Remote Working Legislation, Laws & Regulations in Portugal

The regime of teleworking is addressed in the Portuguese labour code.

It may be implemented by means of an employment contract or by an addendum to that contract.  

This agreement can be concluded with or without term:

• If concluded for a fixed term, it cannot exceed 6 months, being automatically renewed for equal periods, if none of the parties revoke it in writing at least 15 days before the end of each 6-month period. If concluded without term, either party may terminate it by written notice, which shall take effect 60 days later.

No, it is not possible to force an employee to work from home.  

Employees have the right to work from home (i.e., are entitled to this regime) when it is compatible with their respective functions, and the employer has the resources and means to support the employee in the following situations:

• An employee with a child up to three years of age;
• An employee with a child with a disability or chronic/oncological illness, living in the same household, regardless of age;
• An employee with a child up to eight years of age, in the following conditions: 
  • When both parents meet the conditions to exercise the activity in a telework regime, provided that it is exercised by both parents in successive periods of the same duration, within a maximum reference period of 12 months; or
  • Single-parent families / situations where only one of the parents demonstrably meets the conditions for exercising their activity in a telework regime.
• An employee who is a victim of domestic violence, if the following conditions are met: filing of a criminal complaint and leaving the family home at the time of the transfer.
• An employee who has been recognised as having the status of informal non-main caregiver, for a maximum period of four consecutive or interpolated years.

The employer is responsible for providing the employee with the equipment and systems necessary to work from home, and the telework agreement should specify whether they are supplied directly by the employer or acquired by the employee.

The employee must observe the rules of use and operation of this equipment.

Unless otherwise agreed, the employee cannot use equipment and instruments made available by the employer for anything other than those duties inherent to the performance of their work.

The employer must ensure the installation and maintenance of the working equipment referred to above.

Furthermore, additional expenses arising from this regime – goods or services necessary to perform the functions under this regime and increases in the costs of energy and the network installed at the workplace – must be borne by the employer.

The parties may also agree on a fixed amount to be paid monthly as additional expenses, which must be included in the employment contract or in the applicable collective bargaining agreement. In the absence of a fixed amount, the increase in expenses will correspond to costs related to the acquisition of equipment and systems necessary to work from home. Furthermore, the employer must reimburse the difference between the employee’s costs (e.g. internet, water, electricity) and those in the last month the employee worked on-site. Amounts paid by the employer as additional expenses incurred by teleworking employees are exempt from taxation (i.e. tax and social security) up to EUR 1/day, as follows: EUR 0.10 for residential electricity consumption; EUR 0.40 for personal internet costs; EUR 0.50 for the use of a computer or other equivalent personal IT equipment. The exemption only applies to expenses incurred with goods and services not provided by the employer and is only applicable to full days of teleworking (i.e. periods of no less than 1/6 of the weekly working hours) actually carried out and resulting from a written agreement between the employer and the employee under the terms of the Portuguese Labour Code.

For tax purposes, the payment of these additional expenses will be considered an employer cost and will not be considered employee income up to the maximum value specified above.

No. Regarding work-from-home payments, please refer to the question above.   

Yes. Further to the health and safety obligations applicable to all employees, the employer has to promote health examinations before a work-from-home regime is implemented and, afterwards, annual exams to evaluate the physical and psychological ability of the employee.

Furthermore, the employee must provide access to the respective place of work for the evaluation and control of the safety and health conditions at work at a previously agreed period between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m., within working hours. Such a visit may only be used to check the work activity, as well as the work instruments, and may only take place in the presence of the employee.

Under this regime, the employer has some special duties, such as:

• To inform the employee, where necessary, about the characteristics and method of use of all devices, programmes and systems adopted to remotely monitor their activity;
• To refrain from contacting the employee outside of working hours;
• To endeavour to reduce the employee’s isolation by promoting face-to-face contact with the employee’s superiors and other employees, as established in the agreement, or, in case of omission, with intervals not exceeding two months;
• To consult the employee, in writing, before introducing changes to the equipment and systems used in the provision of work, the functions assigned or any characteristic of the contracted activity;
• To provide the employee with the training for the proper and productive use of the equipment and systems to be used by them in teleworking.

