Up to Twenty Hours of Community Work a Week for Under-25s Who Neither Study Nor Work: Portugal Sets the Operating Rules for Its Single Social Payment

The operating manual for Portugal's biggest welfare reform in two decades was published in the Diário da República (Official Gazette) on Thursday morning, and it settles the question that held up the whole reform in Parliament: how much unpaid community work a claimant can be asked to do. The answer is up to 20 hours a week for people aged 18 to 25 who are neither working nor studying, and up to 20 hours for everyone else of working age once they reach their third renewal.

Portaria n.º 394/2026/1 was signed by the Minister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security, Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho, on 21 August and runs to 16 pages. It sets the execution rules for Decreto-Lei n.º 166/2026 of 13 August, the decree-law that created the prestação social única (single social payment, or PSU) by folding 13 existing benefits into one monthly cheque, among them the rendimento social de inserção (social insertion income), the social unemployment subsidy, the social old-age pension and the widowhood pension. The portaria takes force on Friday but produces effects only from 31 December 2026, the same date the payment itself starts moving.

The 15 plus 5 arithmetic

The decree-law had already capped weekly availability for atividades de solidariedade social (social solidarity activities) at 15 hours. Article 14 of Thursday's portaria adds five hours on top in two situations: where the claimant or a household member is between 18 and 25, not working and not covered by an exemption, and, separately, from the third renewal of the payment onwards for any holder of working age. Where those extra hours fall is decided inside the individual insertion plan rather than by formula.

Doing the work earns something. Article 22 creates a senha de participação (participation voucher) worth 2.5 percent of the Indexante dos Apoios Sociais for every 20 weekly hours actually performed and confirmed by the host organisation. At the 2026 IAS of €537.13, that is €13.43, and it does not count as income when the means test is recalculated.

The host organisations carry real obligations. Under Article 21 they must supply tools and training, name a supervisor, arrange transport or reimburse it, provide a meal or a meal allowance whenever the day's activity runs four hours or more, and hold personal accident insurance throughout. Councils run the pool: an IPSS (Instituição Particular de Solidariedade Social, a private social solidarity institution), a public-utility association, a cooperative or a public body applies electronically to the câmara municipal (municipal council), which signs an individual protocol with each one. In Lisbon that job falls instead to the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa.

What This Means for Expats

• The residence bar is written down now. Article 4 lists exactly what proves residence: a registration certificate or permanent residence card for European Union, European Economic Area and Swiss-agreement nationals, or a temporary-stay visa, residence visa, or temporary or permanent residence permit issued at least one year earlier. Provisional permits and permits issued under refugee or stateless status also count.
• Everything runs through Segurança Social Direta. The claim form lives on the portal, and where the institution asks for paper proof you get 10 working days to produce it, or 20 in the Azores and Madeira.
• Your car is an asset, on a fixed scale. Annex I sets the depreciation table used to value registered vehicles: 20 percent off in year one, rising to 90 percent at 10 years or more.
• Renewal is automatic, not a fresh application. The managing institution checks the conditions in the month before your award period ends and notifies you within 10 working days.
• Missing a session is not automatically a breach. Article 20 lists illness, urgent care for a sick relative, parental duties, unavoidable legal or court obligations, bereavement and job-seeking steps as justified absences.

The community-work condition was the single most contested clause when the reform passed. The government originally wanted availability for social work as a hard entry condition; the PS negotiated it down to something defined inside an individual plan, on the argument that it must not become automatic or a substitute for paid jobs. Thursday's portaria keeps that framing while putting a number on the ceiling, and it quietly amends the 2007 unemployment-protection rules alongside, restating that the guarantee period for unemployment benefit counts the 24 calendar months before the job ends. The first claims cannot be filed until the very last day of the year, which leaves councils four months to build a pool of host organisations from nothing.