Your employer won't give you an employment contract: what to do
You have worked a month and there is no money, or they offer to pay you not as a salary but against an invoice from you — “just issue us an ato isolado”. That is not allowed, and the issue is not tax but what kind of work it actually was. Here, in order: what proper registration looks like and on which day it must happen, what you are owed on top of your basic pay, how disguised employment differs from genuine self-employment, why an employer wants a one-off invoice and what you lose by it, where to complain and what follows a complaint under the law — down to the day.
What must happen on your very first day
Being taken on in Portugal starts not with a signature on paper but with a notification to Segurança Social. The employer must report that you have been hired through the Segurança Social Direta online account, and there is only one deadline: before the contract starts — that is, before your first working day. There is a separate exception: if the contract is very short or the work is shift-based and urgent, the notification can be made within 24 hours of starting, but the reasons have to be justified. This is Article 29 of the Contributions Code (Código dos Regimes Contributivos) as in force from 1 January 2026.
In the notification the employer gives your NISS, the type of contract — fixed-term or permanent — and the fixed part of your pay. If you don't have a NISS yet, you get one separately, and that is no reason to put off starting work: The first weeks after moving — the step on NISS.
What happens when a worker isn't reported. If the breach is put right within a day of the deadline, it is a minor offence; in every other case it is a very serious one. And the presumption works against the employer: the person is assumed to have worked for them from the first day of the third month before it all came to light — with contributions owed for all those months. And if during that time the person was receiving sickness or unemployment benefit, they are assumed to have started work on the day the payments began, and the employer is liable for repaying that money jointly with them.
You can check for yourself whether you have been reported: your Segurança Social Direta account shows who pays contributions for you and for which months. That is the first thing to open if your registration keeps being put off.
“Seconding this: check everything. I'm taking my employer to the labour court — challenging my dismissal after disciplinary proceedings because I refused to sign a fixed-term contract after almost a year of working there. And then I found out they only reported me to social security a month after I'd been suspended. So all that time the money was going straight into their pocket.”
Translated from Portuguese; the original is at the linkr/portugal21.08.2026
When the contract must be in writing and when it needn't be
This is where people most often get confused. The law doesn't require a permanent employment contract (contrato sem termo) to be in writing — it can be verbal. But that doesn't mean there will be no paperwork: under Article 106 of the Labour Code the employer must give you the terms in writing — who they are, where your workplace is, your job title and duties, the start date, how much holiday you get, the notice periods for dismissal, your pay and how it is paid, and the length of the working day and week. If you have none of this at all, that alone is something to take to the inspectorate.
A fixed-term contract (contrato a termo) is the opposite: it must be in writing. It has to include the signatures and addresses of both parties, your work and pay, the place and working hours, the start date, the term and — as a separate clause — why it is fixed-term: not “by agreement of the parties”, but a description of the facts that make the work temporary. This is Article 141.
And the most useful thing to know. Under Article 147, if there is no written form, no signatures, no dates, or no reason given for the fixed term, the contract is treated as permanent, and your length of service counts from your first working day. In other words, it is the worker who gains from missing paperwork, not the employer. A fixed-term contract cannot last more than two years in any case.
The law sets the probation period (período experimental) itself too: 90 days for most workers, 180 for complex and responsible posts, and also for people looking for their first job or long-term unemployed, and 240 days for managers. In a fixed-term contract it is 30 days if the contract is for six months or more, and 15 days if it is shorter. A probation period is never longer than this, whatever the paper says.
What you are owed on top of your basic pay
Your basic pay isn't your whole salary, and the difference is bigger than it seems.
Holiday — at least 22 working days a year (Article 238). In the year you are hired it is worked out in proportion to the time worked.
Holiday pay, subsídio de férias, is a separate payment equal to your basic pay plus regular allowances, and it is paid before your holiday starts (Article 264).
The Christmas bonus, subsídio de Natal, is another month's pay, due by 15 December; in the year you join and the year you leave it is in proportion to the time worked (Article 263). The law classes breaches of both articles as very serious — the highest level.
That is why people in the chats talk about “14 salaries”: twelve monthly ones plus holiday pay plus the Christmas bonus. The employer may also pay them in instalments, one twelfth each month (October 2025) — then there are no “extra” payments in summer and December, but the annual total is the same.
A meal allowance is not compulsory by law anywhere except the civil service — though almost everyone pays it (September 2024). If you were promised it verbally, insist on a line in the contract: by default it doesn't exist.
