Portugal's Largest Union Confederation Wants a 1,100 Euro Minimum Wage on 1 January 2027, Eighty Euros Above Where the Signed Accord Ends in 2028

The National Council of the CGTP-IN (Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores Portugueses, the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers) met on Friday and approved a resolution that sets a number: a national minimum wage of 1,100 euros from 1 January 2027.

Portugal's minimum wage today is 920 euros on the mainland. The figure the government is working towards for 2027 is 970. The gap between the two positions is 130 euros a month, and the CGTP's number would arrive a full year before the signed accord reaches a lower one.

What the accord actually says

The trajectory the government is following was fixed in the Acordo Tripartido sobre a Valorização Salarial e Crescimento Económico 2025-2028 (Tripartite Agreement on Wage Valorisation and Economic Growth 2025-2028), signed on 1 October 2024 by the government and the employer and worker representatives on the Permanent Standing Committee for Social Concertation.

The preamble to Decreto-Lei n.º 139/2025, of 29 December, which set this year's figure, describes the path in plain terms: 870 euros for 2025, then "successive annual increases of 50 euros, so as to reach a minimum monthly guaranteed remuneration of 1,020 euros in 2028."

Read that arithmetic against the CGTP's demand and the distance is larger than the headline gap suggests. The union confederation is not asking for the 2028 endpoint a year early. It is asking for 80 euros more than the 2028 endpoint, in 2027.

The legal instrument at issue is the retribuição mínima mensal garantida, or RMMG, the minimum monthly guaranteed remuneration defined in article 273 of the Código do Trabalho (Labour Code). Decreto-Lei n.º 139/2025 raised it to 920 euros with effect from 1 January 2026, an increase of 50 euros on the 870 that applied through 2025.

One detail that trips up new arrivals: that decree applies to mainland Portugal only. Madeira legislates its own figure and set it at 980 euros for 2026 through Decreto Legislativo Regional n.º 1/2026/M, of 3 February, which the regional assembly described as 6.52 percent above the mainland value.

The rest of the claim

The minimum wage number is the one that will travel, but it is one line in a longer list. The resolution, published by the confederation on Friday, sets out what it calls the Prioridades da Política Reivindicativa da CGTP-IN para 2027 (CGTP-IN Claims Policy Priorities for 2027), approved at the same meeting. Among them:

• A general pay rise for all workers of at least 15 percent, and in no case less than 150 euros.
• Restoration of collective bargaining rights, with the repeal of caducidade, the lapsing of expired collective agreements, and the return of the princípio do tratamento mais favorável ao trabalhador, the principle that the more favourable treatment for the worker prevails.
• A 35-hour working week with no loss of pay, and an end to what the resolution calls the deregulation of working hours.
• Repeal of what it terms the onerous provisions of labour legislation.

The resolution frames all of this against what it calls "the great victory of the workers' struggle that defeated the labour package", a reference to the government's labour law overhaul, which died in parliament in June. That claimed victory is the political premise of the document: the confederation argues the defeat changes the conditions in which the next round of claims is fought.

A calendar, not a single date

The resolution does not just name a demand. It names five dates, and they run from next week to the middle of October.

• 17 September: a Plenário de Sindicatos (Plenary of Unions) in Lisbon opens what the confederation calls a Month of Action, Mobilisation and Struggle, with workplace actions across sectors.
• 1 October: the CGTP-IN's 56th anniversary, marked with workplace and street action under the slogan "56 years, Struggle and Win, Wages, Rights, Public Services", and the launch of a recruitment campaign running to the end of 2027.
• 7 October: a public session in Lisbon against what the resolution describes as an attack on social security.
• 10 October: a solidarity demonstration for the Palestinian people at 15:00 in Largo de Camões, Lisbon.
• 17 October: the main event, a decentralised national demonstration held simultaneously in Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra, on a Saturday, under the slogan "More wages, better pensions and public services, against the rise in the cost of living, a new direction for Portugal".

The decentralised format is worth noting. The CGTP has historically bussed members into Lisbon for single set-piece marches. Splitting across three cities lowers the travel burden and makes the northern and central turnout visible in its own right rather than folded into a Lisbon crowd.

Why the number lands where it does

The 1,100 euro figure is not arbitrary. It is the same figure the current government has adopted as its own destination, on a longer timetable: raising the minimum wage to 1,100 euros by 2029. The CGTP has taken the government's endpoint and moved it forward two years.

That is a deliberate rhetorical choice. It is harder for a government to call a number unaffordable when the number is its own, and it converts the argument from one about the level to one about the speed. The government's answer will have to be about pace and about what employers can absorb, not about whether 1,100 euros is a reasonable floor.

What this means for foreign residents

• The minimum wage is a reference value far beyond minimum-wage jobs. It anchors sector collective agreements, and it is the figure against which several immigration and social-support thresholds are read. A change in the trajectory moves more than the bottom of the pay scale.
• Nothing has changed yet. The RMMG for 2027 is set by decree-law, normally in late December. Until that decree is published, 970 euros is the agreed expectation and 1,100 is a union demand.
• If you live in Madeira or the Azores, check the regional figure. The mainland decree does not apply to you, and Madeira's 980 euros for 2026 is already above it.
• 17 October is a Saturday, and the demonstrations are in three cities. If you live in central Lisbon, Porto or Coimbra, expect road closures and transport disruption in the city centre for part of the day.

The confederation's own document is the thing to read if you want the claim rather than the summary of it. It runs to seven numbered decisions, and the minimum wage is the only figure in it that will be settled, one way or the other, before the year is out.