Fully Paid Parental Leave Would Grow to Five Months, or Six When Parents Share It, Under a PSD and PS Text Backed in a Working Group

On Tuesday, 13 October, a working group of the Assembleia da República (Assembly of the Republic) approved, in an indicative vote, a joint PSD and PS text that pays five months of initial parental leave at 100 percent of the reference wage whether or not the parents share it, and six months at 100 percent if they do.

The text rewrites Projeto de Lei n.º 176/XVII, the citizens' bill asking for 180 days at full pay however the leave is split, which passed its first vote in January. The PSD drafted it and the PS co-signed, Notícias ao Minuto reported; other parties' proposals fell to PSD votes, with the PS abstaining.

A first vote, not the last one

Working group votes are indicative. The text must now be confirmed by the Comissão de Trabalho, Segurança Social e Inclusão (Labour, Social Security and Inclusion Committee) and pass a final global vote in the full chamber before going to the President, who can sign it, veto it or send it to the Constitutional Court.

According to ECO, the law takes effect with the State Budget that follows its approval and applies from 1 January 2027. Only leave beginning in January or later is covered, Jornal de Negócios reported; a leave already running at the turn of the year stays on current terms.

Today's rules and the new ones

Under the Instituto da Segurança Social (Social Security Institute) practical guide, parents today choose 120 consecutive days paid at 100 percent, or 150 days paid at 80 percent (100 percent if each parent takes 30 consecutive days, or two blocks of 15, alone). Sharing can add 30 days, for 180 in all, at 83 percent, or 90 percent with 60 shared days.

As reported by ECO, the approved text sets:

• 150 days at 100 percent, with or without sharing;
• 180 days at 100 percent if each parent takes at least 30 consecutive days or two blocks of 15, and at 83 percent otherwise; Jornal de Negócios reports that single-parent families also get the 180 days at 100 percent;
• 210 days at 86 percent with the same sharing, or at 90 percent if the father takes at least 60 consecutive days or two blocks of 30.

Of the father's 28 compulsory days, 14 (now seven) must follow the birth directly. Victims of domestic violence get the single-parent rules only with a criminal complaint, a parent gone from the family home and a no-contact order. A matching text for civil servants also passed.

A continuous working day, if the employer agrees

The group also approved, unanimously, a new Código do Trabalho (Labour Code) article on jornada contínua (continuous working day). A worker with a child under 12 (or of any age, if disabled or chronically ill) could work straight through with a 30-minute lunch break and finish up to an hour earlier. It is not an automatic right: it needs a collective agreement or the employer's consent, and is requested in writing 30 days ahead, for up to five years, ECO reported.

Who qualifies

The parental subsidy is paid to employees and self-employed workers who contribute to Portuguese Social Security; nationality is not a condition. Social Security requires six months of contributions, consecutive or not, by the time the leave starts, and contributions to another country's system can count if the periods do not overlap. Those short of six months may get the means-tested social parental subsidy.

Parliament's budget office put the original bill at about 230 million euros a year, half the Government's estimate, as we reported on 6 October. Single parents, whom the PSD first proposed to leave out, were the sticking point in September.