Caring for a loved one in Portugal: cuidador informal status, allowance and respite

What the status is and what it gives you

The carer status was created by Lei n.º 100/2019 of 6 September 2019, and the procedure by Decreto Regulamentar n.º 1/2022. The status is recognised by the Instituto da Segurança Social (ISS), the state social security institute.

What a recognised status gives any carer, regardless of money:

— you are assigned two contact professionals of your own: one at the health service where the person you care for lives, the other at social services. The first teaches you how to provide care and supports you together with the family doctor; the second explains your rights and refers you to where you can get help. In Lisbon the second is provided by Santa Casa da Misericórdia;

— within 30 days of recognition you draw up a written plan together — the Plano de Intervenção Específico (PIE): what you do, what you are taught, how many days of respite you are entitled to and where the person you care for will stay during that time. The plan is reviewed at least every six months;

— training and information from health professionals, mutual support groups at the health service, psychological support — including after the death of the person you care for;

— respite of up to 30 days a year;

— a carer's card issued by the ISS; since 2025 it is also available in the gov.pt app;

— for someone who cares full-time and does not work, a monthly allowance; for someone who cares and works, separate rights at work.

Next, in order: first who is who, then the conditions, then the money.

Principal and non-principal carer: the difference everything depends on

The law divides carers into two groups, and which one you are in determines both the allowance and your rights at work.

Principal (cuidador informal principal) — someone who cares full-time, lives in the same home as the person they care for, does not work for pay and does not take money for the care. They, and only they, can receive the allowance. If you receive unemployment benefit, you are treated as non-principal rather than principal.

Non-principal (cuidador informal não principal) — someone who cares regularly but not full-time. They may work, may live separately and may be paid for the care. They are not entitled to the allowance, but they do have rights at work: time off, part-time hours, flexible hours, remote working and protection from dismissal.

Who you can be by relationship: a spouse or a partner you live with as a couple, or a relative up to the fourth degree — that is children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, brothers and sisters, parents, uncles and aunts, grandparents and first cousins. Since November 2024 someone who is not a relative can also become the principal carer, provided they live in the same home as the person they care for and they share the same tax address.

Something else worth knowing: the status is recognised for one applicant per household, but one person can have up to three non-principal carers.

Requirements for the person you care for

A serious condition in itself does not qualify a loved one for the status. The law requires the person you look after to be already receiving one of the dependency benefits:

— complemento por dependência of the second degree — a pension supplement for someone who cannot manage at all without help from others;

— or subsídio por assistência de terceira pessoa — a payment to families where a disabled child needs constant supervision;

— or the same benefits from the Caixa Geral de Aposentações, if the person you care for is a former civil servant.

A separate case is temporary bedriddenness: when someone is bedridden after an operation or a serious illness and receives the first-degree supplement. The status is granted then too, but how long the condition lasts is decided by the family doctor or the treating doctor, and when it ends the situation is reviewed. If there is no first-degree supplement, dependency is assessed by a Segurança Social service, the Sistema de Verificação de Incapacidades (SVI), on an urgent basis, using a certificate from the same doctor.

Two more conditions: the person you care for must live at home, not in a care home or a long-stay hospital, and they must give their consent. Consent is covered separately below.

And a useful rule: if the person you care for does not have the supplement yet, the application for it and the application for the status are submitted at the same time. Your case will wait for the decision on theirs, but you will not lose time.

If the person you care for does not have the supplement yet

Complemento por dependência is claimed by people who already receive a pension — an invalidity pension, an old-age pension, a survivor's pension, the social pension, a widow's or orphan's pension — and also by those receiving the Prestação Social para a Inclusão. There are three conditions: the person needs someone else's help with everyday things (eating, washing, leaving the house), the degree of dependency is confirmed by the SVI, and they do not work themselves. The application is form RP 5027, via the e-Clic service on the Segurança Social portal.

How much it pays in 2026 (Portaria n.º 480-B/2025/1 of 30 December 2025): under the general scheme €131.20 a month for the first degree and €236.16 for the second; under the non-contributory scheme and the agricultural scheme, €118.08 and €223.04.

