Adult Guardianship in Portugal in 2026: A Practical Guide to the Maior Acompanhado, the Judge Who Must Meet the Person Face to Face, the Five-Year Review, and the Mandate That Lets You Choose in Advance

If a parent, a spouse or an adult child in Portugal reaches the point where they can no longer manage their own affairs, the question everyone asks first is the wrong one. People ask how to have someone declared incapable. Portuguese law stopped working that way in 2018.

The old categories, interdição and inabilitação, took a person's legal capacity away wholesale and handed it to somebody else. They no longer exist. What replaced them is the maior acompanhado, the accompanied adult: a tailored set of court-ordered support measures that are supposed to remove no more capacity than the specific situation requires, and that must be reviewed at least every five years.

This guide sets out how the regime works in 2026, drawn from the Civil Code articles 138 to 156 and the special procedure in articles 891 to 905 of the Code of Civil Procedure. It is a general explanation of the law, not advice on any individual case.

1. Who the regime is for

Article 138 defines the whole scope in one sentence. An adult who is prevented, "por razões de saúde, deficiência, ou pelo seu comportamento" (by reasons of health, disability, or by their own conduct), from fully, personally and consciously exercising their rights or performing their duties, benefits from the accompaniment measures in the Code.

Three things follow from that wording, and each of them matters.

• The trigger is a functional inability to exercise rights and perform duties. It is not a diagnosis. A diagnosis may be the evidence, but it is not the test.
• "Pelo seu comportamento" is in the list, so the regime is not confined to illness and disability. Compulsive or self-destructive conduct can found an application.
• The person "benefits from" the measures. The statute frames the whole thing as protection given to the adult, not as a power granted over them.

Article 142 allows the application to be brought in the year before an eighteenth birthday, to take effect from majority, which is how families of young people with lifelong disabilities avoid a gap on the day the child becomes an adult.

2. The rule most people do not expect: the measure may not happen at all

Article 140(1) states the objective: accompaniment aims to secure the adult's wellbeing and recovery, the full exercise of all their rights and the performance of their duties, save for exceptions in law or fixed by the judgment.

Article 140(2) then says the measure "não tem lugar" (does not take place) whenever its objective is already secured through the general duties of cooperation and assistance that apply in the case.

This is the subsidiarity rule, and it defeats a large share of applications that families assume are straightforward. If the person is already being looked after, if the bank is being dealt with, if nothing is actually going wrong, the court is directed not to impose a measure. Going to court is not a formality to tidy up a family arrangement that is working.

3. What the adult keeps, whatever the court orders

Article 147 is the clearest break with the old law, and it is worth quoting in substance. The exercise by the accompanied adult of personal rights and the conclusion of everyday transactions are free, unless a legal provision or a judicial decision says otherwise.

Article 147(2) then lists what counts as personal, "entre outros" (among others): the rights to marry or form a union, to procreate, to acknowledge paternity or adopt, to care for and educate one's children or adopted children, to choose a profession, to travel within the country or abroad, to fix domicile and residence, to form relationships with whomever one wishes, and to make a will.

The default is freedom. Restricting any item on that list requires either a legal provision or an express judicial decision aimed at it. A general order appointing someone to manage a person's money does not silently take away their right to marry or to move house.

4. Who can apply

Article 141(1) lists the applicants:

• the adult themselves;
• with that adult's authorisation: the spouse, the unido de facto (registered or de facto partner), or any relative who could inherit from them;
• the Ministério Público (Public Prosecution Service), independently of any authorisation.

The authorisation requirement is real, and it is the point at which most family applications stall. Where the adult cannot freely and consciously give it, article 141(2) lets the court supply it, either because the circumstances make consent impossible or because the court finds another "fundamento atendível", a ground worth taking into account. Article 141(3) allows the request to supply the authorisation to be joined to the application for accompaniment itself, so this does not need to be two separate cases.

The Ministério Público route is the one most families do not know about. The prosecutor needs nobody's authorisation, and under article 4(1)(a) of the Regulamento das Custas Processuais (Court Costs Regulation) the Ministério Público is exempt from costs when acting in its own name in defence of the rights and interests entrusted to it by law. A family that cannot fund a case can bring the situation to the prosecutor's attention and ask them to act.

5. The measures a judge can order

Article 145(1) is one line: "O acompanhamento limita-se ao necessário." Accompaniment is limited to what is necessary.

