How we handle the data.
Questiona follows public money using official data. This page explains where the numbers come from, how they are processed, how often they refresh, and where their limits are. The ground rule is simple: we do not invent numbers, and every figure carries the date of the data it refers to.
Where the data comes from
Public contracts originate in the State's official register, where, by law, every contract in which a public body buys goods, works or services is published. Questiona reads that register through an open-data API and, when the primary source lags, falls back to an official open-data mirror. The specific sources are listed on the sources page.
The other topics (health, statistics, justice, energy, tourism, parliament, legislation and budget) come from other official open sources, listed one by one on the sources page.
How we process the records
The register is vast and not always easy to read. Questiona collects a recent sample of contracts, normalises entity names and resolves each name to its tax number (the source only allows filtering by tax number, not by name). From there it computes the figures we show: the share awarded by direct award, the largest contracts and who is paid.
Once a day, an automated job rebuilds that day's bulletin from this sample. That job is the only place the analysis runs; visitors read the already-computed result, never the live source. That is what keeps the site fast and the cost predictable.
How to read the signals
A direct award (ajuste direto) is a lawful procedure under the Public Contracts Code, and most direct awards are small and perfectly routine. When a contract appears in the bulletin, that is not an accusation: it is a true official record, shown as the source publishes it, including the legal basis the buyer cited where one exists.
What we flag are patterns that oversight bodies, in Portugal and internationally, treat as deserving public scrutiny: large purchases with no tender, prices just under the legal thresholds, the same supplier winning repeatedly from the same buyer. A signal is a question, not a conclusion. There may be a good explanation; it is up to you to decide whether it convinces you.
How often it updates
The bulletin is regenerated daily. When there is new data, the figures and the day's lead change; when the official source freezes (which happens with public procurement in certain periods), we show the most recent data available and say so plainly, with the date it refers to.
Limitations and quality
The figures come from a recent sample, not the full historical total: they are for seeing the pattern, not for auditing every euro. Per-entity counts reflect activity in the sample, not an all-time contract count.
Name coverage favours the most active entities (the most searched); rare or old entities may not have their own page and show up in full-text search instead. And when the official source publishes incomplete or delayed records, that is reflected in what we show. We always flag when a figure is out of date.
Coverage period
The public-contracts register covers 2012 to 2026. The sample we analyse is a recent window of that register, with the data date shown on each figure.