This supplement is the way into carer status, which is why people usually start with it. What you need to understand from the outset: the medical board is a slow business. In the chats people tell the same story about medical boards — first the health centre, then the referral, then a wait that nobody measures in weeks.

Do not confuse two different documents. The atestado médico de incapacidade multiuso is a certificate of your percentage of incapacity; it is issued by a board under the Ministry of Health and is needed for tax relief, a disabled parking badge and so on. The degree of dependency for complemento por dependência is assessed by the SVI, a service of Segurança Social itself. In the chats people most often describe the route to the multiuso, but both routes start in the same place: your own doctor at the health centre.

On timescales, it helps to know what the law says should happen. The incapacity board is convened under Decreto-Lei n.º 202/96: you apply to the health delegate where you live, with a medical report, and the examination must be scheduled within 60 days. The gap between those sixty days and what people describe is the real wait.

“Go to the health centre you're registered with, either to the family doctor or to reception, and say you need an appointment for a referral to the ‘junta médica’. All doctors' reports have to be certified and translated, and they're valid for up to a year. If the family doctor confirms your diagnosis qualifies as a disability in Portugal, they'll send you to the ‘junta médica’. Fill in the forms plus all the doctors' reports (valid for 1 year) and submit them. The queue is 1–⁠2 years.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

med_strahovki_pt01.06.2024

“It's all very complicated there. Try to get a referral for the junta médica / atestado multiusos through your health centre. Confirmation takes a year or more, more often longer (”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

med_strahovki_pt22.05.2024

“they confirmed the disability no problem. All the doctors are now at the central hospital in Coimbra, in paediatrics. From the dentist to the psychiatrist. The psychiatrists here are even more supportive than people :) you can reach all of them by email. All the tests get booked a year ahead.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

schoolinportugal25.07.2022

Who gets the status: the requirements for you

The requirements for the carer are as follows:

— you are 18 or over;

— you live in Portugal legally. For EU citizens that means the registration certificate from the town hall; for everyone else, a visa or a residence card, and the Segurança Social guide adds a condition to it: you must have lived in the country with that document for at least a year. This is the condition that trips up people who have only just got their card;

— you have the strength and health to provide care — this is confirmed by your own declaration on the form;

— you do not receive an absolute invalidity pension, a pension under the special invalidity protection scheme or dependency benefits.

For the principal carer there are four more conditions: living with the person you care for, caring full-time, not working for pay and not being paid for the care. Full-time care is not cancelled by the person you care for going to school, a special school or a day centre, if this is set out in the PIE plan.

A separate point about numbers: both you and the person you care for need a NISS, the social security number. An elderly person without an employment contract often does not have one, and getting it can be a saga of its own.

“Try insisting that under the law pensioners and elderly people can get a NISS without an employment contract. You can cite Decreto-Lei n.º 220/2006, which governs how you register with Segurança Social. You can try a few options, but there's no guarantee it'll work: Centro de Saúde – ask the doctor to give you a certificate (atestado médico) saying your parents can't work because of their health or their age. Segurança Social – try going to a different office (Loja do Cidadão or Balcão Segurança Social) and stress their age and that they can't get a job.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

RussosEmPortugal05.03.2025

How to apply and what comes back

You apply through your Segurança Social Direta account: «Família» → «Estatuto do cuidador informal» → «Consultar e registar pedidos do cuidador informal». You can also apply at any Segurança Social office or at a Loja do Cidadão, or by post to the district centre where you live.

Forms, if you are not applying through the portal: CI 1 and CI 1/1 — the status application itself, CI 12 — the consent of the person you care for, CI 13 — household members and their income. The allowance application is on separate forms, CI 2 and CI 2/1, but they can be submitted together with the status application.

Provisional status. If you have brought only your own ID, proof of legal residence and a declaration that you are able to provide care, the status is recognised provisionally and you are given 90 days for the remaining documents. Miss the deadline and the whole application is rejected. A decision on the application comes in 20 days on average.

