I exchanged my UK driving license at IMT on 5th August 2020, and was told at the time that it would take a year to get a Portuguese driving license! I was given a provisional paper document enabling me to DRIVE IN PORTUGAL ONLY valid for six months,which I subsequently renewed after six months. My official Portuguese driving incense arrived in the post at the end of September, of this year, almost 14 months after the original application. This is not only disgracefully tardy in a civilized country, but an infringement on the people’s rights to FREE MOVEMENT. I would have been unable to drive or rent a car in another country in Europe, the UK or anywhere else with the provisional six month temporary paper license.

I don’t know if the problems at the scruffy, dingy, inadequate office in Faro, (where, by the way, it is necessary to employ an interpreter, as none of the staff speak English), are related to staffing shortages, low wages, lack of leadership, inadequate technological support, or anything else, but I do know that the inability of IMT to provide a driving license to the residents of Portugal in a timely fashion, expat or otherwise, is totally unacceptable.

Christine Burt.

Portuguese resident