Portugal starts building its first high-speed rail section, Porto-Campanhã to Oiã, on the Lisbon-Porto line

12 October 2026

Construction of Portugal's Lisbon–Porto high-speed line began on Monday, 12 October 2026, with the first section from Porto-Campanhã to Oiã in the Aveiro district. The section has 71 kilometres of high-speed track and includes a new road-rail bridge over the Douro River and a new Vila Nova de Gaia-Santo Ovídio station. Once the line is complete, the trip between the two cities will take 1 hour and 15 minutes. The section costs around €2 billion and is a public-private partnership whose concession contract was signed on 29 July 2025. It is backed by €875 million from the European Investment Bank and €480 million from the Connecting Europe Facility. The government projects a Lisbon–Madrid journey of about three hours by 2034.