Consent of the person you care for. An adult signs it themselves, and a doctor's certificate stating that they are of sound mind is attached to the signature. If they are no longer able to — for example, with dementia — provisional consent can be given by a spouse or a relative up to the fourth degree, but then the application must include proof that you have applied to the court for the consent to be supplied by the court. That application is filed by a lawyer; if you cannot pay for one, Segurança Social must ensure you have access to free legal aid.

After recognition the ISS issues a carer's card. When the status ends, the card is cancelled automatically.

How much is paid and how it is calculated

The allowance is paid only to the principal carer and only after a means test.

Household threshold. The average income per person in your household must be below €698.27 — that is 1.3 IAS, and the IAS in 2026 is €537.13. Household here means your family together with the person you care for. It is calculated like this: add up everyone's income, then add up the weights — the applicant counts as 1, each adult as 0.7, each under-18 as 0.5 — and divide the first by the second. An example from the Segurança Social guide: father, mother, grandmother and two children, with only the father working, on €1,500 — 1,500 divided by 3.4 gives €441.18, so the threshold is met.

The allowance itself. The starting point in 2026 is €590.84 (1.1 IAS). From it, your own income and the dependency supplement received by the person you care for are deducted. Whatever is left is what you get.

An example from the same guide: the carer has €200 of her own income, the person she cares for has a first-degree supplement of €131.20 — the allowance comes to €259.64 a month. Another case, the most common one: you have no income of your own, and the person you care for has a second-degree supplement of €236.16 — €354.68 will arrive in your account.

Supplement for voluntary contributions. The principal carer can join the voluntary social insurance scheme (seguro social voluntário) and pay a contribution of 21.4%. While they pay, half of the contribution is added to the allowance — in 2026 that is €57.48 a month. That is not the point, though: the contributions count towards your record and later give you the right to a pension.

It is paid monthly, into a bank account or by CTT postal order to your address. No account — open a basic bank account; it is described in the guide to the banking system. Payments start from the month in which you handed in the last required document.

What the allowance cannot be combined with

The list of incompatible benefits is short but harsh. You will not get the carer's allowance if you receive:

— unemployment benefit;

— dependency benefits of your own or complemento por dependência;

— an absolute invalidity pension or a pension under the special invalidity protection scheme;

— an old-age pension — except an early one, see below;

— an occupational disease pension with total permanent incapacity;

— sickness benefit, childcare benefit, subsídio por assistência de terceira pessoa, complemento solidário para idosos, a grant.

Early retirement pension is the exception, but with two conditions at once: on the day you applied for the pension, or within a year after that, the person you care for was already part of your household and receiving a dependency supplement; and the pension itself has been cut by more than 20% because of the sustainability factor or the reduction factor.

And this is what the allowance can be combined with: a survivor's pension and a widow's pension, a relative invalidity pension (until you reach the age required for an old-age pension), the Prestação Social para a Inclusão, the rendimento social de inserção, child benefits, parental benefits and funeral grants.

What changed on 1 January 2026

Until the end of 2025 the carer's allowance sat in the solidarity subsystem — that is, it was treated as help for people who do not have enough money. From 1 January 2026 it has been moved to the family protection subsystem, under “dependency expenses”: the state has acknowledged that it is paying for care, not for poverty. This was done by Decreto-Lei n.º 138/2025 of 29 December 2025.

The decree itself says nothing beyond the move: it does not touch the amounts, the threshold or the application procedure. But the consequence is important, and it lies in another law. Article 11 of Decreto-Lei n.º 70/2010 — the one under which income is calculated across the country for any means-tested benefit — expressly excludes from countable income the family expenses, disability and dependency benefits of the family protection subsystem. So from 2026 your carer's allowance does not count as income when your household's income is assessed for other benefits. This is exactly what the newspapers wrote about in December.

The same decree corrects a reference in the rules about the person being cared for — a technical detail that changes nothing for the reader.

