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Employee Benefits in Portugal
Employment Law Overview Portugal
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Portugal

Employee Benefits in Portugal

Social Security

Under the standard general regime that applies to individuals enrolled as employees, the employer must pay a monthly social security contribution equal to 23.75% of the employee’s remuneration. Employees must pay a monthly social security contribution of 11% of their remuneration, deducted by the employer.

The contributions cover illness, retirement pension, maternity and paternity and unemployment, among others.

Some employers provide access or contribute to supplementary schemes for their employees (such as pension or illness schemes) which are sometimes also prescribed by Collective Regulation Instruments.

Healthcare and Insurances

By law, employers must take up workman compensation insurance (seguro de acidentes de trabalho) in relation to their employees, in order to cover damages that arise from work accidents or occupational diseases.

Required Leave

An absence (falta) is qualified as the employee’s failure to attend their workplace during their normal daily work period (as set out by the Labour Code).

Absences are justified or unjustified (as set out by the Labour Code). The legal regime regarding the justification of absences and their duration is mandatory.

The qualification of an absence as justified or unjustified is relevant in that it may for instance entail loss of remuneration and impact on the employee’s length of service.

 

Illness and injury of Employees

In particular, employees are entitled to time off from work for illness or injury, which is paid by the state social security protection schemes, provided they meet all the eligibility requirements.

State social security protection schemes pay sick pay to employees who are absent from work as a result of illness or injury.

The employee may receive sick pay for a total of 1095 days.

Sick pay is calculated based on the employee’s remuneration reference for Social Security purposes and varies between 55% and 75% depending on the period of illness.

In some cases, collective labour agreements provide specific rules covering employee illness or injury.

 

a. Holidays and Annual Leave

 As a general rule, employees are entitled to a minimum 22 working days of holiday per each calendar year.  This right falls due on 1 January and relates to work performed in the previous calendar year.

Special rules apply in the first year of employment, to contracts with a duration of less than six months, to contracts that do not attain 12 months or terminate the year after the admission, on termination and when the employment contract is suspended.

Employees must take their holidays in the year they accrue.  Carry-over of days of holiday is exceptional.

Employees may not, as a rule, waive their entitlement to holidays, although there are exceptions.

In additional to personal holiday, the employee is entitled to national public holidays (provided by the Labour Code):

  • 1 January
  • Good Friday
  • Easter Sunday
  • 25 April
  • 1 May
  • Corpus Christi
  • 10 June
  • 15 August
  • 5 October
  • 1 November
  • 1, 8 and 25 December

Collective Regulation Instruments or individual employment contracts may also grant the employee two optional “public” holidays: Shrove Tuesday and the local municipal holiday.

 

b. Maternity / Paternity Leave 

The Parental Protection regime is extensive and relatively complex. This chapter aims only at providing an overview of the main maternity and paternity rights, not excluding others provided by law.

Working parents are entitled to initial parental leave (licença parental inicial) for the birth of a child, which they can share. The minimum length of the leave is of  120 however this period may be extended if the employees so decide under certain limits and if the leave is shared between both parents.

Both mothers and fathers are also entitled to an exclusive parental leave (for mothers, licença parental exclusiva da mãe, and for fathers, licença parental exclusiva do pai).

A mother is entitled to:

  • An initial exclusive parental leave of 30 days, which can be taken before the birth; and
  • 42 days mandatory leave that must be taken after the birth.

These exclusive periods are part of the initial parental leave described above and are taken into consideration for the calculation and duration of the global leave period.

Fathers are entitled to an exclusive and independent leave of 28 consecutive or non-consecutive working days leave that must be taken within the six weeks period following the birth of the child, seven of which immediately after the child’s birth.

 

c. Sickness and Disability Leave

Employees are entitled to time off from work for illness or injury, which is paid by the state social security protection schemes, provided they meet all the eligibility requirements.

State social security protection schemes support and pay sickness allowance to employees who are absent from work as a result of illness or injury

Sick pay is calculated based on the employee’s reference remuneration for Social Security purposes and varies between 55% and 75% depending on the length of the illness period.

In some cases, collective labour agreements provide specific rules covering employee illness or injury.

 

Any Other Required or Typically Provided Leave(s) 

In addition to other situations provided for by law (article 249 of the Labour Code) and in the applicable collective bargaining agreement, justified absences are also considered to be, among others, those that are motivated by the reasons indicated below:

  • Absence due to pregnancy bereavement (only when leave due to termination of pregnancy is not taken)
  • Medical consultations and complementary diagnostic tests
  • Wedding
  • Death of spouse, partner, son, daughter, stepson, stepdaughter,
  • Death of father, mother, father-in-law, mother-in-law, stepfather and stepmother
  • Death of grandfather, grandmother, grandson, granddaughter, brother, sister, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, great-grandfather, great-grandmother, great-grandson and great-granddaughter (own or spouse’s)
  • Absence to care for spouse, partner, father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother, sister, brother-in-law and sister-in-law
  • Absences of informal carers in the event of illness or accident of the person being cared for

Pensions: Mandatory and Typically Provided

Protection in old age involves the payment of a monthly pension for life, which is intended to replace the income lost from work when the employee reaches the age legally presumed to be appropriate to cease professional activity.

Under the general regime employees are entitled to this pension when they reach 66 years and 4 months old (retirement age set for 2024) and paid Social Security contributions during a period of at least 15 years.

The law foresees that, in certain situations the possibility to anticipate retirement age.

In this way, pursuant to the general regime of early retirement, it is foreseen that old age retirement may be anticipated, for example in certain cases of involuntary long-term unemployment.

Pursuant to the Labour Code, employer and employee may also enter into a pre-retirement agreement under the terms of which the performance of the employee’s activity is either reduced or suspended.

The employee must be at least 55 years of age.

Under the agreement, the employee remains entitled to receiving a monthly monetary amount.

Any Other Required or Typically Provided Benefits

Different types of bonus payments and other benefits may be negotiated individually or are typically part of Collective Regulation Instruments/works council agreements.

It is common to attribute the following benefits to the employee, among others:

  • Company car
  • Health insurance
  • Child care arrangements or allowances (e.g. ticket infância)
  • Travel and subsistence costs
  • Stock options
Any questions

Ask our member firm SRS Legal in Portugal