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Working Time Exemption Calculator

Do you have, or are you about to agree to, a working-time exemption (isenção de horário) in Portugal? The law guarantees a special retribution that, absent a collective agreement, cannot be lower than one overtime hour per day, or two overtime hours per week when the normal schedule is kept. This calculator starts from your monthly salary, computes the official hourly value and shows the minimum supplement per day, per month and per year, and its weight in the salary.

Pick the agreed modality and enter the monthly gross salary and the weekly schedule. The legal overtime-hour uplift is 25%; adjust it if your collective agreement sets another value. In the daily modality the working days per month are editable (22 is the usual convention).

Minimum supplement per month
€158.65
1 overtime hour per day × 22 working days
Weight in the salary
15.87%
The minimum supplement as a percentage of the monthly base salary.
Base hourly value (art. 271)€5.77
Overtime hour (with 25% uplift)€7.21
Supplement per working day (1 overtime hour)+€7.21
Monthly supplement (legal minimum)€158.65
Across 12 salary months€1,903.85
Salary + supplement per month€1,158.65

This is the article 265 legal minimum, which applies absent a value set by collective agreement; the collective agreement or the contract may set a higher value, which prevails.

Gross values: the working-time exemption supplement pays income tax and Social Security like the rest of the salary. It counts for the holiday bonus, but not for the Christmas bonus.

Estimate of the legal minimum. The law sets the minimum per day or per week and does not define the monthly conversion: the daily modality conventionally uses the month's working days. Workers holding management or director roles may renounce the supplement, and case law allows withdrawing it when the exemption ceases.

Educational estimate, not advice. The figure computed is the article 265 minimum of the Portuguese Labour Code; your collective agreement or contract may set different rules. Always confirm against your payslip.

What the working-time exemption is

The working-time exemption (IHT) is a regime agreed in writing between worker and employer (article 218 of the Portuguese Labour Code), available for management or director roles and positions of trust, for preparatory or complementary work that can only happen outside the schedule, and for telework or regular work away from the company. It has three modalities (article 219): no subjection to the maximum limits of the normal working period, an enlargement of the normal period up to a set limit, or keeping the agreed normal schedule. Absent a stipulation, the first one applies.

What it pays: the article 265 minimum

Absent a value set by collective agreement, the special retribution cannot be lower than the pay corresponding to one overtime hour per day in the no-limits or enlarged modalities, or to two overtime hours per week in the modality that keeps the normal schedule. One overtime hour is worth the article 271 hourly value plus 25% (article 268): with €1,000 and 40 weekly hours, one hour is worth €5.77 and one overtime hour €7.21.

How the monthly amount is reached

The law sets the minimum per day or per week and does not say how many days a month has, so the working days per month are an editable field: the default is 22, the usual payroll convention, but you can use the actual days. In the daily modality the monthly supplement is the overtime hour times the days: €7.21 × 22 = €158.65. In the weekly modality, weeks convert to a month with the same 52 ÷ 12 factor of the hourly-value formula: 2 hours × €7.21 × 52 ÷ 12 = €62.50.

The 25% uplift is editable

The 25% figure is the legal uplift of the first overtime hour on a business day and is the floor used in the most common reading of article 265. The sector’s collective agreement may set a different uplift or supplement, and some readings pay the second weekly hour at 37.5%, the subsequent-hour uplift. If your collective agreement sets another value, adjust the uplift field; what the law guarantees is that the total never falls below the minimum.

It counts for the holiday bonus, not the Christmas one

The IHT supplement counts in full towards the subsídio de férias (holiday bonus), which follows the pay for the specific way of working (article 264). The Christmas bonus, by contrast, is only base pay plus seniority payments (article 263), so it does not include it. The annual figure shown covers the 12 salary months; over a full year you also receive roughly one extra month of the supplement inside the holiday bonus. Courts have also held that when the exemption ceases, the employer may withdraw the supplement.

The supplement pays income tax and Social Security

The IHT supplement is ordinary employment pay (category A): it enters income tax (IRS), at your rate, and pays the 11% employee Social Security like the rest of the salary. It does not benefit from the reduced withholding that applies to overtime actually worked. The figures in this calculator are gross; to see the net effect, use the net-salary calculator.

Worked example

Imagine a €1,000 monthly salary, 40 hours a week and a full exemption (no subjection to the limits). The hourly value is (1,000 × 12) ÷ (52 × 40) = €5.77 and one overtime hour is worth €7.21. The legal minimum is one overtime hour per day: over 22 working days that is €158.65 a month, about 15.9% of the salary, or €1,903.85 across 12 months. If the exemption keeps the normal schedule, the minimum drops to two hours per week: €62.50 a month.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a working-time exemption pay in Portugal?
Absent a value set by collective agreement, the legal minimum is the pay corresponding to one overtime hour per day or, when the normal working period is kept, two overtime hours per week (article 265 of the Labour Code). With €1,000 and 40 weekly hours, that is about €158.65 a month over 22 working days, or €62.50 in the weekly modality.
What is the isenção de horário de trabalho?
It is a regime, agreed in writing, under which the worker is no longer bound by the normal working schedule. It has three modalities (article 219): no subjection to the maximum limits of the normal period, an enlargement of the normal period up to a daily or weekly limit, or keeping the agreed normal schedule. Absent a stipulation, the first applies.
Who can have a working-time exemption?
The cases set by law (article 218) are management or director roles and positions of trust, oversight or support to those roles; preparatory or complementary work that can only be done outside the schedule; and telework or other regular work away from the company without immediate supervision. A collective agreement can extend these cases. The agreement must always be in writing.
Does the exemption remove all working-time limits?
No. Even under the full exemption, the worker keeps the right to the mandatory and complementary weekly rest, to public holidays and to the daily rest period (article 219(3)). The exemption waives the schedule, not the rest.
Does an exempt worker get overtime pay?
Under the no-limits exemption, extra work on a normal day does not count as overtime; the IHT supplement compensates it. But work on a weekly rest day or public holiday is still overtime and pays its own uplifts. In the modality that keeps the normal schedule, anything beyond the schedule is ordinary overtime.
Does the IHT supplement count for the holiday and Christmas bonuses?
It counts in full for the holiday bonus (article 264), but not for the Christmas bonus, which consists only of base pay and seniority payments (article 263).
Can the supplement be withdrawn?
Yes, when the exemption ceases. Portuguese courts have held that the IHT supplement compensates a specific way of working and is only due while it lasts: if the worker stops being exempt, the employer may stop paying it without breaching the pay-irreducibility principle. Workers holding management or director roles may also renounce it (article 265(2)).
Does the IHT supplement pay taxes?
Yes. It is ordinary employment income (category A): it pays income tax at your rate and the 11% employee Social Security, like the rest of the salary. It does not benefit from the reduced withholding that applies to overtime.

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Author: Thorben Rasmus Idel · Reviewed by: Nahar Geva · Last reviewed: 2026-07-10