Where to store your luggage at Lisbon Airport: a photo guide to the lockers

Almost everyone who goes looking for the luggage lockers at Lisbon Airport walks the wrong way first. They come off the plane, collect their bags, walk into the arrivals hall, and start scanning the walls for a left-luggage counter. It isn't there. There is no left-luggage desk in arrivals, and there hasn't been one since before the pandemic.

The lockers exist, all 234 of them, and they are genuinely good at what they do. But they are outside the building, one floor up, on the departures level, tucked beside the lane where cars pull in to drop people off. Nothing about the arrivals hall tells you this. You have to know.

This guide is that walk, photographed on the day, in the order you will actually do it. It has the current prices, the sizes, the rules that catch people out, and an honest account of when the lockers are the right answer and when they are not.

The short version

If you are standing in arrivals right now with a bag in each hand, here is everything compressed:

• Where: outside Terminal 1, on the departures floor, next to the Kiss & Fly drop-off lane. Before security, so no boarding pass needed.
• How to get there: leave arrivals, go up one level, walk out of the departures doors, turn right.
• When: 24 hours a day, every day.
• How much: from 3,60 € for three hours (small) to 67,20 € for 72 hours (XL or surf).
• Maximum: 72 hours. This is enforced.
• Payment: card or cash, at the terminal on each module.
• Insured: no. More on that below, because it matters more than the price.

The whole walk takes about five minutes if you know where you are going. Below is how to know.

Where you are starting from

Every flight into Lisbon lands at Terminal 1. This surprises people who flew in on Ryanair or Wizz Air and expect to come back through Terminal 2, but T2 is departures only. So whatever airline brought you, you are in the same building, and this guide applies.

If you checked a bag

Follow the signs to baggage reclaim after passport control and check the screens for your belt number. On a busy morning the wait here can run to twenty minutes, which is worth factoring in if you are working to a tight locker-then-city schedule.

If you only have hand luggage, walk straight through. You will be at the lockers before the people from your flight have seen their suitcase.

Step 1: get out of the arrivals hall

Once you are through customs, the arrivals hall opens out. Drivers and greeters wait behind the barrier, there is a café on your left, car hire desks along the side. This is where people stop and start looking around for a luggage counter, and this is where the ten minutes get wasted. Do not look for one. Keep walking.

The one thing worth noting in this hall: this is also where we meet you if you have booked a collection. It is the same barrier, the same spot.

Step 2: follow the signs for saída and cacifos

Two Portuguese words will get you the whole way there, and neither is hard.

Saída means exit. Cacifos means lockers. The overhead gantries carry both, with English underneath, and once you have locked on to the word cacifos you can stop thinking and just follow it.

This is the single most useful thing in this article. The signage is good, but only if you know which word you are looking for. Most travellers scan for the English "lockers", which is there but smaller and second.

Step 3: go up to the departures floor

Here is the bit that catches nearly everyone. Arrivals and departures are on different levels at Terminal 1, and the lockers are upstairs with departures. If you stay on the arrivals floor you will never find them, no matter how carefully you follow the signs.

Take the escalators or the lift up one level. From the arrivals hall, they are off to the side rather than straight ahead.

A useful landmark: if you came in on the metro, you enter the airport at the arrivals level, and these are the same escalators you would use to reach departures. Anyone giving you directions from the metro station is describing this same climb.

Step 4: walk out of the terminal

The lockers are outside. Not in a corner of the departures hall, not past a security check, but out through the main departures doors and into the open air under the canopy.

This is worth saying twice, because it feels wrong. You have just spent twenty minutes getting into a building and now you are walking out of it. But that is genuinely where they are, and it is why they are open 24 hours and why you do not need a boarding pass to use them.

Step 5: find the Kiss & Fly lane

Once outside you are in the Kiss & Fly zone: the short-stay lane where cars, taxis and ride-hailing drivers pull in to drop passengers off. It is covered, it is busy, and the locker modules are lined up along it.

Two things happen in this same spot, which is handy to know. This is where Uber and Bolt pick up, and it is where the free shuttle to Terminal 2 leaves from. So if your plan is store the bags, see the city, come back and fly out of T2, every part of that plan happens within about thirty metres of here.

How long does the walk take?

About five minutes from the arrivals hall if you know the route, and that is with a bag. Add ten to twenty minutes if you are hunting for it, which is what usually happens.

Worth budgeting the whole thing honestly if you are on a layover: fifteen minutes to clear the plane and reclaim a bag, five minutes to the lockers, five minutes at the terminal, then twenty-five minutes on the metro into town. From wheels-down to standing in Baixa is realistically an hour. Coming back, the same in reverse, plus you want to be at your gate two hours before a European departure. On a six-hour layover that leaves you roughly two and a half hours of actual Lisbon. It is doable and it is worth it, but do the sum before you commit.

Step 6: the lockers themselves

There are 234 lockers across 10 modules, each module numbered and each with its own payment terminal. They are teal, they are hard to miss once you are outside, and they look exactly like the photo below.

You cannot book ahead. There is no website, no app reservation, no way to hold one. You turn up and take what is free. On a summer afternoon, or when several low-cost flights have landed together, you may need to try two or three modules before you find the size you want. That is the single biggest practical weakness of the system, and it is worth knowing before you build a day around it.

How to actually rent one

It is self-service and takes a couple of minutes:

1. Choose your size at the terminal. The screen has English.
2. Pay the three-hour minimum. Card or cash. There is no shorter option, so even a forty-minute stash costs you the full three hours.
3. Choose a 4-digit code and confirm it. This is your only key.
4. Load your bag, close the door and check it has actually latched.

To collect, enter your code and the door releases.