Article 145(2) then gives the court a menu, and adds that it can order any of these "independentemente do que haja sido pedido", independently of what was asked for. The court is not confined to the applicant's shopping list, in either direction.

• Exercise of parental responsibilities, or of the means of supplying them, as the circumstances require.
• General representation, or special representation with express indication of the categories of act for which it is needed.
• Total or partial administration of assets.
• Prior authorisation for the practice of specified acts or categories of act.
• Interventions of another kind, duly spelled out.

Note the middle two. Prior authorisation is not representation. Under an authorisation measure the adult still acts, and the accompanier's role is to consent. That is a materially lighter intervention than having somebody act in your place, and it is the option that best fits a person whose judgement is impaired only in a defined area, such as large financial commitments.

Article 145(3) carves out immovable property. Acts disposing of real property require specific prior judicial authorisation, in every case. No general representation order is enough to sell a house.

Article 145(4) sends legal representation to the rules on tutela (guardianship), with adaptations, and lets the court dispense with constituting a family council. Article 145(5) sends the administration of assets to articles 1967 and following.

6. Choosing the accompanier

Article 143(1) puts the choice with the adult first: the accompanier, who must be an adult in full exercise of their own rights, is chosen by the accompanied person or by their legal representative, and then designated by the court.

Only where there is no such choice does article 143(2) apply an order of preference, and even then the governing test is stated first: the person whose designation best safeguards the beneficiary's "interesse imperioso", their compelling interest. The list that follows is indicative:

1. the spouse, not separated judicially or in fact;
2. the unido de facto;
3. either parent;
4. the person designated by the parents, or by whoever exercises parental responsibilities, in a will or in an authentic or authenticated document;
5. adult children;
6. any grandparent;
7. the person indicated by the institution in which the adult is living;
8. the attorney to whom the adult has granted powers of representation;
9. another suitable person.

Article 143(3) allows several accompaniers with different functions, each one's responsibilities specified. In practice that is how families split care decisions from money: one sibling on welfare, another on the accounts.

Item 4 on that list deserves attention from any parent of a disabled child. A parent can name, in a will or a notarised document, who should accompany their child after they die, and the court is directed to that name.

7. What the job actually involves

Article 146(1) sets the standard: the accompanier privileges the wellbeing and recovery of the accompanied person, with the diligence required of a "bom pai de família" in the concrete situation.

Article 146(2) then imposes a duty that is unusually specific for a civil code. The accompanier maintains permanent contact with the accompanied person and must visit them at least monthly, or at another frequency the court considers appropriate. This is checkable, and it is one of the grounds on which an accompanier can be removed.

Article 151(1): the role is unpaid. Functions are gratuitous, without prejudice to the allocation of expenses according to the respective circumstances of both people. Article 151(2) requires accounts to be rendered to the accompanied person and to the court when the function ends, or during it whenever the court so orders.

Article 150 requires the accompanier to abstain from acting in conflict of interest with the accompanied person, applies the consequences set out in article 261 (the rule on self-dealing by a representative) to breaches, and requires them to ask the court for authorisation or appropriate measures where a conflict is unavoidable.

8. Refusing, and getting out

Article 144 is short and consequential.

• The spouse, descendants and ascendants cannot refuse the role and cannot be exonerated. Paragraph 1 is unqualified.
• Descendants can be exonerated at their own request after five years, but only if there are other equally suitable descendants.
• Everyone else can ask to be excused on the grounds set out in article 1934, the excuse provisions for guardianship, or can ask to be substituted after five years.

Anyone considering agreeing to be named should read paragraph 1 before they agree to anything. For a spouse, this is not a role you can hand back because it turned out to be harder than expected.

Article 152 sends removal and exoneration of the accompanier to articles 1948 to 1950.

9. How the case runs

The procedure is in the Code of Civil Procedure, articles 891 to 905, and it is heard by the family and minors division of the judicial court.

Article 891. The process is urgente. It borrows from voluntary jurisdiction proceedings as regards the judge's powers, the criterion of judgment and the alteration of decisions on supervening circumstances. Precautionary measures can be requested or ordered by the court of its own motion at any point. Article 139(2) of the Civil Code says the same on the substantive side: provisional and urgent measures can be determined at any stage of the process.