Insurance against accidents at work is arranged by the employer, and not out of goodwill: under Article 79 of Law 98/2009 they must transfer liability for workplace injuries to an insurance company. A burn in the kitchen, a cut, a fall from scaffolding — the insurer pays for treatment and lost earnings. There is a trap worth knowing about: if the policy declares a lower salary than the real one, the insurer covers only the declared amount, and the employer must make up the difference — and you will still have to get it out of them.
“Same thing happened to me, yeah. They paid it back. Plus you actually end up with 14 salaries a year, in July and December they pay you double, at least that's how it was for me, they explained that's what the law says.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linktaxinportugal05.09.2024
“The optional one is the meal allowance. It's only compulsory in the civil service, but usually everyone gets it.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linktaxinportugal05.09.2024
“If a worker breaks their leg at work, it's covered by the employer's insurance (Seguro de Acidentes de Trabalho). Main points: 1. Sick pay – the insurance company pays 70% of your salary for the first 12 months of temporary incapacity. 2. Medical costs – covered in full, including operations, rehab, physio. 3. Compensation – if there's lasting damage to your health, you get a lump sum or a lifelong pension (depending on how much of your capacity to work you've lost). 4.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkRussosEmPortugal20.02.2025
“If the nanny isn't full-time they pay by the hour. If she's full-time they do an employment contract, pay 14 salaries a year, social security and everything that comes with it (bank holidays, sick leave etc).”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkpequenos_PT27.07.2024
Contributions: who pays and what they give you
34.75% of an employee's salary goes to Segurança Social, split like this: 11% is deducted from your money and 23.75% is paid by the employer on top, out of their own pocket (Article 53 of the Contributions Code). The second part doesn't appear on your payslip and is easy to forget — and that is exactly what someone offering to “register you differently” is saving.
What these contributions give you personally. Segurança Social benefits are worked out not by nationality or an official's goodwill, but by the months for which contributions were paid for you. Maternity pay requires contributions for at least six months (March 2026). Unemployment benefit goes to those who have a contribution record and were dismissed rather than leaving of their own accord (June 2025). Sick pay, your pension and all the other sums are also built up from those months.
A month without registration isn't “a month without a bit of paper”. It is a month that will never appear in your contribution record, and the only way to restore it later is through a court ruling that there was an employment relationship. How contributions work for people who work for themselves is covered separately: How the self-employed pay Segurança Social contributions.
“It doesn't depend on the parents' nationality, maternity payments depend on whether you've paid into segurança social for at least 6 months If you haven't paid anything, then maybe there's a chance to apply as low-income, but I don't know the details there”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkberemennost_portugal01.03.2026
“of course. To get the vast majority of benefits from segurança you first have to be paying social contributions. With an employment contract — you have to be made redundant, dismissed by the employer.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkmyptaxes25.06.2025
The presumption of an employment contract: five signs
The worker's main tool is called the presumption of an employment contract, and it lives in Article 12 of the Labour Code. The point is that a court looks not at what the document is called but at how things actually worked. There are five signs:
— the work is done on premises that belong to the employer or that they have chosen; — the equipment and tools are theirs; — they set your start and finish times; — you are paid a set amount at regular intervals; — you hold a position in the company's structure.
The law doesn't say how many signs are needed: it says “some of the following”. In practice two are assumed to be enough — but that will be for a court to argue over, not you. A restaurant cook who works to someone else's schedule, at someone else's stove, with someone else's ingredients, ticks all five.
Article 12 then turns to the employer. Work that is “apparently independent” but in substance employment is a very serious offence. For a repeat offence, on top of the fine, the company loses any state benefits, subsidies and EU funding for up to two years and is barred from public tenders. Not only the company is liable for paying the fine, but also its managers personally.
In Portugal this has its own name — falsos recibos verdes, “bogus self-employment”. Cooks and waiters, construction workers and office staff are the typical cases inspections start with (January 2024).
“No. This won't affect you. These checks are aimed at fighting bogus self-employment (falsos recibos verdes) - that's when people who are effectively employees are registered as self-employed (waiters and cooks in cafés, builders on construction sites, office clerks in companies etc.).”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkmyptaxes12.01.2024
“From articles by the same author. He's got info pinned about sole traders and the self-employed, and the articles explain that when an employer doesn't take someone on staff but provides them with tools, uniform etc., plus that's the worker's only client as a sole trader, Portuguese authorities have a term for it: ‘Falsos recibos verdes’. And they can make the employer take the person on staff.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkreciboverde23.11.2024
Why it isn't such a good deal for the employer
It is widely believed that “receipts instead of a contract” save the employer everything. That is only partly true.
