Disciplinary sanctions in Portugal: types, caps and appeals

Your employer can punish you. But only with the 6 sanctions set out in the law, within tight caps, and after hearing you (Arts. 328 to 331 of the Portuguese Labour Code). A fine cannot exceed 1/3 of one day of pay per day of offence or 30 days per year. A suspension cannot exceed 30 days per offence. Holidays never drop below 20 working days. And if the sanction lands within 6 months of you complaining about something, the law presumes it is abusive.

The 6 sanctions that exist

Rita works the checkout at a supermarket in Setúbal and earns 1,000 euros gross per month. She arrived 40 minutes late three times in the same week. The store manager wants to "punish her". What can she do?

Only what is on the list in Art. 328 no. 1. In increasing order of severity:

Outside this list, only what a collective agreement adds, and even then without harming your rights and guarantees (no. 2). A company does not invent sanctions. "You close the shop alone for a month", "you lose your meal allowance" or "you move to the night shift" are not disciplinary sanctions. If they are imposed as a punishment, they are an unlawful change to your working conditions, not an exercise of disciplinary power.

A sanction can also be aggravated by publicising it inside the company (no. 5). In other words, the company may pin the registered reprimand on the notice board. It may not publicise it outside the company.

The fine: 1/3 of a day, 30 days per year

Back to Rita. The company decides to apply a fine for the three late arrivals.

[Common interpretation:] the law speaks of "daily pay" without saying how to calculate it. The most common practice is to divide monthly pay by 30. For Rita: 1,000 divided by 30 = 33.33 euros per day.

The caps in Art. 328 no. 3 a) work like this:

• For offences on the same day: at most 1/3 of daily pay. If Rita was late 3 times on 3 different days, that is 3 offences on 3 days: up to 11.11 euros for each day, 33.33 euros in total. If the 3 offences had been on the same day, the cap would be 11.11 euros for all three together.
• Per calendar year: at most 30 days of pay. For Rita, 1,000 euros adding up all fines from January to December.

And here is a detail almost nobody knows: the fine does not stay with the company. Art. 330 no. 3 obliges the employer to hand over the amount of any fine to Social Security. A company that "collects fines" and keeps them commits a serious administrative offence (no. 4). If you were fined, you have the right to ask in writing when it was handed over and to request proof.

A fine is not the same as a deduction for absences. If you missed work without justification, the company deducts the day without any disciplinary procedure, because you did not work (Art. 256). See the consequences of unjustified absences. A fine is something else: it is a punishment on top, and that one only exists after a procedure and within the caps.

Suspension: up to 30 days, no pay, no seniority

Paulo is a driver at a distribution company in Braga, earns 1,200 euros and was caught using the company van for a friend's house move at the weekend. The company applies a 10 day suspension.

What it costs Paulo:

• Salary: he loses the pay for the 10 days. Using the same 1/30 rule, that is 1,200 divided by 30 times 10 = 400 euros less that month.
• Seniority: those 10 days do not count towards anything that depends on length of service, such as seniority payments or the compensation in a future termination.

The caps are clear (Art. 328 no. 3 c): 30 days per offence and 90 days in total per calendar year. A collective agreement may raise the caps on fines and suspensions up to double, but only "where special working conditions justify it" (no. 4). Without an agreement saying so, the caps are the ones in the law. Exceeding them is a serious administrative offence (no. 6).

Do not confuse this suspension with preventive suspension during the disciplinary procedure. That one comes before the decision, to keep you away while the company investigates, and keeps your full salary (Art. 329 no. 5). Suspension as a sanction comes after the decision and cuts your salary.

Loss of holidays: never below 20 working days

Joana is entitled to 22 working days of holiday. The company wants to take 5 days away as a sanction. It cannot. Art. 328 no. 3 b) says that the loss of holiday days cannot compromise the enjoyment of 20 working days. Only 2 days can be taken from Joana.

If Joana had 25 days under a collective agreement, the sanction could reach 5 days. The floor is always 20 working days.

The 4 deadlines the employer must meet

A sanction applied out of time is an unlawful sanction, even if the offence is real. Note the four (Art. 329 and Art. 330 no. 2):

1. 60 days to start. The disciplinary procedure must begin within 60 days of the day the employer, or the manager with disciplinary power, learned of the offence (Art. 329 no. 2). Rita's manager saw the late arrivals on 2 September 2026. If by 2 November no procedure has been opened, the September late arrivals can no longer be punished.
2. 1 year limitation. The right to punish lapses 1 year after the offence was committed (no. 1). If the fact is also a crime, the criminal limitation period applies, which is longer.
3. 1 year to conclude. The procedure lapses if 1 year passes from the day it was opened without you being notified of the final decision (no. 3).
4. 3 months to apply. After the decision, the sanction must be applied within the following 3 months, otherwise it lapses (Art. 330 no. 2). A suspension decided in January and "saved" for May is no longer valid.

Keep dates. The day the manager found out, the day the procedure was communicated, the decision date and the application date. They are your best defence.

Nobody is punished without being heard

The rule that protects workers most is in Art. 329 no. 6: a disciplinary sanction cannot be applied without a prior hearing of the worker. Applying a sanction without hearing you is a serious administrative offence (no. 8).

What "hearing" means depends on the sanction:

• Dismissal: requires a written notice of charges (nota de culpa), 10 working days to reply, an investigation and a written decision (Arts. 353 to 357). That is the full disciplinary procedure. If you have received one, read what to do when you receive a notice of charges.
• Other sanctions: the law only requires that you be heard before the decision. [Common interpretation:] for a reprimand or a fine a formal notice of charges is not mandatory, but the company must tell you which facts you are accused of and give you the chance to reply, preferably in writing. A "hearing" where they only announce a decision already taken does not count.

