Portugal outlaws email outside working hours

On November 5, 2021 (local time), a law was approved in Portugal making it illegal to send emails or text messages to employees outside of working hours as telecommuting expands. For this reason, penalties may be imposed if a supervisor sends an email to a subordinate or the like after business hours.

According to the government announcement of the Portuguese government, the new labor law rules impose penalties for emails outside of working hours and require companies to pay for increased gas, electricity and telecommunications costs as a result of working from home. In addition, monitoring of workers working from home is prohibited, and employees are guaranteed to meet with their supervisors once every two months to prevent worker isolation. Meanwhile, in Europe, the right to be unconnected was proposed, but not included in the law.

However, companies with less than 10 employees are excluded from this law. In addition, employees with children are granted the right to work from home until the child turns eight, without prior agreement with the employer.

In Portugal, although the number of people working from home has increased due to the pandemic, the issue of inequality in access to IT devices has been a problem, and the government has needed to intervene. According to the amendment of this law, it seems that the purpose of this law is to attract digital nomads and workers who value work-life balance to Portugal who work while traveling domestically and abroad using IT. Related information can be found here.