Respite: up to 30 days a year

The right to a break is set out separately in the law and is called descanso do cuidador. The procedure is laid down by Portaria n.º 335-A/2023 of 3 November 2023: up to 30 days per calendar year, in one go or in parts, and they must be written into the PIE plan together with the written consent of the person you care for to where they will stay during that time.

Where they can go:

— to an inpatient unit of the RNCCI long-term care network, including its mental health part — this is arranged by your contact at the health service;

— to a care home for the elderly (ERPI), a home for adults with disabilities or a foster family — this is arranged by your contact at social services;

— or home care (SAD) comes to the house, and the person you care for stays at home;

— or someone is called in from the “carers' pool” (bolsa de cuidadores) — this option has existed since 2024.

Money. You do not pay the full price. In an RNCCI unit, for the respite period you are charged 65% of the household's per-person income instead of the usual share; in a care home and with home care, the family contribution is reduced by 20%; and if the person you care for is taken in by a foster family and your per-person income is no more than half the IAS (€268.57 in 2026), you pay nothing at all. Segurança Social pays the difference to the institution — €1,554 a month per place in a care home and €1,965.27 in a specialist home.

What to expect in practice. Respite depends on a place being free: first they look for a suitable institution nearby, then any in the solidarity network, and only if that fails a private one. Priority goes to those who are most worn out. So it is not a case of “make a call and go on holiday”: you need to ask well in advance and through your contact professional.

If you care for someone and also work

Rights at work apply only to the non-principal carer and only once the status has been recognised: you show your employer the proof. All of this was added to the Código do Trabalho by Lei n.º 13/2023 and has applied since 1 May 2023.

— Five consecutive working days a year to care for the person (article 101.º-B). Give 10 working days' notice in writing and attach a statement that other working members of the household are not taking such days at the same time. The days are unpaid, but they count towards your record and are treated as time worked.

— Part-time work for up to four years (article 101.º-C): by default half of normal hours — every day in the morning or in the afternoon, or three days a week. You cannot be penalised for this in appraisals or promotions.

— Flexible hours — for as long as help is needed (article 101.º-D).

— Remote working for up to four years (article 166.º-A, paragraph 5) — if the job is suitable for it and the employer has the means to provide it.

— Protection from dismissal (article 101.º-F): you can be dismissed only after a prior opinion from CITE, the state equality body, and dismissal for the employee's fault is presumed to be without just cause until proven otherwise.

— Refusing overtime (article 101.º-G).

Separately from the status, every employee has 15 days a year for urgent and essential help to a sick spouse, parent or other close relative (article 252). These days are also unpaid, but they do not count as unauthorised absence.

A request for part-time or flexible hours is made in writing 30 days in advance. Breaching any of these rights is a serious offence by the employer, and complaints go to the ACT labour inspectorate; how to do this is described in the guide to employment contracts.

When the allowance is suspended and when it ends

Suspension. The allowance stops if you have stopped providing care for more than 30 consecutive days, or if the person you care for has been admitted to hospital, a care home or an RNCCI unit for more than 30 consecutive days. The exception is a child: if the person you care for is under 18 and you are with them the whole time, the allowance is not touched. Once the reason has gone, payments resume from the month after the ISS learns of it — so you need to report it straight away.

Termination. The allowance ends if you or the person you care for leave Portugal or stop living together; if you yourself become unable to work or dependent; if the person you care for or you give it up or die; if you stop carrying out your duties as a carer and the professionals report this; if you are granted an incompatible benefit; and if a suspension lasts more than six months.

Moving. Moving within the country does not cancel anything in itself, but a change of address must be reported within 10 working days — as must a change in household members, in income or starting work. Report late and the increase will only be paid from the month after you report it. Leaving Portugal or no longer living with the person you care for ends the allowance.

Review. Every 12 months the ISS recalculates the allowance itself, and also whenever income or household membership changes. A review can result in a different amount or in a suspension.