Article 892. The initial application must, among other things, plead the facts founding the applicant's standing and justifying protection, ask for the specific measures considered appropriate, name who should be the accompanier and, where relevant, the composition of the family council, state what publicity should be given to the final decision, and attach material indicating the clinical situation alleged.

Article 893. The judge decides, case by case, what publicity is given to the start, the course and the final decision. Article 153 of the Civil Code sets the standard: publicity is limited to what is strictly necessary to defend the interests of the beneficiary or of third parties.

Article 894. Where the beneficiary's interest justifies it, the court can direct communications and orders to credit institutions, financial intermediaries, civil, land or commercial registries, company boards, or any other entity. This is the provision that actually stops money leaving an account while the case runs.

Articles 895 and 896. If the applicant is not the beneficiary, the judge orders the beneficiary's immediate citation by whatever means is most effective in the circumstances. The beneficiary then has ten days to respond.

Articles 897 and 898. After the pleadings the judge rules on the evidence and may appoint one or more experts. And "em qualquer caso", in every case, the judge must carry out the personal and direct hearing of the beneficiary, travelling to wherever the person is if necessary. Article 139(1) of the Civil Code makes the same requirement a condition of the decision itself. The questions are put by the judge, with the assistance of the applicant, the beneficiary's representatives and any experts, any of whom may suggest questions; the judge can order part of the hearing to take place with the beneficiary alone.

That is the single most important safeguard in the regime. There is no route to an accompaniment order in Portugal that does not involve a judge sitting down with the person face to face.

Article 899. Where ordered, the expert report must specify, so far as possible, the affliction, its consequences, the probable date of onset and the advisable means of support and treatment. If doubts persist the judge may authorise examination in a specialist clinic, with admission never exceeding one month.

Article 900. The judge designates the accompanier, defines the measures under article 145 of the Civil Code and, where possible, fixes the date from which the measures became appropriate. A substitute accompanier, several accompaniers and a family council may all be designated. And paragraph 3 requires the judgment to state expressly whether there is a testamento vital and a health care proxy, and to safeguard respect for the wishes the person expressed in advance. If you have made a living will and registered it on RENTEV, this is where it does its work.

Article 901. An apelação lies from the decision on the measure. The applicant and the accompanied person have standing; the accompanier can join as assistente.

Article 902. Once the decision is final, an inventory of the beneficiary's assets can be drawn up in an annexed proceeding at the request of the applicant, the accompanied person, the accompanier or the Ministério Público. The decision, whether it orders accompaniment or refuses it, is publicised and communicated in exactly the terms decided under article 894.

Article 904. The beneficiary's death extinguishes the proceedings. The measures can be reviewed or lifted by the court at any time, whenever the beneficiary's progress justifies it.

10. What happens to acts the person does anyway

Article 154 of the Civil Code governs this, and the timing is everything.

• Acts by the accompanied adult that do not observe the measures ordered, or to be ordered, are annullable (not void) when done after the accompaniment is registered.
• Where the act is done after the start of the process has been announced but before the final decision, it is annullable only after that final decision, and only if the act turns out to be prejudicial to the accompanied person.
• The time limit for bringing the annulment action only starts running from the registration of the judgment.
• Acts done before the announcement of the start of the process fall under the ordinary regime of incapacidade acidental, accidental incapacity, which is a harder case to make and turns on the person's state at the moment of the act.

Article 903 of the Code of Civil Procedure gives the accompanier standing to ask for annulment of acts done after the article 894 communications went out, where the acts fall within the measures.

The practical consequence is that the registration date is the line that protects the family. Before it, third parties dealing in good faith are largely safe and the burden is on whoever challenges the act; after it, the position reverses. Under article 1920.º-C of the Civil Code, applied by article 153(2), judicial decisions of this kind cannot be invoked against a third party in good faith while the registration has not been made.

11. Nothing here is permanent

Article 149 lets accompaniment cease or be modified by a judicial decision recognising that the causes that justified it have ceased or changed, and the effects of that decision can be backdated to when the change actually happened. The people who can ask are the accompanier and anyone on the article 141(1) list.

Article 155 goes further and makes review automatic: the court reviews the measures in force according to the periodicity set in the judgment and, as a minimum, every five years. Nobody has to apply for that review. It is the court's own obligation.

12. Planning ahead: the article 156 mandate

This is the least-used provision in the regime and probably the most valuable one.

