This study analyses the most relevant trend lines of the cooperative share capital regime in the new Portuguese Cooperative Code. In order to ensure the sustainability of the cooperative, providing it with appropriate mechanisms to be efficient on the market, the new code introduced investor members, reduced the amount of the minimum share capital, clarified the legal regime of cooperators‘ contributions to share capital and extended the list of statutory limits as to the exercise of the right to reimbursement. In the modernization of the cooperative share capital regime the legislator did not abdicate from the preservation of the cooperative identity, continuing to recognize the variability of the share capital.