The part that surprises people: if you stay longer than three hours, the locker will not open until you pay the difference. You settle up at collection, not up front. So you cannot underpay and run, but equally you do not have to guess your return time when you drop the bag. That is genuinely well designed.

There is also a QR code on the module if you would rather do the whole thing on your phone.

Prices

Everything starts at a three-hour minimum. Beyond that, you pay the additional amount below when you come back for your bag.

The first 3 hours

Longer than 3 hours

Prices include VAT and are paid on collection. Source: ANA Aeroportos de Portugal, checked 15 July 2026.

One warning about prices generally. Several of the guides ranking for this search are still quoting the old tariff, which was around 20% lower. If a site tells you a small locker is 7,00 € for 24 hours, it is out of date. The board on the module is the definitive list, and if it disagrees with us, believe the board.

Which size do you actually need?

The dimensions are more useful than the names:

• Small (36 × 48 × 88) takes a backpack or a cabin bag standing up.
• Medium (36 × 65 × 88) takes a medium checked suitcase.
• Large (36 × 99 × 88) takes a full-size trolley case.
• XL (72 × 99 × 88) is double-width and takes two large cases.
• Surf (36 × 200 × 88) is for boards, skis and golf bags.

The 88 cm depth is the constant, and it is the one that catches people with unusually deep cases. If you are travelling as a couple with two large cases, one XL at 24,00 € for the day is cheaper than two Larges at 33,60 €.

What if every locker is taken?

It happens, mostly on summer afternoons and when a cluster of low-cost flights lands together. There is no way to check in advance and no way to reserve, so you find out by walking to the modules.

Your fallbacks, roughly in order of sanity. Try a different size: the Surf and XL lockers are usually free even when the Mediums have gone, and an XL at 14,40 € for three hours is annoying but it is not a disaster. Take the metro two stops to Oriente, which has station lockers, though you are now carrying your bags on the metro, which was the thing you were trying to avoid. Or use a city storage shop in Chiado or Baixa, which means the same problem plus a walk on cobbles.

Every fallback has you dragging bags somewhere. That is the structural issue with self-storage: the bag has to physically go where the storage is, and you have to go with it.

The rules that catch people out

72 hours is a hard ceiling

Not a guideline. Past 72 hours the airport treats it as misuse, removes the contents, stores them separately, and charges 25,20 € per day on top of the 72 hours you already owe. If your trip is four days, these lockers are not your answer.

Your bag is not insured

This is the most important paragraph in this article, and it is not our opinion. It is in ANA's own published regulation: leaving luggage in a locker does not constitute a storage contract, and ANA accepts no liability for theft, robbery, loss or damage.

Read that again. The operator has stated, in writing, that if your bag goes missing from the locker, that is your problem. The modules are in a monitored public area and problems are rare, but there is no cover. If you are storing a laptop, a camera, or anything you would be genuinely upset to lose, that is worth knowing before you close the door.

Payment specifics

Cards work. If you are paying cash, the machines take 2 €, 1 € and 0,50 € coins, and 5 €, 10 € and 20 € notes. Do not turn up with a 50.

You cannot reserve

Turn up and hope. That is the whole system.

So are the lockers any good?

Yes, for one specific situation, and they are excellent at it: a few hours between flights, when you are coming back to the airport anyway. Long layover, want to see the city, flying out the same evening. Three hours in a small locker for 3,60 € is superb value and nothing else comes close. Take the metro in, see Alfama, come back, collect, fly. Perfect.

They work much less well for the situation most people are actually in. You land at 9am. Check-in is at 3pm. You have six hours to kill and a suitcase. The locker solves the six hours but creates a new problem: your bag is now at the airport, and you are not, and at some point you have to go back for it. You pay twice in time — once to store it, once to fetch it — plus the metro fare each way and the twenty minutes at each end.

The maths is worth doing honestly. Two large cases for a day is 33,60 €, plus a round trip back out to the airport, plus the hour or so it eats out of your afternoon. Against that, a delivery that costs a comparable amount and ends with your bags at your hotel is not really a splurge. It is the same money spent on a better outcome.

And if your stay runs past 72 hours, or your bag contains anything valuable, the lockers stop being an option at all rather than just an inconvenient one.

A quick decision rule

Use the lockers if you are returning to the airport, your stay is under 72 hours, your bag holds nothing precious, and you are happy to gamble on availability.

Use a delivery if your bag needs to end up somewhere other than the airport, if you are over 72 hours, if you want it insured, or if you simply do not want the round trip. The lockers are a storage product. A delivery is a logistics one. They look like competitors but they answer different questions, and the question you are asking is usually 'how do I get on with my day', not 'where do I put this'.

Frequently asked questions

Are there lockers at Terminal 2?

No. All 234 are at Terminal 1, outside departures. T2 has no lockers and no metro. If you are flying out of T2, store at T1 and take the free shuttle across.

Are they open at night?

Yes, 24 hours. They are outside the building and before security, so there is nothing to close.

Can I get to them without a flight?

Yes. They are landside, in a public area. Anyone can walk up.

Will my suitcase fit?

A standard large trolley fits the Large (36 × 99 × 88 cm). Two fit the XL (72 × 99 × 88 cm). Boards go in the Surf locker at 200 cm long.

Can I store a bag for a week?

No. 72 hours maximum, then the contents are removed and daily charges apply. For anything longer, use a city storage service or a delivery.

What if my flight is delayed and I miss my 72 hours?

The 72-hour rule does not care why. Plan for the ceiling, not for your intentions.

Do I need cash?

No, cards work fine. Cash is accepted in coins and small notes if you prefer.

Is there still a left-luggage desk in arrivals?

No. There used to be one, and a lot of older articles still describe it. It closed. The lockers replaced it, and they moved upstairs and outside.