Article 156 lets an adult, anticipating an eventual need for accompaniment, conclude a mandate for the management of their interests, with or without powers of representation. The mandate follows the general regime, must specify the rights involved and the scope of any representation along with any other conditions of its exercise, and is freely revocable by the person who granted it.

Then the two paragraphs that give it force. Under 156(3), when accompaniment is ordered, the court "aproveita o mandato", takes it up, in whole or in part, and takes it into account both in defining the scope of the protection and in designating the accompanier. Under 156(4), the court can bring the mandate to an end where it is reasonable to presume that the grantor's wish would have been to revoke it.

So this is not merely a private arrangement that a court might notice. It is an instrument the court is directed to use. Made while you still have full capacity, it lets you choose in advance who manages your affairs and on what terms, and the judge starts from your choice rather than from the statutory list. It is drawn up as a mandate, and in practice usually alongside a procuração; article 143(2)(h) separately puts an existing attorney into the order of preference for appointment.

13. What it costs

An application for accompaniment is an action concerning the status of persons. Under article 303(1) of the Code of Civil Procedure, actions on the status of persons are always valued at the ceiling of the Court of Appeal's jurisdiction plus one cent, which is 30,000.01 euros.

That value determines two things.

A lawyer is compulsory. Article 40(1)(a) of the Code of Civil Procedure requires a lawyer in cases before courts with a jurisdictional ceiling in which an ordinary appeal is admissible, and at this value it is.

The court fee comes from Table I. Article 7(1) of the Regulamento das Custas Processuais fixes the fee in special proceedings under Table I, except in the cases expressly listed in Table II, and accompaniment is not one of those. A value of 30,000.01 euros falls in the band from 30,000.01 to 40,000.00 euros, which is 6 UC in column A. The unidade de conta for 2026 is 102 euros, set by article 242 of Lei n.º 73-A/2025, the State Budget, so the fee is 612 euros. Article 6(6) allows variable fees to be paid at the minimum with any excess settled at the end.

Two routes reduce that. Legal aid is applied for at Segurança Social and can cover both the fee and the lawyer. And, as set out in section 4, asking the Ministério Público to bring the case removes the cost question altogether, because the prosecutor is exempt.

14. Two things this regime is not

It is not a route to compulsory psychiatric admission. Article 148 of the Civil Code, headed Internamento, is revoked. Involuntary admission is governed by separate mental health legislation and is not obtained through an accompaniment application.

It is not automatic on a diagnosis. Article 140(2) means a court can hear the evidence, accept the diagnosis and still decline to order anything, because the general duties of cooperation and assistance already cover the situation.

15. If you are holding a pre-2018 court order

Anyone whose family obtained an interdição or inabilitação order before 2018 is holding a document issued under a regime that no longer exists. The evidence of that is on the face of the current law: every one of Civil Code articles 138 to 156 is recorded as having been given its present wording by Lei n.º 49/2018, de 14 de agosto, and article 905 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which was headed "Levantamento da interdição ou inabilitação", now reads simply "(Revogado)".

What we have not verified from the primary text tonight is the precise wording of the transitional provisions governing how existing orders were carried across. If you hold one, the practical step is to ask the court that made it what its current status is and whether the five-yearly review under article 155 now applies to it, rather than assuming either that it lapsed or that it still means what it said in 2015.

16. A checklist

1. Ask first whether anything is going wrong. Article 140(2) means a working family arrangement is a reason not to apply.
2. Ask what specifically needs support. The court is directed to the narrowest measure that works, and prior authorisation is lighter than representation.
3. Get the adult's authorisation if you can. If you cannot, ask the court to supply it in the same application under article 141(3).
4. Consider the Ministério Público. No authorisation needed, and no costs.
5. Agree who is to be named, and check article 144 first. A spouse or child who accepts cannot walk away.
6. Gather the clinical material. Article 892(1)(e) requires it with the initial application.
7. Make the living will now if you have not. Article 900(3) obliges the judgment to respect it.
8. If you still have full capacity, consider the article 156 mandate. It is the only way to choose your own accompanier in advance.
9. Expect the judge to meet the person. Article 897(2) makes it mandatory, at home or in hospital if necessary.
10. Diarise the review. Five years is the outer limit, and the measures can be revisited sooner under article 149.

Portuguese civil procedure has other routes that overlap with this one at the edges. If the dispute is about an estate rather than a living person's capacity, our guides to inheritance and wills and to the notarial system are the better starting points.