Work Accident Insurance (Portugal)
What does the compulsory cover cost, and what is it charged on? Enter the real pay and the pay declared on the policy.
Figures are per worker; the number of workers only scales the payroll and the premium. The rate comes from the particular conditions of your policy, not from the law. Leave the declared pay equal to the real pay if there is no under-declaration.
With the declared pay equal to the real pay, the insurer answers for the compensation in full.
The rate is not in the law: Article 81(2) requires premiums to be graded according to the degree of risk of the activity and the prevention conditions, so the insurer sets it. Stamp duty and parafiscal charges are not included.
It is compulsory, and there is no alternative
Article 79(1) of Law 98/2009 states that the employer is obliged to transfer liability for the compensation set out in that law to entities legally authorised to write this insurance. There is no self-insurance option and no option to carry the risk: liability for repairing a work accident must sit with an insurer. Paragraph 2 extends the obligation to employers who hire workers exclusively to supply them to other companies.
The base is the insurable pay, and it is the same base as the compensation
The premium is not charged on the monthly salary. It is charged on the annual retribution of Article 71(3): twelve times the monthly pay plus the holiday and Christmas allowances and any other annual amounts the worker regularly receives, so 14 times the monthly pay in the ordinary case, plus the other regular amounts. The meal allowance counts, but for 11 months rather than 12, because it is tied to actually working and is not paid during holidays. The point that decides everything else is this: that same annual retribution is the base on which the indemnity and the pension will be computed if there is an accident.
The rate belongs to the insurer, and the law says why
There is no statutory rate for this cover. Article 81(2) provides that the uniform policy follows the principle of grading premiums according to the degree of accident risk, taking into account the nature of the activity and the prevention conditions in place at the workplace. The rate therefore depends on the activity and on the company’s prevention record, and the insurer sets it. That is why it is a field in this calculator and not a constant of ours. You will find it in the particular conditions of your policy. Paragraph 3 adds that the employer may itself ask for the premium to be revised when prevention conditions improve.
Declaring less does not save risk, it shares it with you
This is where the sum changes in kind. Article 79(4) provides that where the pay declared for the purposes of the premium is lower than the real pay, the insurer is liable only in relation to that declared pay, which may never be taken as lower than the guaranteed minimum monthly wage. Article 79(5) closes it: the employer answers for the difference in the temporary incapacity indemnities and in the pensions due, and also in the hospital and clinical costs, in the corresponding proportion. Cover becomes a fraction. Declare 60% of the real pay and 40% of everything, the hospital bill included, comes out of your own pocket, and where a lifetime pension is involved that is every year, for good.
The minimum-wage floor
The same paragraph 4 stops under-declaration going below a floor: the pay taken into account may never be lower than the guaranteed minimum monthly wage. Annualised on the same 14-month basis, that is €12,880 in 2026. Note which way the rule runs, though: it limits how far cover can shrink, it does not grant cover above the real pay. A worker earning less than the annualised minimum wage is still compensated on what they actually earn.
What this calculator does not do
It does not estimate your policy rate, which is commercial, nor the insurer’s loadings, discounts, instalment charges or minimum premium, nor the stamp duty and parafiscal charges added on top of the premium. It does not model the provisional-premium and year-end adjustment mechanism, under which the policy is issued on a forecast payroll and settled against the declared payroll. And it does not compute the benefits payable to the worker after an accident: that is the work accident compensation calculator, which uses exactly the same annual retribution.
Worked example
A worker on €1,200 a month with a €130 meal allowance has an insurable annual pay of €18,230 (14 × €1,200 plus 11 × €130). At a 1% rate the annual premium is €182.30, or €15.19 a month. If the company declares €920 instead of €1,200, the premium falls to €139.76 and saves €42.54 a year. In exchange, the insurer now answers for only 76.7% of the compensation: on accident leave the employer pays €8.16 of every day of indemnity, and on a total permanent incapacity it pays €3,402.94 a year, for life, out of the €14,584 pension. The €42.54 saved buys an exposure eighty times larger, every year.
Frequently asked questions
Who must hold work accident insurance in Portugal?
What is the premium charged on?
What is the rate for work accident insurance?
What happens if the company declares pay below the real pay?
Does the meal allowance count towards the insurable pay?
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Sources
- Lei n.º 98/2009, de 4 de setembro, arts. 71.º, 79.º e 81.º (texto publicado no Diário da República) · Diário da República, 1.ª série, n.º 172 · retrieved 1 Oct 2026
- Lei n.º 98/2009: regime de reparação de acidentes de trabalho e doenças profissionais · Diário da República
- Acidentes de trabalho: subsídio de refeição e cálculo da indemnização · Autoridade de Supervisão de Seguros e Fundos de Pensões · retrieved 1 Oct 2026
Author: Thorben Rasmus Idel · Reviewed by: Nahar Geva · Last reviewed: