Working time records in Portugal: what the law requires

Portuguese law does not force you to buy a time clock. It does force every company, from the very first employee, to keep working time records, and the price of failing is concrete: a serious administrative offence plus 2 hours of overtime pay for every unrecorded day of extra work.

This guide shows what your working time records in Portugal must contain to be legal, how long to keep them, and the rules for apps and biometric clocks. It is written for you, the employer. The legal basis is in Arts. 202 and 231 of the Labour Code.

One everyday name, four legal documents

"Attendance record" is the everyday name; the law itself only mentions the "attendance control system existing in the company" in passing (Art. 231(6)). On paper, what the labour inspectorate (ACT) looks for is four different documents:

The first two are set up at hiring; they are covered in the guide on how to hire an employee, together with the health and safety obligations. This guide covers the two records of hours. Do not confuse any of them with Social Security reporting, which runs through a separate channel described in the guide on the monthly Social Security declaration.

Working time records: the rule in Art. 202

The record covers everyone who works for the company as an employee, including staff with a working time exemption (Art. 202(1)). Leaving managers and senior staff out of the record is the classic mistake; the law does not.

The minimum content is whatever makes the maths possible (Art. 202(2)): start time, end time, and the interruptions or breaks that do not count as working time. In the end, the record must answer one simple question: how many hours did this employee work, on this day and in this week? The maximums, 8 hours per day and 40 per week, are explained in the guide on working hours limits.

Work outside the premises (sales reps, couriers, site crews) does not waive the record: the employee countersigns it as soon as they return to the company, or sends it back signed. The company must hold the signed record within 15 days of the work (Art. 202(3)).

Keep it for five years (Art. 202(4)). The period also covers two documents linked to it: the employee's declaration trading an absence for holiday days, and the agreement letting an employee make up an absence with extra hours on another day (Arts. 257 and 226(3); the mechanics of absences are in the guide on justified and unjustified absences). Breaching any part of Art. 202 is a serious administrative offence (Art. 202(5)).

Overtime: the stricter record

Overtime is work performed outside the working schedule (Art. 226(1)). It is only allowed for occasional and temporary increases in workload, force majeure, or to prevent serious damage to the company (Art. 227), and that reason is exactly what the record must show. Not everything counts: the 15 minute tolerance, training outside the schedule up to two hours a day, and agreed make-up time for absences are all excluded (Art. 226(3)). Watch the schedule-exempt staff too: if the exemption agreement caps their working period, anything beyond the cap is overtime (Art. 226(2)).

The rules for this record (Art. 231) are tighter than for the general one:

• Write it down in real time: hours are recorded before the overtime starts and right after it ends (Art. 231(1)), not "next Monday".
• Employee countersignature: when the employee is not the one filling it in, they countersign immediately after the work (Art. 231(2)). Outside the premises, the 15 day rule applies (Art. 231(3)).
• Content: the reason for the overtime and the compensatory rest actually taken (Art. 231(4)).
• A serious support: immediate consultation and printing, permanently up to date, no unexplained corrections or erasures (Art. 231(6)).
• Yearly report to ACT: the named list of employees who worked overtime in the previous year, hours broken down, endorsed by the workers committee or the union (Art. 231(7)). That list must be kept for five years (Art. 231(8)).

The special sanction sits in Art. 231(5) and is automatic: if the record, the countersignature or the reason is missing, each day with activity outside the schedule entitles the employee to pay corresponding to 2 hours of overtime. [Common interpretation:] applying the legal uplifts for the 1st and 2nd hour (25% and 37.5%), on a 1,200 euro salary (hourly rate 6.92 euros) that is 18.17 euros per day; a month of missing records on working days is roughly 400 euros per employee. Add the serious offence (Art. 231(9)) and the risk of silently crossing the yearly caps of 175 hours (micro and small companies) or 150 hours (medium and large) set by Art. 228. The amounts due for each hour are in the guide on overtime pay; if the extra workload is regular, compare it with the hours bank regime.

Paper, Excel, app or biometrics: the format is free (with rules)

The law imposes no technology. Marta's paper sheet, a spreadsheet, a clock-in app or a physical time clock all work, as long as the record can be consulted immediately and, for overtime, meets Art. 231(6). If the system lives in the cloud, make sure someone at the site can open and print it during an inspection.

Biometrics are a special case. Fingerprint or face recognition clocks are only lawful for two purposes: attendance control and access control to the employer premises (Art. 28(6) of Law 58/2019). The conditions, confirmed by the Portuguese data protection authority (CNPD):

• The system may only store irreversible representations (templates) of the biometric data, never the fingerprint itself. Ask the supplier for the manufacturer's declaration attesting this.
• The data must be necessary, adequate and proportionate, with the prior opinion of the workers committee where one exists (Art. 18 of the Labour Code).
• Mandatory destruction when the employee is transferred to another site or leaves the company (Art. 18(3)); keeping the data is a serious offence.
• No prior CNPD authorisation (that requirement ended with the GDPR), but a data protection impact assessment must be done before switching the system on: the CNPD treats it as mandatory whenever employee data is involved.
• No reuse: biometric data collected for attendance cannot serve any other purpose, not even the vending machines, an example given by the CNPD itself.

What each failure costs

The concrete amount of each fine depends on the company's turnover and degree of fault (Arts. 548 to 566 of the Labour Code); the mechanics are explained in the guide on filing a complaint with ACT.

Are you the employee? The record works for you

If you are on the other side of the desk, this document protects you more than you think:

• You can consult it. The record must by law sit in an accessible place allowing immediate consultation, and the GDPR gives you the right to a copy of your data. You are the one who countersigns your overtime record: do not sign hours that do not match reality.
• Unrecorded overtime pays. For each day you worked outside your schedule without a proper record, you are entitled to 2 hours of overtime pay (Art. 231(5)), on top of the payment for the hours themselves. If the company refuses, the route is a complaint to ACT.
• It is the proof of your punctuality. In a dispute about unjustified absences this record is what the company will invoke, and in a disciplinary procedure you should always request a copy of it when consulting the file.
• Left the company? Your biometric data must be destroyed (Art. 18(3) of the Labour Code).

This guide explains the general working time records regime in the Portuguese Labour Code. Collective agreements and regulated sectors, such as transport, may add specific requirements.