If a person works for themselves but in practice has only one client, Segurança Social also takes contributions from the client: 7% when the client accounts for more than half of the worker's income, and 10% when it is more than 80% (Article 168 of the Contributions Code). The share is worked out from the invoices issued — that is, from data the state already has, with no inspection at all. It was on these very figures that the mass review of “bogus service provision” in January 2024 was based.
And the second thing people in the chats get right: checks on disguised employment are done not by the tax office but by the working conditions inspectorate (August 2024). As far as the tax office is concerned, someone who has issued an invoice has done everything correctly — they have paid the tax. The question isn't tax but what kind of contract it should have been.
The simple consequence: the employer has no “safe” grey scheme, and you have no reason to go along with them. The difference between genuine self-employment and disguised employment is covered here: How to register as self-employed (atividade) and work on recibos verdes.
“There's no such restriction. The client can be your only one, as long as it isn't falsos recibos verdes. If a Portuguese client has the dominant share, they pay extra social security for you. If their share is over 50%, it's 7% social security, if over 80%, then 10%. Segurança Social takes these contributions from your client itself, working out their share from your recibos. It doesn't take them from foreign clients, it can't reach them. The 7% and 10% rates are in paragraph 7 of Artigo 168.º of the Social Contributions Code.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkmyptaxes11.05.2023
“Honestly, it does look like a falso recibo verde. Both you and the employer could end up being inspected. But those inspections aren't done by Finanças, it's ACT.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkmyptaxes19.08.2024
“Just issue us an ato isolado”: why the employer wants it
An ato isolado is a one-off transaction: one lecture, one order, one item sold. Income from it falls into category B and goes into Anexo B of your tax return in spring (April 2026). You don't need to register an activity with the tax office for it — that is what makes a one-off transaction convenient.
A month worked to someone else's schedule is not a one-off transaction, and that is no technicality: income from an ato isolado must by definition not be predictable, ongoing or recurring. Accountants in the chats have been repeating this for years (March 2025). How many such transactions you can invoice in a year is still disputed: one code says several, another says one (April 2026); some believe several are allowed if they are different kinds of work for different clients (July 2025). That dispute has nothing to do with our case — a month in a kitchen is not a one-off transaction however you count it.
On IVA, strange as it may seem, the employer isn't making things up. The exemption under Article 53 — the one that applies to turnover of up to €15,000 a year — doesn't cover a one-off transaction: 23% tax is added on top of the amount. And it is the worker, not the one paying for the work, who both issues the invoice and pays this tax to the state. There is a separate deadline for paying it, and missing it means interest for you, not for the employer: find out the deadline from the tax office before you issue the invoice. If the 23% really is added on top, you lose nothing on it: you receive it and pass it on. But check what exactly is on top: if the same amount is quoted “including tax”, 18.7% comes out of your own money.
What you lose with this arrangement is listed above: contributions, and with them your contribution record and benefits; holiday, holiday pay and the Christmas bonus; the meal allowance; insurance against accidents at work. It is the employer who saves on this, not you. A breakdown of exactly this case — a month's work as a cook — is in an answer to a reader: “My son was offered his pay through an ato isolado”.
“You can't issue an Ato Isolado for regular income. Only for one-off and unforeseen income. From what you describe you need to register as a sole trader. You can avoid IVA under Article 53 that way, but you'll lose the discount in the 1st and 2nd years as a sole trader. From the 3rd year there's no discount anyway.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkreciboverde09.03.2025
“On Ato Isolado the law contradicts itself — one code says you can only do one, another says several. If you register as a sole trader, you can't move the Ato Isolado over. But it'll be in the same income category, so in practice it gets added to your sole trader income.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linktaxinportugal02.04.2026
“I lean towards thinking it's acceptable to issue more than one ato isolado if the income comes from different kinds of activity under separate (one-off) deals with different clients. If anyone gets the chance to test this theory in practice by checking with the tax office, let us know. Thanks.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkmyptaxes02.07.2025
“That's exactly how it works in practice. Art. 3 of CIRS puts ato isolado in category B, and in IRS it also goes in Anexo B”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkmyptaxes30.04.2026
Working for cash: where it leads
The second way of “not registering” is paying in cash. People in the chats talk about it without illusions: the minimum wage goes through the books and the rest is handed over in an envelope (August 2025), and on building sites nobody has seen an official salary at all (May 2026). This isn't rare or a misunderstanding — it is established practice in whole industries.
