Training hours in Portugal: the 40 hours a year you are owed

You are entitled to 40 hours of training a year, paid by the employer and done during working time (Art. 131 no. 2 of the Portuguese Labour Code). If the employer does not deliver them, the hours do not vanish: they become a credit of hours for training of your choice and, when you leave, they are paid out in cash (Arts. 132 and 134). It is one of the most ignored rights in the Code, and one of the easiest to count.

40 hours a year, for every employee

Rita has worked for 4 years at a logistics company in Leiria: she started in January 2022, earns 1,100 euros a month, 40 hours a week. In 4 years she has done zero hours of training. Nobody ever offered her a course, asked her to attend a session or had her sign an attendance sheet. Under the law, the company owes her 160 hours, and if Rita leaves, it owes her the money.

The rule is in Art. 131 no. 2: the employee is entitled, in each year, to a minimum of 40 hours of continuous training. Continuous training is the training done during your working life to update or widen your skills, not the course you did before being hired. Since 1 October 2019 the minimum is 40 hours; before that it was 35 (Law 93/2019).

Who is entitled:

• Permanent contract: 40 hours in each calendar year.
• Fixed-term contract of 3 months or more: a number of hours pro rata to the length of the contract in that year. A 6 month contract gives 20 hours.
• Fixed-term contract under 3 months: the law sets no minimum.
• Temporary agency work or occasional secondment: training given by the company where you actually work counts and releases your employer (no. 8).

The employer does not get to pick who is trained and who is not. What the law adds is a collective floor: each year it must provide training to at least 10% of the workforce (no. 5). That floor does not replace your individual right; it only guarantees that training does not stop for a whole year.

What counts as training (and what does not)

The training does not have to come from a school. Art. 131 no. 3 accepts three routes: the employer itself, a certified training provider or an educational establishment recognised by the competent ministry. In every case the course gives rise to a certificate and an entry in the Individual Skills Record (Caderneta Individual de Competencias), the official register of the National Qualifications System.

This means in-house training counts, as long as it is real training, with content, duration and a certificate. Two hours listening to the manager explain the new rota is not training.

These also count towards the 40 hours (no. 4):

• Hours of release for classes and absences for exams under the student worker status.
• Absences in an RVCC process (recognition, validation and certification of skills).

The training area is set by agreement or, if there is no agreement, by the employer, but it must match or be related to the activity you perform (Art. 133 no. 1). An Excel course for someone in accounting, yes; a forklift course for someone in customer service, no. Breaking this rule is a serious administrative offence (no. 3).

Can the employer postpone it? Up to 2 years

Art. 131 no. 6 gives both sides some room. The employer may bring forward a year's training by up to 2 years, or defer (postpone) it for the same period, but the deferral is only valid if the training plan provides for it. And any training delivered always counts against the oldest obligation: if Rita does 40 hours in 2026, those hours settle the year 2022, not 2026.

For RVCC or training that gives double certification (academic and professional), the period for bringing forward rises to 5 years (no. 7).

[Common interpretation: the law speaks of the annual hours "falling due" without fixing a date. The usual reading is that a year's 40 hours fall due at the end of that calendar year, and the 2 year window to deliver them runs from there.]

2 years have passed and nothing: the hours credit is born

This is the part almost nobody knows. If a year's hours are not delivered by the end of the 2 years following their due date, they become a credit of hours of the same number for training on the employee's initiative (Art. 132 no. 1). Rita's 40 hours for 2022, not delivered by the end of 2024, became a credit at the start of 2025.

The credit has four rules (Art. 132):

1. It is paid and counts as service time. The hours are referenced to your normal working period, carry the right to pay and count as effective service (no. 2). You do not lose salary for attending training.
2. You use it with 10 days notice. You tell the employer which course you will attend at least 10 days in advance (no. 3). You do not need permission; you need to give notice.
3. The choice is yours. For training done with the credit, you pick the area: it must relate to your activity or be in information and communication technology, health and safety at work or a foreign language (Art. 133 no. 2). An English or an Excel course always fits.
4. It lapses 3 years after it arose. Unused credit ceases 3 years after it was constituted (no. 6). If you hold several credits, any training you do settles the oldest one first (no. 5).

