Hire and pay employees in

Portugal, hassle-free

Hire and pay employees in Portugal, hassle-free

With Deel, your business can easily hire employees in Portugal. No more worrying about local laws, complex tax systems, or managing international payroll. Deel takes care of everything in 150+ countries.

The average onboarding time frame in Portugal is 3 days with Deel.

Currency

Euro (EUR)

Capital

Lisbon

Official Language

Portuguese

Payroll Cycle

Monthly

Onboard, pay and manage employees in Portugal with Deel.

Usually, to hire in Portugal, your business needs an entity. That means a local office, an address registered as a subsidiary, and an account with a local bank. All of this, plus navigating regional benefits, payroll, tax, and HR laws, can take months.

Deel lets you hire employees in Portugal quickly, easily, and compliantly. We even automate tax document collection, payroll, benefits, and more. For your existing direct employees, we can manage your entire payroll operation from end-to-end.

Download the Guide

All the necessary benefits for Portugal
built right in

Deel allows you to provide localized benefits for employees in Portugal within minutes. All in one manageable online dashboard.

  • Employee Training
  • Private Healthcare - Unisure (optional)
  • Private healthcare - AdvanceCare & Generali
  • Compensation Fund
  • Labor Accident Insurance
  • Private Healthcare - Allianz (optional)

Our quickstart guide to hiring in Portugal

Navigate the tabs below to learn everything you need to know about hiring an employee in Portugal

Minimum Wage Requirements

The annual minimum wage for employees in Portugal is 11,480 EUR. This includes the mandatory 13 and 14 month salary payments.

A time table exemption agreement is in place for Deel EOR Employees in Portugal. This agreement exempts remote employees from overtime on their regularly scheduled working days in exchange for a 20% increase to base pay. For Deel EOR Employees the minimum annual wage is 13.776 EUR

Individual Income Tax

Taxes are collected by the Portal das Finanças according to progressive tax tables, ranging from 0 to 47.17%. The rates are set annually by the Portuguese government. 

The scope of individual taxation depends on various factors including income, region of residence, marital status, residency status, disability status, and number of dependents.

Payroll Cost

The employer cost is generally estimated at 26.9% of the employee salary:

- Social Security* - 23.75%
- Work Accident Insurance* - 3.15%
- Telework Allowance - €50
- 13th month salary - 1/12 of 1 month basic salary 
- 14th month salary - 1/12 of 1 month basic salary
- Mandatory meal allowance - €6 per working day

Annual Costs
- Health and Safety at work - EUR 150

*Social Security, Work Insurance Policy, and Labor Accident Insurance are calculated on the employee's salary + telework allowance. 
Please note that 13th and 14th month salaries are paid to the employee in monthly instalments and are included in the total annual salary. Standard social security contributions apply.

Overtime Pay & Maximum Hours

Standard working hours are 8 hours per day and 40 hours per week. The standard work week is from Monday to Friday.

Overtime pay is mandatory and is not included in the salary. Worked hours outside of standard work hours are considered overtime. Employees can work a maximum of 2 hours of overtime per day. For overtime hours, employees are paid:

  • 125% of the hourly rate for the first hour.
  • 137.5% of the hourly rate for the following hours.
  • 150% of the hourly rate for weekends and bank holidays.

Maternity Leave

Pregnant employees who have contributed to Social Security for the past six months are entitled to 120 or 150 days of paid leave. 30 days are usually taken before the child's birth. The remaining days can be divided into two periods of time. The employee will receive 80 - 100% of the salary during this period depending upon the length of leave. Social Security will be responsible for this pay.

The employee can extend leave additional 90 days at 25% pay.

Paternity Leave

Employees who have contributed to Social Security for the past 6 months are entitled to 20 days of paid paternity leave and 5 additional days of optional leave - as long as they are taken at the same time as the mother's initial parental leave. The first 5 days must be taken after the child's birth and the remaining 15 days, consecutive or not, must be taken within the following 6 weeks. The employee will receive 100% of their regular salary during this period. Paternity Leave is funded by Social Security.

Parental Leave

Employees are entitled to 120 working days of parental leave. Both parents can decide how to distribute the time off, which should be taken 30 days after maternity leave. Either parent can take parental leave. Social Security will pay 80-100% of the salary during this period, depending on how the leave was distributed between the partners.

