Work accident in Portugal: what to do and who pays

Fell off your scooter on a delivery, slipped in the warehouse, or got hurt on your way to work? That may be a work accident, and the company's insurer pays for the treatment and for the pay you lose, not Social Security (Law 98/2009). This guide shows you what to do in the first 48 hours, how much you get, and the deadlines you cannot miss.

What counts as a work accident

The legal definition has three parts (Article 8(1)): it happens at the workplace, during working time, and it produces bodily injury, functional disturbance or illness that reduces your capacity to work or to earn, or death.

Each part is broader than it sounds:

• Workplace means any place where you are, or must go to, because of your work and where you are under the employer's control (Article 8(2)). It is not only the factory or the office: it is the street if you are a courier, or the client's home if you are a technician. In remote work, it is the place stated in the teleworking agreement.
• Working time covers preparation acts before the shift, related acts after it, and normal or forced breaks. An accident in the changing room or on a coffee break is not excluded just because of that.
• The injury is presumed to come from the accident. If the injury appears at the workplace and during working time, the law presumes it was caused by the accident (Article 10(1)). You only have to prove the link if the injury shows up later.

The commute counts too

An accident on the journey is a work accident (Article 9). The protection covers the normal route, within the time usually taken:

• between your home (habitual or occasional) and the workplace;
• between the workplace and the place where you have your meal;
• between two jobs, if you have more than one, and the employer you were travelling to is liable;
• between work and the place where you collect your pay or receive treatment for an earlier accident.

Interruptions and detours for reasonable personal needs, such as dropping a child at school or stopping at the pharmacy, do not remove your protection, and neither do detours caused by force majeure (Article 9(3)).

Protection applies to every employee, with or without a written contract, including trainees, apprentices and interns (Article 3). A foreign worker in Portugal is treated the same as a Portuguese worker (Article 5). And if you work for a delivery or ride hailing app, work accident protection is one of the rights you gain with the presumption of employment. See the guide to platform work rights.

What to do in the first 48 hours

Step by step, with the legal deadlines:

1. Get first aid. The employer must provide it and arrange transport to a place where you can be treated, always, even if liability is disputed later (Article 26).
2. Report to your employer within 48 hours, verbally or in writing, unless the employer witnessed the accident (Article 86). If the injury only shows up later, the deadline runs from then. Report in writing even if you already told someone in person: an email or a message works as evidence.
3. The employer reports to the insurer within 24 hours of learning about it (Article 87). If there is no insurance, the employer must report to the labour court within 8 days, and immediately in the event of death (Article 88).
4. Fatal or serious accident: ACT within 24 hours. The employer must notify ACT of fatal accidents and serious physical injuries within 24 hours (Article 111 of Law 102/2009). If the company hides the accident, you can file a complaint with ACT.
5. Keep everything: medical forms, prescriptions, pharmacy and transport receipts, names of witnesses, photos of the place. If the insurer or the employer stall the process, you can report the accident to the court yourself, directly or through someone else (Article 92).

Watch out for Article 86(4): if you fail to report in time and because of that the employer could not give you the assistance you needed, you may lose benefits to the extent of the harm that failure caused. Reporting early protects your health and your money.

Who pays: the insurer, not Social Security

Every employer is legally required to transfer work accident liability to an insurance company (Article 79(1)). That is why a work accident does not follow the sickness route: there is no Social Security sick leave and no sickness benefit. There is a claim with the company's insurer, which pays for treatment and compensation.

You feel the difference in your pocket. On ordinary sick leave, Social Security pays between 55% and 75%, with 3 waiting days unpaid. After a work accident, the insurer pays from the following day, and the day of the accident is paid by the employer (Article 71(6)). There are no waiting days.

Three situations worth knowing:

• Did the company declare a lower salary to the insurer than what you actually earn? The insurer is only liable up to the declared figure, and the employer pays the difference (Article 79(4) and (5)). Check on your payslip what the company declares. This is called underinsurance and we explain it in the health and safety obligations guide.
• No insurance at all? The employer is directly liable for everything. If the company cannot pay the pensions, the Work Accident Fund steps in and guarantees payment when the liable party cannot (Article 82).
• Did the employer break safety rules? If the accident resulted from failure to observe health and safety rules, liability is aggravated: it covers all losses, financial and non financial, and compensation for absolute temporary incapacity rises to 100% of your pay (Article 18). The insurer advances what would be due without fault and then claims it back from the employer (Article 79(3)).

And one clear prohibition: the employer cannot deduct anything from your pay to cover the cost of the insurance or of the accident. Any such agreement is void (Article 13).

How much you get: the benefits table

The right to compensation has two parts (Article 23): benefits in kind (treatment) and benefits in cash (compensation and pensions).

