticism from the Faro North PSD, which rejected the argument advanced by the PS majority that the rise aimed to address FAGAR’s “financial difficulties” and to avoid “possible financial losses” because prices had not been adjusted.
“It is important to note that Faro, together with Tavira and Olhão, records the highest water prices in the Algarve region. By contrast, in 2023, the Socialist Party opposed the increase proposed by the previous administration [led by the PSD], calling it unjustifiable, serious and a ‘robbery of the people of Faro,’ and noting that ERSAR – the regulatory body – would have recommended reducing the price as it was above what was necessary to cover the company’s operational costs,” argued the PSD in a statement.
The PSD criticized the PS’s “inconsistency” for “radically changing its position” and “unscrupulously reversing its prior stance,” and argued that, “instead of raising the price of water, measures should be implemented to improve the company’s efficiency,” reduce losses and rehabilitate obsolete conduits, benefiting from the “100% non-reimbursable funding” available for this area in the Algarve.
“That’s an opportunity that cannot be missed. Raising prices for no good reason is neither wise nor effective,” the PSD further stated.
The Lusa agency sought a reaction from the municipal government, which is led by the Socialist majority, to the PSD’s criticisms, and the president of the Faro City Council, António Miguel Pina, responded that “the interpretation that the PSD is now giving constitutes, in practice, a reversal of reality.”
“Today the law and regulatory guidelines are being followed, whereas previously the opportunity was instrumentalized in the interest of certain parties and to the detriment of residents; in other words, in 2023 the previous PSD administration increased rates by more than 300% in some cases – far above what was recommended,” the mayor affirmed.
António Miguel Pina stated that the figures are “simple, incomparable and deserving of intellectual honesty” and demonstrated that, taking the 12 months of the year into account, “in 2026, the adjustment is only 1.8% – below the inflation recorded in 2025, which was 2.3%.”
The mayor characterized the PSD’s stance as “political theater” and assured that the PS majority will “ignore the noise” and “continue to work with rigor and calm to project the municipality’s accounts transparently, reinforce the structural solutions that protect household purchasing power, and ensure the sustainability of essential public services.”