Where it leads, apart from lost contribution record. First, your residence permit: renewing one based on work requires a valid contract, and someone left without one ends up stuck — people in the chats write about this as the most painful point (June 2025). Second, family reunification and any other procedure where your income is looked at: unofficial earnings simply don't exist for them, and the question “what do you live on?” does get asked (July 2026).
And third, you can't claim money paid in an envelope. Everything you are owed is proved with payslips, bank transfers and social security records. For a court, anything that isn't in any of those places never happened.
“Common practice - the boss pays the minimum wage (870) and the rest in an envelope. But even then you take home 1500 in total, and you have to be a really needed guy for that - like a cook in a restaurant.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkchatlisboa24.08.2025
“It's like that almost everywhere here. Haven't yet seen a single builder who got paid any other way than cash in an envelope.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkbanksdeportugal31.05.2026
“Before you go to sleep, imagine being someone who's lived in the country for 10 years already but still hasn't applied for citizenship. In that time they've graduated from university here, become fluent in the language, made lots of friends and even bought themselves a plot/flat. But now it's time to renew their residence permit again, and at the last moment they get made redundant. They go to AIMA for the renewal, and without a contract they're refused. And since this is all happening in the wonderful anti-immigrant Portugal of the future, nobody will hire them without a valid residence permit, those are the laws they've passed.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkleft4portugal21.06.2025
“What you want to do comes with serious risks. Working ‘off the books’ (for cash, without a contract) is dangerous in your situation. It's better to wait until you get your status and then officially set up as self-employed (in Portugal it's called ‘recibo verde’) and pay taxes. When you apply for family reunification, the authorities look at your husband's income. They don't count your unofficial earnings. But if they start asking where your money comes from, it could raise suspicions. Also, working without registering and without paying into Segurança Social is against the law.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkRussosEmPortugal17.07.2026
Gather evidence before you start arguing
Everything that follows — a conversation, a complaint, a court case — rests on evidence, and it is easier to collect while you are still working and have access to your messages and colleagues.
What counts: messages about shifts and tasks, the rota, photos of the workplace and uniform, your pass, names and phone numbers of colleagues, receipts and transfers, any papers with the company's name. Separately, a statement from Segurança Social Direta: it will show whether you were reported or not.
Next, ask to be registered properly — a contract and pay for the time you have worked. It is better to send the request by email or message so there is a dated record. Sometimes that is enough: in April 2025 a woman whom her employer was about to dismiss without the payments she was owed simply sent them links to what she was entitled to under her contract — and an hour later got her final settlement from the accountant.
“Well done you! This video has pushed me to take a similar step and stand up for my rights.. 3 years ago I was working on a contract for an employer- a lawyer. And because I got ill ( I had a note from the clinic) she decided to fire me without the subsídios. I didn't argue, I just sent her links to what I was entitled to under that contract...an hour later the accountant's statement was sent to me, the whole amount owed for holiday and wages. Now I'm in a situation without a contract. But! There's an organisation for workers' rights. And you have to stand up for your rights , honour and dignity. And funnily enough it's only our own compatriots who behave so badly.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkRussosEmPortugal22.04.2025
A complaint to ACT and what follows under the law
The working conditions inspectorate is called Autoridade para as Condições do Trabalho, ACT for short. It is the body that inspects private employers and draws up reports; a complaint can be made by the worker, a colleague or an outsider. You can book an appointment and ask a question through the government services portal, and you can also go to a district office.
Then comes the procedure laid down by Law 63/2013 of 27 August 2013, and its deadlines are precise.
1. An inspector who sees signs of disguised employment draws up a report and gives the employer 10 days either to register the worker or to explain themselves.
2. If the employer produces an employment contract backdated to when the work really began, the case is closed straight away. That is the purpose of the procedure: not to punish but to get the worker registered.
3. If the employer doesn't register the worker, ACT sends the file within 5 days to the public prosecutor where the worker lives.
4. The prosecutor's office has 20 days to bring a claim in the labour court for recognition of the employment contract. It is the prosecutor who brings the claim, not you.
5. If the employer doesn't contest it, the judge rules within 10 days. If they do, a hearing is set within 30 days, and each side can bring up to three witnesses.
6. The judgment recognising the contract itself sets the date on which the employment relationship began and is sent to ACT and Segurança Social. Contributions are calculated from that date.
