Portugal Made It Illegal for Your Boss to Contact You After Work

Imagine finishing your workday, closing your laptop, and knowing — with the full force of the law behind you — that your boss cannot send you a single email, text, or phone call until tomorrow morning. For workers in Portugal, that is not a fantasy. It is the law.

In November 2021, Portugal's parliament approved Law No. 83/2021, a sweeping overhaul of the country's remote work regulations that included a groundbreaking provision: employers are legally prohibited from contacting their employees outside of working hours. The law took effect on January 1, 2022, making Portugal one of the first countries in the world to enshrine such a strong version of the "right to disconnect" into its Labour Code.

What the Law Actually Says

The legislation added Article 199-A to Portugal's Labour Code (Codigo do Trabalho), which imposes a "duty of absence of contact" on employers. This is an important legal distinction: rather than simply giving workers the right to ignore after-hours messages, it places the burden directly on employers not to initiate contact in the first place.

Under this provision, employers must refrain from contacting employees during all legally designated rest periods. This includes evenings and weekends outside scheduled working hours, public holidays, vacation days, rest breaks, and any other time that falls outside an employee's normal working schedule.

The prohibition covers all forms of communication — phone calls, text messages, emails, and messaging apps. The only exception is situations of force majeure, meaning genuinely unforeseeable and unavoidable emergencies where immediate action is necessary to prevent serious harm.

The Penalties for Violations

This is not a suggestion or a workplace guideline. Violating the duty of absence of contact is classified as a serious administrative offense (contraordenacao grave) under Portuguese labour law. Companies found in breach face fines that can reach up to approximately 9,690 euros per infraction, with penalties scaled based on company size, revenue, and the number of affected employees.

Repeat offenders face escalating fines, and in severe cases, the violation could even be considered a form of workplace harassment. Portugal's Authority for Working Conditions (ACT) is responsible for investigating complaints and imposing sanctions.

There is one significant limitation: the law does not apply to companies with fewer than 10 employees, reflecting a practical acknowledgment that micro-businesses often require more flexible communication.

Born from the Pandemic

The timing of this legislation was no coincidence. The COVID-19 pandemic had forced millions of Portuguese workers into remote work practically overnight, and the boundaries between professional and personal life had all but evaporated. A 2020 Eurofound study found that workers who regularly worked from home were more than twice as likely to work beyond the maximum 48-hour work week compared to office-based employees.

Portugal was actually the first European country to alter its remote working rules in response to the pandemic, introducing temporary measures in January 2021 that made remote work mandatory where possible. But as the pandemic wore on, it became clear that temporary fixes were not enough. Workers reported burnout from constant connectivity, blurred schedules, and the expectation of being perpetually available.

Ana Mendes Godinho, Portugal's Minister of Labour and Social Security, framed the legislation as essential for the post-pandemic world. "Telework can be a game changer," she said at the Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon in November 2021, "but we need rules to protect workers."

More Than Just Disconnecting

The right to disconnect was just one part of a broader legislative package. Law 83/2021 also introduced several other protections for remote workers:

Expense reimbursement became mandatory — employers must help cover increased electricity and internet costs incurred by employees working from home. Employee monitoring was explicitly banned, meaning companies cannot use software to track remote workers' activity. Parents and caregivers received special telework protections, and employers were required to organise regular face-to-face meetings to combat the isolation of remote work.

The law also established that remote workers must receive equal treatment in terms of holidays, career advancement, training, and health insurance.

Portugal Is Not Alone — But It Went Further

Portugal was not the first country to address after-hours contact. France pioneered the concept in 2017, requiring companies with more than 50 employees to negotiate "right to disconnect" policies with their workforce. Spain followed in 2018 under its Data Protection and Digital Rights Act, and Italy and Belgium also introduced their own versions.

But there is a crucial difference. Most of these laws give employees the right to disconnect — meaning they can choose to ignore after-hours messages. Portugal's law goes further by imposing a duty on employers not to make contact at all. The legal burden falls on the company, not the worker, which is a significantly stronger protection.

As of 2024, similar legislation has spread across Europe, with Belgium strengthening its rules in 2022 to cover companies with 20 or more employees. Ireland, Greece, and Slovakia have also enacted their own versions. The European Parliament has called for an EU-wide right to disconnect directive, though no binding legislation has been passed at the EU level yet.

A New Identity for Portugal

The legislation was also part of Portugal's broader strategy to position itself as a premier destination for digital nomads and remote workers. In 2022, Portugal introduced the D8 Digital Nomad Visa, allowing non-EU remote workers to live and work legally in the country.

For the millions of workers around the world who dread the ping of an after-hours email, Portugal's message is clear: your time off belongs to you, and the law agrees.