Paternity leave in Portugal: how many days and what it pays

What paternity leave actually is

The name the law uses is not paternity leave. It is licença parental exclusiva do pai, the father's exclusive parental leave¹. The vocabulary is not pedantry: the word exclusive is the whole point. This leave belongs to the father, cannot be transferred to the mother, and does not come out of her time. It sits alongside the initial parental leave, which is the couple's.

For anyone planning, that means there are two blocks of time to add together, not one:

1. The father's exclusive leave, which is mandatory and paid in full.
2. Whatever share of the initial parental leave the couple decides he takes, which is optional and paid at a percentage that depends on how long he stays.

Almost every confusion written about this topic comes from running the two together.

How many days, and when they have to be taken

Article 43.º of the Labour Code and article 15.º of Decreto-Lei n.º 91/2009 say the same thing in the same words¹²:

• 28 mandatory days, consecutively or in blocks of at least 7 days, of which 7 must be taken consecutively immediately after the birth and the remaining 21 within the following 42 days.
• 7 optional days, consecutive or split, provided they are taken at the same time as the mother's initial parental leave.
• With twins, two extra days are added for each baby beyond the first.

A single birth therefore gives 35 days in total.

The 42-day window is the part that most often catches people out. The 21 days left over from the 28 cannot be saved for later in the year or for when the mother goes back to work: they have to be taken within the six weeks following the birth.

What it pays

Article 31.º of Decreto-Lei n.º 91/2009 is a single sentence: the daily amount of the father's exclusive parental benefit equals 100% of the reference remuneration². No exceptions and no brackets.

The reference remuneration is defined in article 28.º as the total pay of the first 6 of the last 8 months before the leave, excluding the holiday and Christmas bonuses, divided by 180. For a stable monthly salary that is exactly the salary divided by 30.

There is a floor and no ceiling. Article 38.º, n.º 1 stops the daily benefit falling below 80% of a thirtieth of the IAS, which in 2026 is €14.32 a day⁵. Unlike the unemployment benefit, there is no cap at all.

And there is good news that changes the final sum: the parental benefit carries no Social Security contribution and is not subject to income tax. What Social Security transfers is the amount calculated, with nothing withheld.

The 90% rule that almost nobody explains

This is the part that makes this page worth writing.

When a couple chooses the length of the initial parental leave, they also choose the percentage it is paid at. Article 30.º, n.º 1 has five paragraphs, and most published guides only know the first four²:

The last row is paragraph e). In the words of the law, on a 180-day leave where the father takes at least one period of 60 consecutive days, or two periods of 30 consecutive days out of the 180 days of the initial parental leave, beyond the father's exclusive parental leave, the daily amount equals 90% of the reference remuneration.

Three things worth holding on to about this rule:

• The 60 days are counted on top of the father's exclusive leave. His 28 + 7 days do not go towards it.
• The 90% applies across the whole 180 days, not only to the days the father takes.
• It applies to both parents. The mother is also paid 90%, calculated on her own reference remuneration.

It is, in practice, an incentive designed to keep fathers at home longer, and it is money that goes unclaimed through sheer lack of awareness.

A worked example

A father earning €1,200 a month has a daily reference remuneration of €40 (1,200 ÷ 30).

His exclusive leave: 28 + 7 = 35 days at 100%, that is €40 a day and €1,400 in total.

His share of the initial leave: the couple chose 180 days and he will take 60 consecutive days. Because that satisfies paragraph e), the rate is 90%: the daily amount is €36 and the 60 days pay €2,160.

Altogether: 95 days of leave and €3,560, with nothing deducted.

Had he stopped at the 30-day sharing minimum he would stay at 83%, that is €33.20 a day and €996 for the 30 days, a total of 65 days and €2,396. The extra 30 days are worth €1,164 more to him and lift the mother's benefit by the same proportion across the whole 180 days.

The next step

Now that you know how the two parts combine, run your own numbers on the father's parental leave calculator: it gives the days you are entitled to, the daily amount of each block, and what stopping before 60 days costs you.

If what you want is to compare the four modalities of the couple's leave, that comparison lives on the parental benefit calculator.

After the initial leave: the complementary parental leave

Once the initial leave ends, each parent can still take the licença parental complementar, of up to three months, either straight afterwards or at any point until the child turns 6. The extended parental benefit that pays it is 30% of the reference remuneration, rises to 40% when both parents take the full three months, and is 20% under the part-time arrangement².

Watch the figure: a great deal of material still in circulation quotes 25%, which was the rate before Decreto-Lei n.º 53/2023³.

What may change

In May 2026 the Government approved a bill revising the labour legislation that touches this leave. The total stays at 28 days, but 14 of them would have to be taken consecutively straight after the birth, rather than the current 7.

The bill went to Parliament. Until it is passed and published in the official gazette, the regime described on this page is the one in force, and it is the one the calculator applies.