The worker pays court costs in only one case: if they filed their own application in the case and lost. Simply waiting for the judgment costs nothing.
What people in the chats say about complaining. In December 2025 someone asked whether going to ACT helps when wages aren't paid — and was told that it is a serious body and the place to start, with the need for court to be judged on the outcome. In August 2023 people gave the same advice about late wages. There is also a sober remark from April 2023: providing services as such is not banned by law — what is banned is calling employment by that name, and if this is proved through ACT, the court will order the employer to pay everything due under an employment contract.
The fine for the employer is calculated in units of account (UC) and by the company's turnover: for a very serious offence at a small company it is 20 to 40 units for negligence and 45 to 95 if intent is found; at a large company the sums are several times higher.
“yes, it's quite a serious body. you can start with them and then depending on the outcome see whether you need to go to the tribunal do trabalho. if it goes to court you have to understand it'll take time.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkleft4portugal29.12.2025
“There are unions, every profession has its own. If you're on a contract, the employer gets a fine for late wages and owes you a penalty payment. Go to ACT, they'll help.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkchatlisboa10.08.2023
“In Portugal this kind of work, ‘prestação de serviços ’, isn't banned, it's provided for in the civil code article 1154°, as for ‘contrato de trabalho’ that's the labour code article 11° what your employer is afraid of is that if you want to prove through ACT that what your employer calls providing services is actually an employment contract, then the Portuguese court will make your employer pay you what you're due under the labour code and that's ‘ subsídio de refeição, subsídio de férias e subsídio de natal ’”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linktaxinportugal20.04.2023
“If you have an employment contract for this side job, go to the labour inspectorate, at any loja de cidadão. They'll explain everything in detail there.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkchatlisboa17.08.2023
Deadlines: when it becomes too late
Claims under an employment contract — unpaid wages, holiday pay, the Christmas bonus, overtime — expire one year from the day after the contract ends (Article 337 of the Labour Code). While you are working, that year doesn't run: it starts after you leave.
A separate caveat about old debts: anything older than five years — overtime, compensation for unused holiday — can only be proved with a document; words and witnesses are no longer enough.
And a rule worth knowing before you sign anything when you leave: a worker cannot waive their claims — such a waiver is invalid, except for a settlement approved by a court. A “no claims” paper signed in someone's office does not in itself take your money away from you.
What the chats don't have — and what follows from that
To be honest about the sources. In the archive of Russian-speaking chats in Portugal — almost three million messages over four years — there is little talk about the registration procedure itself: not a single conversation about notifying social security before the first working day, not one about the presumption of an employment contract and its signs. Everything in this article about deadlines and articles is taken from the law as currently in force and was checked on 1 September 2026.
More important still: the archive has no stories of a complaint to ACT seen through to the end. There are questions about whether it helps, there is advice to go there, there is the story of a man suing his employer in the labour court — but not one account of “I complained, and this is how it ended”. So it would be dishonest to promise that a complaint will work quickly: the law describes the procedure, but how long it takes in practice we can't say from our conversations.
What follows from this. A complaint to ACT is a way to force the employer to register you, not a way to get money: money is a matter for the labour court. If the amount is significant or the case is heading for court, talking to a lawyer pays for itself — how to find and check one is covered separately: How to find and check a lawyer in Portugal.
What to bring
- Written information about your working conditions, or the contract itself — everything you were given
- Payslips (recibos de vencimento) for every month
- A statement from Segurança Social Direta: who paid contributions for you and for which months
- Messages about shifts, rotas and tasks — with screenshots and dates
- Photos of the workplace, uniform and pass; names and phone numbers of colleagues
- Bank statements showing payments in, receipts for cash
- NISS and NIF — both the inspectorate and the court will ask for them
Where people most often trip up
- “We'll sort out the paperwork later.” Your employer must report you to social security before your first working day; “later” is already a breach, usually a very serious one
- A fixed-term contract that isn't in writing or doesn't give a reason for the fixed term counts as permanent by law, with your length of service from your first working day
- A probation period longer than 90 days (180 or 240 only for special posts) means nothing on paper
- A meal allowance promised verbally: by law it is optional, and without a line in the contract you don't have it
- An ato isolado for regular work isn't a grey scheme but wrongly declared income, and you will be the one liable for the tax
- Wages in an envelope can't be proved at all: for a court they never existed
- A year after you leave, it is too late to claim money
- A complaint to ACT forces the employer to register you but doesn't get your money back: for that you go to the labour court