Yes. A work accidents insurance is mandatory for employees working from home. For this purpose, the place of work is considered to be the place chosen by the employee to habitually carry out their activity.

Yes, the regime is the same for  the employees performing functions on-site.

No. The regime only foresees the possibility of paying additional expenses incurred by the employee.

Yes, the employees working from home have specific obligations, such as:

• To inform the employer in due time of any malfunctioning or defects of the equipment and systems used in the provision of work;
• To comply with the employer’s instructions regarding the security of the information used or produced in the development of respective functions;
• To respect and to comply with the restrictions previously established by the employer regarding the personal use of the equipment and systems supplied by the latter;
• To comply with the employer’s guidelines on health and safety at work.

Yes. Since 2022 there is a new type of visa – the Digital Nomad Visa – which allows the possibility of being granted a residence visa to employees and self-employed professionals to work remotely. Remote employees will be able to live and work in Portugal for up to 12 months. After that period they can apply for a residence permit if the necessary requirements are fulfilled.

There is no remote work abroad regime defined or regulated by Portuguese labour law that applies to an employee who provides his work outside of Portugal.

In this type of situation, the teleworking regime in the Portuguese Labour Code will apply.

To identify the applicable law to an employment contract, Regulation no. 593/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 June 2008 (Rome I) must be considered. According to art. 8.º, “An individual employment contract shall be governed by the law chosen by the parties”. However, such choice of law may not “have the result of depriving the employee of the protection afforded to him by provisions that cannot be derogated from by agreement under the law that, in the absence of choice, would have been applicable pursuant to paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 of this Article”.

Therefore, when determining the applicability of this law, it is necessary to consider that the numbers 2, 3 and 4 of article 8.º are hierarchical, which means the application of number 2 excludes the application of the next one. Therefore, the legislation applicable (in case of absent of agreement) will be: 

1.  the law of the country in which, or from which the employee habitually carries out his work in performance of the contract. If this is not possible, 
2. the contract must be governed by the law of the country where the place of business engaging the employee is situated. 

As this might have other implications, a case-by-case analysis must be carried out.

The general rule is that employees are subject to social security in the working state. This means that an employee is subject to the social security laws of the working state unless specific conditions for short-term secondments to a working state are satisfied. The relevant jurisdictions may have concluded social security treaties that deal with social security liability in cross-border situations.

Within the EU, however, the ground rule is that if the employee works in more than one EU country but carries out a substantial part of his professional activities in the country of residence (i.e. at least 25% of the employee’s working time and/or income source is in the country of residence), the country responsible for the employee´s social security cover is the country of residence. Nevertheless, if this criterion is not met, the country responsible for the employee’s social security cover is the country where the employer/company is located.

In these situations, each case should be analysed separately.

For Portuguese tax purposes, an individual is deemed a Portuguese resident whenever (i) he stays more than 183 days in Portugal, consecutive or non-consecutive, in a period of 12 months beginning or ending in the relevant tax year; (ii) he owns a house in Portugal, which may imply his intention to use it as his habitual residence; (iii) on December 31, he is a member of an air or sea crew working for an entity with tax residence in Portugal; and (iv) he performs functions abroad of a public nature representing and serving the Portuguese state.

In light of the above, a short stay in Portuguese territory for remote-work purposes will not, in principle, make the individual liable for tax residency in Portugal unless the stay exceeds 183 days in a given period of 12 months.

From the employer's perspective, confirmations should be obtained regarding the risk of permanent establishment (PE) in Portugal through the remote work of the employee from Portugal.

An employee with a nationality in the European Union (EU), European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland (“EU National”) is allowed to live and work in other EU/EEA countries and Switzerland without a visa or residence permit. For an EU National, it is only necessary to apply for a registration certificate at the municipality in the area where the employee will live if staying in the country for more than three months. Until then, the employee only needs a valid identity card or passport.

However, if the employee is a national from outside the EU, EEA or Switzerland and intends to work in Portugal, he must hold a valid residence permit and/or work permit to be able to work legally in Portugal.

Employees working from home have the same rights and duties as other employees performing functions on-site with the same professional category / functions, namely regarding training, career progression, limits on working hours, rest periods, among others.