Two extra rules from Art. 330 no. 1:

• Proportionality. The sanction must fit the seriousness of the offence and your degree of fault. A 30 day suspension for a 10 minute delay, with no history, fails this test.
• One sanction per offence. The company cannot reprimand you and then fine you for the same late arrival. It picks one.

The company must also keep an up to date register of the sanctions it applies (Art. 332), which the ACT may ask to see. Having no register is a minor administrative offence (no. 2).

Abusive sanction: when the punishment is revenge

In March 2026 Rita complained in writing about the cold in the checkout area and asked the company to turn on the heating. In May, management applies a 10 day suspension for "late arrivals". Rita was in fact late twice.

This is where Art. 331 comes in. The law treats a sanction as abusive when it is motivated by the worker (no. 1):

• having legitimately complained about working conditions (a);
• having refused an order they were not bound to obey, for example an order contrary to their rights (b, together with Art. 128);
• holding or standing for a position in a worker representation body, such as the works council or the union (c);
• having claimed to be a victim of harassment or being a witness in harassment proceedings (d);
• in general, exercising or invoking their rights or guarantees (e).

What changes everything is the presumption in no. 2. When the sanction is applied:

• within 6 months of any of those facts, or
• within 1 year of a complaint or other exercise of rights on equality, non discrimination and harassment,

the law presumes it is abusive. You do not have to prove the company wanted revenge. The company has to prove it did not.

Rita complained in March. The suspension came in May, two months later. It is within the 6 months. Even with the two real late arrivals, the suspension is presumed abusive. It is up to the company to show it would punish any worker with two late arrivals in the same way.

What an abusive sanction costs the employer

On top of a very serious administrative offence (no. 7), the company must compensate you (nos. 3 to 6):

• Fine or suspension: compensation of never less than 10 times the fine or the pay you lost (no. 5). Rita lost 10 days of pay, 333.33 euros. The minimum compensation is 3,333.33 euros.
• Dismissal: you can choose between reinstatement and compensation of 30 to 60 days of base pay and seniority payments for each year or fraction of service, with a minimum of 6 months (no. 4 and Art. 392 no. 3). That is more than the 15 to 45 days of an ordinary unlawful dismissal.
• Worker representatives (c of no. 1): the minimums double. Fine or suspension: 20 times. Dismissal: minimum of 12 months of base pay and seniority payments (no. 6). If Rita were a candidate for the works council, the minimum compensation for the suspension would rise to 6,666.67 euros.

And the law gives you a way out: the application of an abusive sanction is just cause for you to terminate the contract (Art. 394 no. 2 c), with a right to compensation. You have 30 days from learning of the facts to communicate the termination in writing (Art. 395 no. 1). Read how to prove just cause for constructive dismissal before taking that step.

How to appeal a sanction

You received a sanction and believe it is unfair, out of time, above the caps or abusive. Art. 329 no. 7 gives you three routes, none of which excludes the others:

1. Appeal to the manager above the one who applied the sanction. In writing, dated, stating what is wrong: the deadline, the cap, the missing hearing, the presumption of abuse. It is free and fast.
2. The dispute resolution mechanism of your collective agreement, if your agreement provides one. Ask your union.
3. A claim in the labour court. For sanctions other than dismissal, the Labour Code sets no specific deadline for the claim; credits arising from the contract can be claimed up to 1 year after the contract ends (Art. 337). For dismissal, the deadline is 60 days from receiving the communication (Art. 387 no. 2). Read first can my employer fire me like this, is it legal?.

In parallel, you can file a complaint with the ACT. Exceeding the caps on fines, holidays or suspension, applying a sanction without a prior hearing, applying two sanctions for the same offence or keeping the fine money are serious administrative offences. An abusive sanction is very serious. The ACT does not give you your salary back, but the penalty weighs in any negotiation.

If the sanction is linked to harassment, read this guide together with workplace bullying: what counts. A harassment complaint extends the presumption of abuse to 1 year.

For employers: applying a sanction that survives in court

A well applied sanction corrects behaviour. A badly applied one costs 10 times its value. Before deciding, check five points. First, the deadline: the procedure opens within 60 days of the manager with disciplinary power learning of the offence, and the sanction is applied within 3 months of the decision (Arts. 329 no. 2 and 330 no. 2). Second, the prior hearing: even for a reprimand, communicate the facts in writing and give the worker a deadline to reply; keep the reply (Art. 329 no. 6). Third, the caps: fine up to 1/3 of daily pay per day and 30 days per year, holidays never below 20 working days, suspension up to 30 days per offence and 90 per year, unless a collective agreement doubles the ceilings (Art. 328 nos. 3 and 4). Fourth, proportionality and uniqueness: one sanction per offence, matched to seriousness and fault; a progressive scale (reprimand, then registered reprimand, then fine) is easier to defend than a suspension at the first offence (Art. 330 no. 1). Fifth, the context: if the worker complained, refused an order, reported harassment or stood as a representative in the last 6 months (1 year for harassment and equality), the sanction is presumed abusive and the burden of proof is yours (Art. 331 no. 2). Hand over fine amounts to Social Security and keep the sanctions register up to date (Arts. 330 no. 3 and 332). For dismissal, follow the disciplinary procedure step by step. In cases involving worker representatives or a harassment complaint, having a lawyer review the file before the decision is the prudent recommendation.