Portugal exported more medical cannabis in six months than most of 2025

The headline number

INFARMED's periodic report on the evolution of medicinal cannabis activity puts first-half 2026 exports at 66,305 kg. For scale, Portugal exported 79,883 kg across the whole of 2025, which was itself roughly 156 percent above the 31,188 kg shipped in 2024. Six months of 2026 therefore accounts for about 83 percent of a full record year, leaving the sector 13,578 kg short of the previous annual total at the halfway mark.

The multi-year picture is steeper still. Analysis of the regulator's series puts export growth at roughly 762 percent over three years, from single-digit tonnage in 2022 to the current run rate.

Where it goes

Destination data explains why Portuguese supply decisions matter to German patients. Germany took 37,442 kg in the first half of 2026 after 58,257 kg across 2025, making it by far the largest single destination. Spain rose sharply to 11,386 kg in the same six months, with Poland and the United Kingdom continuing as steady buyers.

INFARMED itself notes that the European Union is the sector's principal market, partly because much of the raw material is processed elsewhere in the bloc. Portugal's role is upstream: cultivation and primary processing feeding manufacturing capacity in other member states.

Fewer operators, more volume

The counterintuitive part of the 2026 data is that the operator base contracted while volume rose. Reporting on INFARMED's public lists over the first months of the year described double-digit percentage declines in the number of entities licensed for cultivation, import, export, manufacture and wholesale.

Two readings are consistent with that. One is consolidation: larger operators with EU-GMP capacity and signed offtake absorbing share from smaller licence-holders. The other is enforcement: authorisations lapsing or being suspended where compliance was not maintained. Both point the same direction, toward a smaller and more industrial sector.

Domestic access is the laggard

Portuguese patients see little of this. Domestic prescriptions reached 5,413 in the first half of 2026 after 7,023 across 2025 — real growth, but a rounding error against export tonnage. A country can be a major medical cannabis producer and a modest medical cannabis market at the same time, and Portugal is the clearest example in Europe.

Note also what this data does not describe. Portugal's 2001 decriminalisation framework covers personal possession as an administrative matter; it creates no retail channel and no home cultivation allowance. The export industry exists because of the separate licensing framework adopted in 2018, not because of decriminalisation.