Weekly rest in Portugal: can you be made to work Sundays?

Portuguese law guarantees you 1 rest day per week (Art. 232 no. 1 of the Labour Code). It does not guarantee that the day is Sunday: in shops, restaurants, hospitals, security, cleaning or trade fairs, your day off can fall on any other day. What nobody can take from you is the day off itself. And if you are called in to work on it, every hour is paid with a 50% surcharge and you earn 1 paid compensatory rest day.

One day per week. Not necessarily Sunday

Marta works in a clothing shop in Braga. The shop opens Monday to Sunday and Marta's day off is Tuesday. Everything is in order: the Code gives her at least one rest day per week (Art. 232 no. 1) and the shop falls within the list of businesses where the day off does not have to be Sunday (no. 2). For Marta, Sunday is a normal working day.

Marta's brother Pedro works in the accounts department of a factory that closes at the weekend. For him, Sunday is the mandatory day off and Saturday is the complementary day off his contract provides. If his boss calls him in on a Sunday, that is overtime: it is paid extra and gives him another rest day.

Fix this difference in your mind, because everything else depends on it:

When your day off does not have to be Sunday

Art. 232 no. 2 says the mandatory weekly rest day may cease to be Sunday, besides the cases set out in special legislation, when you work:

• in a business exempt from closing one full day per week, or required to close on a day other than Sunday (point a);
• in a business whose operation cannot be interrupted: hospitals, hotels, continuous production plants (point b);
• in an activity that must take place on the rest day of the other workers, such as machine maintenance (point c);
• in security or cleaning (point d);
• at an exhibition or trade fair (point e).

Outside these situations, and without special legislation saying otherwise, the mandatory day off is Sunday. Someone working in an office from Monday to Friday cannot have their mandatory day off moved to Wednesday just because the company decided so.

If your company is on the list, your day off is whatever day the work schedule sets. The weekly rest day must appear on the posted schedule (Art. 200 no. 1) and changing it follows the rules for changing the schedule.

Mandatory rest and complementary rest: only one comes from the law

The law imposes one day. The two-day weekend most of us take for granted comes from somewhere else: Art. 232 no. 3 says that a collective agreement or the employment contract may establish a complementary weekly rest, continuous or split, in all or some weeks of the year.

In practice:

• A 5-day, 40-hour contract (the most common): the 5th free day is complementary rest. It exists because the contract provides for it.
• Half a day: the collective agreement may give only Saturday afternoon, or a full day every other week. All of this is valid complementary rest.
• A 6-day contract: legal, as long as it respects the 40 weekly hours. There is only the mandatory day off.

Why does the distinction matter? Because the law protects the two days off differently. Working either of them is overtime at +50% (Art. 268 no. 1 b). But the compensatory day in Art. 229 no. 4 exists only for the mandatory day off. If Pedro works on Saturday, he gets the hours at +50% and that is it. If he works on Sunday, he gets the hours at +50% and a full paid rest day.

The 35 hours of Art. 233

Nuno is a machine operator and his Saturday shift ends at 10 pm. His mandatory day off is Sunday. What is the earliest the company can have him start on Monday?

Art. 233 no. 1 answers: the mandatory weekly rest and the 11 hours of daily rest (Art. 214) are taken together, without interruption. Add them up: 24 hours of rest plus 11 hours of daily rest make 35 consecutive hours. From 10 pm on Saturday, 35 hours take us to 9 am on Monday. Starting at 7 am would be illegal, and a serious offence (no. 4).

If Nuno also has a complementary day off on Saturday, joined to Sunday, the 11 hours count within it (no. 2): the full weekend already covers everything.

No. 3 opens some exceptions: managers and directors with an exemption from working hours, work split across the day (cleaning, for example), some activities under the special flexibility rules of Art. 207 no. 2, and foreseeable peaks of activity in tourism. Outside these, the 35 hours apply to everyone.

Called in on your day off: what you are owed

Rui earns 1,000 euros gross for 40 hours per week and his day off is Sunday. On a stocktaking Sunday, the company asks him for 8 hours. Do the maths with Art. 271: hourly pay = (1,000 x 12) / (52 x 40) = 5.77 euros. Each hour on the day off is worth 5.77 x 1.5 = 8.65 euros. The 8 hours are worth 69.23 euros. If Rui had already passed 100 overtime hours in the year, the surcharge would double to 100% (Art. 268 no. 2): 8 x 5.77 x 2 = 92.31 euros.

