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Finished Work in Portugal? Your Boss Isn’t Allowed to Email You After Hours

If your workday in Portugal is done, your managers aren’t allowed to email or call you. Except for emergencies..

Finished Work in Portugal? Your Boss Isn’t Allowed to Email You After Hours
Office workers returning home. (Photographer: Paul Hanna/Bloomberg)

If your workday in Portugal is done, your managers aren’t allowed to email or call you. Except for emergencies.

Lawmakers approved measures this month to support employees’ right to disconnect from work as more people perform their jobs remotely. The rules were approved by the ruling Socialist Party with the backing of other groups in parliament.

“The employer has the duty of abstaining from contacting the worker during his rest period, except in situations of force majeure,” according to the text of the rules. In related measures, home-working expenses won’t be taxed as income while employees with young children have the right to work remotely if it is compatible with their roles.

Working from home was mandatory in Portugal until the end of July when a surge in coronavirus infections slowed after the country’s vaccination program accelerated. Prime Minister Antonio Costa will face a snap election at the end of January.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.