Sick Leave

Employees are entitled to paid sick leave for up to 1095 days if they have contributed for the past 6 months to Portuguese Social Security. The first 3 days are unpaid and considered as a qualifying period. This leave is paid at different rates and by different payers depending upon the length:

Period Pay Payer
0 - 3 days 0% N/A
3 - 30 days 55% of base salary Social Security
31 - 90 days 60% of base salary Social Security
91 - 365 days 70% of base salary Social Security
+365 days 75% of base salary Social Security

Termination Requirements

Terminations must respect complex rules and the rules of an employee’s employment country. The off-boarding is always handled by the Employer with the primary stakeholders. It may include ad-hoc fees as well as required or recommended steps on specific termination cases.

Termination in Portugal can be complex and must be based on performance or redundancy reasons (e.g. serious cause, unfit for the role, extinction of the role).

Compliant terminations include:

  • Voluntarily by the employee
  • By mutual agreement
  • Unilaterally by the employer based on:
    • Objective grounds.
    • Disciplinary dismissal
    • Unsuitability for the job position.
  • By the expiration of the contract

It is not possible to terminate a contract when the employee takes parental leave, is pregnant, or breastfeeding.

Notice Period

Notice will depend on the nature of termination, length of employment, and the contract term.

  • During the probation period

    • None, if the probation period is < 60 days 
    • 7 days, if the probation period has lasted more than 60 days and less than 120 days
    • 15 days, if the probation period has lasted more than 120 days
  • Termination due to redundancy or unsuitability for the job by the employer:15 days if the length of service is less than one years.15 days if the length of service is less than one years.
    15 days if the length of service is less than one years.
    30 days if the length of service is less than five years.
    60 days if the length of service is less than ten years.
    75 days if the length of service is ten years or more.


  • Voluntary termination by the employee:
    • 30 days if the length of service is less than two years.
    • 60 days if the length of service is two or more years.
  • Termination with cause
    • The notice period is not mandatory.
  • Non-renewal of a fixed term contract:
    • 15 days for the employer.
    • 8 days for the employee.

Severance for Employees

In Portugal, employees who are terminated based on redundancy or unsuitability for the job are entitled to severance pay.

  • For indefinite-term contracts, severance pay is 14 days of salary per year of service up to 12 months of base pay
  • For fixed-term contracts, severance pay is 24 days per year of service

Paid Time Off

Both full-time and part-time employees are entitled to 22 days of paid time off (PTO) a year. Employees are eligible for annual leave after 6 months of work. Part-time employees are entitled to the same leave as full-time employees. During the first year of employment, an employee is not allowed to take more than 20 days.

Public Holidays

Portugal celebrates 14 national holidays and one regional holiday based on the employee's location.

National public holidays include:

  1. New Year's Day
  2. Good Friday
  3. Easter Sunday
  4. Freedom Day Portugal
  5. Labour Day
  6. Corpus Christi
  7. Portugal Day
  8. Assumption Day
  9. Republic Day Portugal
  10. All Saints day
  11. Independence Day Portugal
  12. Immaculate Conception
  13. Christmas
  14. Shrove Tuesday

Onboarding

3 business days

Employment Contract Details

Contracts must be in Portuguese and can be bilingual. They must be in writing and signed by both parties.

The contract must include:

  • Name
  • Start date
  • Length of the employment
  • Job description
  • Trial period conditions
  • Termination conditions
  • Payment conditions for the holiday and Christmas bonus
  • Remote work clause

Probation Period

Probation periods are not mandatory. The maximum probation period is 240 days. The length depends on the type of contract and seniority of the employee:

Indefinite contracts:

  • 90 days for regular workers
  • 180 days for workers who hold positions of technical complexity, high degree of responsibility, perform managerial functions, or require special qualifications.
  • 240 days for workers in directorship or senior executive positions.
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Hiring in Portugal, hassle-free

With Deel, your business can easily hire employees in Portugal with our EOR solution. If you have an entity, our Global Payroll solution takes care of payroll and compliance for your direct employees. Our 250+ in-house experts handle everything from managing local laws, complex tax systems, or your payroll in Portugal and 150+ countries.

Group (8)

Starting at 599 USD

Management fee

Group (9)

26.9%

Estimate Employer Cost

*of employee salary

Want to learn the cost of hiring an employee in Portugal?

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