And money does not close the account. Because Sunday is Rui's mandatory day off, he is entitled to 1 paid compensatory rest day, to be taken within the next 3 working days (Art. 229 no. 4). It is not "the hours": it is a full day, whether he worked 8 hours or 3. The day is set by agreement; without agreement, the employer sets it (no. 5). Not granting it is a very serious offence (no. 7).

Rules that apply to all work on a day off:

• Only under the conditions of Art. 227: a temporary surge of work, force majeure, or serious damage to the company. Calling you in every Sunday because the company is short-staffed is illegal, and a very serious offence (no. 4).
• You can ask to be excused if you have a valid reason and ask expressly (Art. 227 no. 3). Without asking, you are required to go.
• Cap: on a day off, mandatory or complementary, the maximum overtime equals your normal daily hours, usually 8 (Art. 228 no. 1 e). On a half day of complementary rest, half of that (point f). And these hours count towards the annual ceiling of 150 or 175 hours.
• Records are mandatory: the employer records overtime before and after it happens, with the reason and the compensatory rest taken (Art. 231 nos. 1 and 4). Without records, you are entitled to 2 hours of overtime pay for each day worked outside your schedule (no. 5). See the guide on working time records.
• The 2-hour exception: if you stayed up to 2 hours on your mandatory day off because the colleague on the next shift was unexpectedly absent, the compensation covers only the hours, not a full day (Art. 230 no. 1).

Normal Sundays, public holidays and shifts: the usual confusions

Sunday is a normal day for you and there is no extra pay. That is legal. If you work in one of the activities in Art. 232 no. 2 and your day off is another day, the Labour Code does not require a surcharge for working on Sunday. Many collective agreements in retail and hospitality do provide one, but that comes from the agreement, not from the law. Check yours on the DGERT portal before making a claim.

A public holiday is not a day off. On a public holiday that is part of your schedule, Art. 269 gives compensatory rest of half the hours or a 50% surcharge, at the employer's choice. On a day off, the regime is the one in this guide: +50% per hour and, on the mandatory day off, 1 compensatory day. And remember that on mandatory public holidays every business that cannot operate on Sundays must close (Art. 236 no. 1).

Rotating shifts. Shift workers only change shift after the weekly rest day (Art. 221 no. 4), and in continuous operations there is at least 1 rest day in every 7 (no. 5). The day off rotates, but it always exists.

Compressed schedule. In a 4x10 week you have 3 free days, but only 1 is the mandatory day off. The other 2 are complementary.

Couples in the same company. The employer must, whenever possible, give the day off on the same day to workers of the same household who ask for it (Art. 232 no. 4). Ask in writing.

Six situations and what the law says

What to do if your day off is denied

Complain in writing to the company, with the dates and the article at stake (232 for the missing day off, 229 for the compensatory day, 268 for the pay). Keep your clock-in records, rotas and messages. If nothing changes, file a complaint with ACT: a missing day off is a serious offence and a missing compensatory day is a very serious one. Unpaid hours are wage claims you can demand up to 1 year after the contract ends (Art. 337).

For employers: days off without fines

If you manage rotas with Sunday work, first confirm which point of Art. 232 no. 2 your activity falls under. Without a fit, the mandatory day off is Sunday and you cannot move it by unilateral decision. Set the rest day in the posted schedule and, if you grant complementary rest, write it into the contract or apply the collective agreement: it is the agreement that defines whether it is a full day, half a day or only some weeks. Design rotas with the 35 hours of Art. 233 in mind, especially on the transition from a Saturday night shift to a Monday morning. When you call someone in on their mandatory day off, document the reason under Art. 227, schedule the compensatory day within the next 3 working days and log everything in the overtime record with the reason and the date the rest was taken (Art. 231 no. 4): missing records cost 2 hours of overtime pay per day to each worker (no. 5), and a missing compensatory day is a very serious offence. For sectors with their own collective agreement and negotiated Sunday surcharges, checking the clauses with a lawyer is the prudent recommendation.