When the person you care for has died. The allowance ends, but the legal right to psychological support continues after their death. After that you should be registered at the job centre: someone who has been caring for 25 months or more is treated as very long-term unemployed — an employer who takes you on with a permanent contract within six months is exempted from contributions. And your experience of caring can be turned into a qualification through a Centro Qualifica: it counts towards recognition of skills (RVCC).

What the conversations do not cover, and what people ask instead

To be honest: in years of conversations in the chats, carer status is not discussed at all. Neither “cuidador informal” nor “estatuto do cuidador” comes up even once in the active chats — not a single account of how someone applied, how long they waited or what answer they got. So there is no one else's experience here yet, and we are not making it up.

People ask about something else — the things they come up against earlier:

Who will come to the person's home. People look for a carer through ads and confuse home care with a care home. The state route is different: home care (SAD) and a place in a care home are requested from your municipality's social services or from Segurança Social, and in Lisbon from Santa Casa da Misericórdia.

How much it costs. The family pays for a private care home itself, under a contract. The cost of such a home goes into the tax return as a separate line — Lares; deductions are covered in the guide to tax deductions.

What to do on the day a loved one is taken ill. Here the chats do have experience, and it is consistent: if a life is in danger, do not call the health helpline, call 112.

If your loved one is not in Portugal yet. An elderly parent is brought over through family reunification, which has its own conditions — age or proven dependency. Dependency is what people ask about most, and it is a separate story with nothing to do with carer status: until the person has lived in the country for a year with their own document, there is no question of the status.

“No, care homes are something else, I was thinking maybe there are organisations that find carers or helpers, so someone would come and help every 2-3 days, cook meals, etc.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

chatsetubal13.04.2026

“If it's care homes / old people's homes, then better google the reviews and pick one of the best options. Then sign a care contract and pay. And after that pay monthly.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

chatsetubal13.04.2026

“If (God forbid) someone is in a critical condition and their life is in danger, calling sns24 is just wasting precious time. Call 112. That's the emergency number. You can speak English if you can't describe the problem clearly and precisely in Portuguese. We had this happen with my mother-in-law (suspected stroke). Literally 5 minutes later the bombeiros arrived and worked out that her blood sugar had dropped to a critical level. They started giving her syrup, but the sugar wouldn't go up. They called in proper doctors, who put her on a drip and injected something.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

chatleiria08.08.2026

“In Portugal, for a serious problem (heart attack, stroke, etc.) there's the via verde protocol — urgent care with minimal red tape. You call 112, the bombeiros come and they call INEM, which takes the patient to the nearest clinic for that condition. Even if you don't have an utente. They'll only ask for your passport. Then at the clinic they'll ask what you have — utente or even travel insurance. And they'll give you whatever treatment your condition needs. Here the doctors think about treatment, not bills. The bills come later, and that can take a while.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

schoolinportugal07.03.2024

“1. Imoveis - mainly rent costs, in some cases mortgage interest (for old loans) 2. Lares - care home costs. 3. Outros.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

myptaxes10.02.2026

“For reuniting with parents AIMA asks for one of two things: being over 65 (a pensioner), or younger but financially dependent on the applicant.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

reciboverde05.02.2025

Madeira, the Azores and who to call

Everything described above is the procedure for mainland Portugal. The islands have their own.

In the Azores, the status and help for carers are run by a regional programme with its own website, apoioaocuidador.azores.gov.pt.

In Madeira there is a dedicated desk for carers — the Balcão do Cuidador Informal in Funchal, Rua Elias Garcia, 14, Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 12:30 and from 14:00 to 16:30; phone 300 084 328, email ISSMadeira@seg-social.pt.

Numbers worth writing down wherever you live: 112 — ambulance, fire brigade and rescue; 808 24 24 24 — the SNS 24 health helpline; 144 — the national social emergency line; 300 502 502 — the Segurança Social line; 800 203 531 — the line for older people; 800 208 462 — the line for people with disabilities.

If you have to care for an elderly person who has no family doctor, start with the guide to getting a family doctor: without one there will be no referrals and no certificate, which is where this whole road begins.