And the cost of the course? The law only obliges the employer to pay you the hours. The price of the course is on you, unless the collective agreement or an individual agreement creates a subsidy for the cost of training, up to the value of the pay for the credit hours used (no. 4).

When you leave, the hours are paid in cash

Art. 134 is a single sentence: when the contract ends, you are entitled to receive the pay corresponding to the minimum annual number of training hours that were not provided to you, or to the hours credit you hold on that date.

So two things go into the calculation:

• Credits already constituted (hours more than 2 years old) that have not yet lapsed.
• Minimum annual hours still inside the 2 year window: these are paid too, even if they are not yet a "credit".

It applies to every way of leaving: dismissal, end of a fixed-term contract, mutual agreement or resignation with notice. And it goes into the final settlement together with the other end of contract credits.

Rita's numbers

Hourly pay (Art. 271) = (monthly salary x 12) / (52 x weekly hours) = (1,100 x 12) / (52 x 40) = 13,200 / 2,080 = 6.35 euros an hour.

[Common interpretation: for the year of departure, the ACT simulator counts hours pro rata to the months worked. The 8 months of 2026 would add 26.7 hours, about 169 euros. The law only spells out the pro rata rule for fixed-term contracts, so this amount is debatable.]

A thousand euros Rita only receives if she asks for them. The employer's final settlement rarely includes them on its own initiative.

How many years back you can count

Put the two counts of Art. 132 together, 2 years until it becomes a credit and 3 years until it lapses, and each year of training has a useful life of about 5 years.

[Common interpretation: counting the due date at the end of the calendar year, the hours of year Y become a credit at the start of Y+3 and lapse at the start of Y+6. In September 2026, the hours for 2020 have already lapsed (start of 2026); those for 2021 last until the start of 2027; those for 2022 onwards are all alive.]

And there is a second clock, in Art. 337: after leaving, you have 1 year to claim any employment credit, training included. After that year it is time-barred and can no longer be enforced in court, even if you are right.

How to prove you were not given training

Here the law works in your favour: it is the employer that has to prove it delivered training, because it is the employer that issues the certificate and registers the course (Art. 131 no. 3). In practice, do this:

• Ask in writing for the record of the training sessions you attended, with dates, hours and certificates. Keep the request and the reply.
• Check your Individual Skills Record: if nothing is there, it is a strong sign nothing was done.
• Do not confuse meetings, briefings or "coaching" with training. Without a certificate, it does not count.
• If you are still at the company, use the credit: give 10 days notice of the course you will attend. The employer cannot refuse the hours.
• If you have already left, send the employer a written demand with the amount (hours x hourly pay) and a deadline to pay. If it does not pay, file a complaint with ACT and go to the labour court, within the year.

Seven situations, what the law says

For employers: training without the risk of a fine

If you run a company, continuous training is an annual duty with a fine waiting: breaching nos. 1, 2 or 5 of Art. 131 is a serious administrative offence, and undelivered hours pile up as a debt that falls due the day the employee leaves (Art. 134). Draw up a written annual or multi-year training plan: it is what allows you to defer training by up to 2 years (no. 6) and it is the first thing ACT asks for. Train at least 10% of the workforce each year and guarantee every employee the 40 hours within the window. Issue a certificate for each course and register it in the Individual Skills Record (no. 3): without the record, you cannot prove compliance. In-house training counts, as long as it is structured and related to the job (Art. 133 no. 1). When hiring, check the employer's annual obligations; when closing a final settlement, add the missing hours at the hourly pay rate, and the ACT simulator gives the figure. To adapt the regime through a collective agreement (no. 9), checking with a lawyer is the prudent recommendation.