Dismissal for inadaptation in Portugal: your rights

Dismissal for inadaptation ("despedimento por inadaptacao") is the least used dismissal route in Portugal, and the most demanding one for the employer. If you received one of these letters, start here: you are owed 14 days of pay per year of service, unemployment benefit, and a procedure with requirements that are rarely all met.

This guide is the worker's side. Your employer is reading the other version; it helps to know what it says.

What inadaptation is, and what it is not

The law defines inadaptation as a supervening inability to keep up with the position (Art. 373). Supervening means: you used to manage, now you do not. The qualifying situations are a closed list (Art. 374(1)):

• A continued reduction in productivity or quality: continued, not one bad week;
• Repeated breakdowns of the equipment assigned to the position;
• Risks to health and safety: yours, your colleagues' or third parties'.

For technically complex or management positions there is one extra route: failure to meet objectives previously agreed in writing (Art. 374(2)). No signed document with objectives, no such route.

Do not confuse it with the neighbouring routes: if there is fault (absences, disobedience), the employer's path is the disciplinary procedure; if the position disappears, it is individual redundancy. In inadaptation there is no fault and the position stays. That is the mark of this route.

What your employer had to prove before dismissing you

When the job changed, the normal case, Art. 375(1) requires all of this at once:

1. Changes to the position in the previous 6 months: new technology, new equipment or new manufacturing or sales processes;
2. Adequate, certified professional training, paid by the company, as required by the duty to provide training;
3. An adaptation period of at least 30 days after the training;
4. No other compatible position for your category.

One requirement missing? The dismissal is unlawful (Art. 385). And there is more: the compensation and final credits must be at your disposal by the end of the notice period (Art. 375(7)); paying late is in itself a serious labour offence (Art. 375(8)).

Without changes to the position, the path is even narrower and only applies to technical or management roles with written objectives (Art. 375(2)): the employer must tell you in writing what is wrong, give you at least 5 working days to respond, and issue concrete orders and instructions to correct the performance, all before any decision.

Your special protections

• Chronic illness, disability or reduced capacity: a specific, more protective regime applies; a drop in output linked to your condition cannot be treated as ordinary inadaptation (Art. 374(3)).
• The employer's own safety failures: if the cause is a breach of health and safety obligations attributable to the employer, inadaptation can never be invoked (Art. 374(4)).
• Transferred less than 3 months ago? You have the right to return to your previous position, if it still exists (Art. 375(6)).
• Pregnant, recently a mother, breastfeeding or on parental leave: the dismissal requires a prior opinion from CITE, the equality commission (Art. 63); without it, it is unlawful.
• The position must be filled: for the following 90 days the company must keep its employment level, hiring or transferring someone (Art. 380). If nobody takes your position, that is strong evidence in court that the correct route was a different one and that the dismissal was unlawful.

Deadlines, notice and money

The procedure has fixed steps (Arts. 376 to 378): written notice to you and to worker representatives, 10 days for consultations and documents, an opinion within 10 working days, and a written decision within the following 30 days. If the employer lets this deadline pass, the right to dismiss you on those facts lapses. The decision is also reported to ACT, the labour inspection authority.

Then the notice period runs: 15 days with less than 1 year of service, 30 days from 1 to 5 years, 60 days from 5 to 10 years, 75 days with 10 years or more. Missing notice must be paid in money (Art. 363(4)).

At the end of the line, you are owed:

• Compensation of 14 days of base pay and seniority payments per year of service, for time since 1 May 2023; time between October 2013 and April 2023 counts at 12 days (Art. 366, applied through Art. 379);
• A paid allowance of 2 working days per week during the notice period, to look for a new job (Art. 364);
• Leaving early: terminate with 3 working days of warning, without losing the compensation (Art. 365);
• Final pay credits: holidays, allowances and proportional amounts;
• Unemployment benefit: it is involuntary unemployment; you will need the Mod. RP-5044 declaration, which the employer must hand you.

If the procedure was botched

A dismissal for inadaptation is unlawful when the Art. 375 requirements are not met or the procedure fails (Art. 385), and also on general grounds such as discriminatory motives (Art. 381). In practice, the most common weak points are training that never happened, a shortened adaptation period, and a position left empty after the exit.

Your steps:

1. Keep everything in writing: the initial notice, the decision, the training records (or the lack of them).
2. Count the deadlines: 5 working days to request the suspension of the dismissal through an interim injunction (Art. 386); 60 days to challenge it in court (Art. 387).
3. Careful with the compensation: accepting the full amount creates a presumption that you accepted the dismissal; to rebut it, you must return or make available the entire sum (Art. 366(4) and (5)).
4. If you win: reinstatement or, at your choice, compensation of 15 to 45 days per year, with a 3 month minimum, plus back pay (Arts. 389 to 391).
5. An irregular procedure is also a case for ACT: the complaint is free and can be anonymous.

Just received the letter and still processing it? The guide on being fired in Portugal: the first 48 hours gives you the immediate plan. And if you are the one managing people: all 6 legal routes, side by side, are in the employer's guide.

This guide summarises Arts. 373 to 380 of the Portuguese Labour Code as of July 2026. Collective agreements may set more favourable rules; in a dispute, a lawyer or your union can assess your specific case.