In kind, the insurer pays whatever is needed for your recovery (Article 25): consultations and surgery, medication, nursing, hospital stays, physiotherapy and rehabilitation, prostheses and technical aids (including glasses and dental prostheses), transport and accommodation for treatment and court hearings (Article 39), and even psychological support for your family where needed.

In cash, the table in Article 48(3):

Calculation rules that work in your favour (Article 71):

• The base is gross pay and includes everything you receive regularly, not only base salary.
• Do you work part time? The calculation is made as if you worked full time (paragraph 9).
• Are you a trainee, apprentice or intern? The base is the average pay of a worker in the company doing the corresponding job (paragraph 7).
• Time off for examinations, treatment and fitting of prostheses does not reduce your pay (paragraph 10).

Compensation for temporary incapacity is paid monthly, and pensions are paid in 14 instalments with allowances in June and November (Article 72). Work accident credits are non transferable, cannot be seized and cannot be waived (Article 78). You cannot sign them away and nobody can attach them.

Discharge, permanent incapacity and the medical board

The insurer has the right to appoint the treating doctor (Article 28(1)). But you are not left in that doctor's hands:

• Discharged before you are well? You can see any doctor and request an examination by the labour court expert (Article 28(2)(d)). This is the right tool when the insurer wants to close the file too early.
• You are entitled to your clinical information and to the examination and discharge forms (Articles 35 and 36).
• Temporary incapacity turns into permanent after 18 consecutive months, with a fresh assessment by the court expert. The public prosecutor can extend this to 30 months if you are still under treatment (Article 22).

The degree of permanent incapacity is set as a percentage under the National Disability Table in force on the date of the accident (Articles 20 and 21). That number determines the pension.

Two notes on pensions:

• Redemption: if partial permanent incapacity is under 30% and the annual pension is low (up to 6 times the guaranteed minimum monthly wage), the pension is paid as a single capital sum (Article 75(1)). Taking the capital does not remove your right to treatment or to a review (Article 77).
• Got worse or came back? In case of relapse or aggravation, the right to treatment and compensation continues after discharge (Article 24), and you can ask for the benefit to be reviewed (Article 77).

When the insurer can refuse, and when it cannot

The law calls it descaracterização, meaning the accident loses its work accident status (Article 14). The insurer or the employer do not have to compensate an accident that:

• was caused deliberately by the injured worker, or came from a breach of safety conditions without justification. There is justification if, given your level of education or access to information, you would hardly know the rule or would find it clearly hard to understand (paragraph 2);
• came exclusively from gross negligence, which the law defines as reckless behaviour to a high and significant degree. A risky move that comes from being used to the danger of the job, from confidence in professional experience or from the customs of the trade does not count as gross negligence (paragraph 3);
• resulted from loss of the use of reason, for example through alcohol, unless that state came from the work itself or the employer knew about it and let you work anyway.

There is also no compensation for force majeure, meaning unavoidable natural forces, but only if the work did not create the risk and you were not carrying out an order in conditions of obvious danger (Article 15). Even in those cases the employer must always provide first aid and transport (Article 26).

If a colleague or a third party caused the accident, for example a driver who hits you on a delivery, you still have the right to compensation and you can also sue the person responsible under general law (Article 17).

Has the insurer refused and you think it is wrong? Work accident cases run in the labour court with the public prosecutor involved, and the conciliation stage does not cost you lawyer fees. Report the accident to the court (Article 92) and bring your documents.

Deadlines, self-employment and going back to work

The deadline that matters is 1 year. The right of action expires 1 year after clinical discharge is formally communicated to you, or after death for family members (Article 179(1)). Benefits already set lapse 5 years after they fall due, and the clock does not start while you have no personal knowledge that they were set (paragraphs 2 and 3).

Working under a service contract (recibos verdes)? Two scenarios:

• If you are in false self-employment, working as if you were an employee, work accident protection applies to the de facto employment relationship. See the 8 signs of false self-employment.
• If you are genuinely self-employed, the law requires you to take out your own work accident insurance, regulated in a separate diploma (Article 184). Without it an accident leaves you with no safety net, alongside the social security cover for the self-employed, which covers illness but not accidents at work.

When you go back to work, the employer must arrange your professional rehabilitation and adapt your job to your limitations (Article 44). The law devotes a whole chapter to reintegrating workers with reduced capacity (Articles 154 onwards).

Are you an employer? The mirror image of this guide is prevention: organise your health and safety service, hold the right insurance and declare real salaries. The 7 obligations are in the health and safety at work guide. Underinsurance and no insurance always cost more than the premium.

This guide is general information and does not replace legal advice for your specific case. Questions? ola@despacho.pt