End-of-contract pay in Portugal: what you actually receive

Two calculations, and the one you find first is the wrong one

Type "cálculo rescisão" into Google and the first results will explain dismissal severance to you. If you are the one leaving, that is not your calculation. The compensation of article 366.º of the Labour Code, 14 days of base pay per year of seniority, exists when the employer ends the contract for objective reasons: collective dismissal, abolition of the post, or unsuitability². A worker who resigns receives none of it.

What you do receive is the FINAL SETTLEMENT, the créditos laborais on the last payslip. And that always exists. Article 245(1) opens with three words that settle the whole question: «Cessando o contrato de trabalho, o trabalhador tem direito a receber a retribuição de férias e respectivo subsídio»¹. It draws no distinction between reasons, does not ask who ended the contract, and does not require just cause. The same is true of the Christmas allowance, which article 263(2)(b) orders paid «no ano de cessação do contrato de trabalho», pro rata to service¹.

This is the calculation almost nobody explains, and it is the one that moves the most money for people who leave of their own accord.

The three parts of a final settlement

Untaken vested holiday

The right to holiday runs a year behind, and that is what makes the settlement grow. Article 237(1) says the right «se vence em 1 de Janeiro» and (2) that it «se reporta ao trabalho prestado no ano civil anterior»¹. In other words: on 1 January 2026 a full 22 working days appeared, earned across 2025, and they have been waiting for you since the first day of the year.

Leave without having taken them and article 245(1)(a) orders them paid, «correspondentes a férias vencidas e não gozadas». The duration is in article 238(1): «o período anual de férias tem a duração mínima de 22 dias úteis»¹.

Pro-rata holiday for the final year

Point (b) of the same paragraph adds the days «proporcionais ao tempo de serviço prestado no ano da cessação». These are the days you were earning during 2026 that would only vest on 1 January 2027. Because they have not vested, they cannot have been taken, and so this part is always paid in full: 22 days × months of service ÷ 12.

Pro-rata Christmas allowance

Article 263(1) fixes the Christmas allowance at «valor igual a um mês de retribuição, que deve ser pago até 15 de Dezembro de cada ano», and (2)(b) makes it proportional «no ano de cessação do contrato de trabalho»¹. Leaving at the end of March gives three twelfths of a month. If the company already advanced the allowance in twelfths, the part received is deducted.

The detail worth a month of salary

Go back to the wording of article 245(1) and read the conjunction: «a retribuição de férias E RESPECTIVO SUBSÍDIO». Two amounts for every day, not one.

The reason is easy to see once you look at it. The salary you received in January, February and March paid for the work you did in those months. The holiday you did not take is not inside it: had you taken it, you would have rested and been paid exactly the same salary, PLUS the holiday allowance. By not taking it you worked days you should have rested, and the law orders both amounts paid on top of what you already received.

The Code says this plainly elsewhere. Article 238(5), about holiday days a worker may waive, guarantees them «a retribuição e o subsídio relativos ao período de férias vencido, QUE CUMULAM COM A RETRIBUIÇÃO DO TRABALHO PRESTADO NESSES DIAS»¹. They cumulate. It is written down.

The consequence is large. Twenty-two untaken vested days are worth two months of salary. Add the pro-rata for a complete year, two more months, and the Christmas allowance, one more, and a full year with no holiday taken comes to five months of pay in the final settlement. That is why departures between January and April tend to surprise people pleasantly: it is the window in which the freshly vested 22 days are still intact.

The first-two-years cap

If the contract is recent, forget the sum above and read article 245(3):

Em caso de cessação de contrato no ano civil subsequente ao da admissão ou cuja duração não seja superior a 12 meses, o cômputo total das férias ou da correspondente retribuição a que o trabalhador tenha direito não pode exceder o proporcional ao período anual de férias tendo em conta a duração do contrato.

In plain terms: in the first two calendar years, vested days and pro-rata days TOGETHER cannot exceed 22 days × contract months ÷ 12¹.

The size of the cut is startling. Someone who started on 1 October 2025 and leaves on 31 March 2026 has, under the general rules, days vested on 1 January 2026 plus the pro-rata for three months of 2026. The article 245(3) cap holds the whole thing to 22 × 6 ÷ 12 = 11 days. Anyone who added 22 vested days plus 5.5 pro-rata reached 27.5 days and is counting more than double.

It is also worth knowing that the year of hiring has its own acquisition rule, in article 239(1): «no ano da admissão, o trabalhador tem direito a dois dias úteis de férias por cada mês de duração do contrato, até 20 dias, cujo gozo pode ter lugar após seis meses completos de execução do contrato»¹. That rule says how many days can be TAKEN in the first year; the article 245(3) cap decides how much can be RECEIVED on cessation, and it is the cap that limits the settlement.

Notice you do not serve is deducted

Leaving without serving your notice is not free. Article 401(1) is explicit: «o trabalhador que não cumpra, total ou parcialmente, o prazo de aviso prévio estabelecido no artigo anterior deve pagar ao empregador uma indemnização de valor igual à retribuição base e diuturnidades correspondentes ao período em falta»³. In practice that indemnity is offset against the settlement, which is why the calculator shows it as a deduction. The daily figure is monthly pay divided by 30.

How many days you owe is the sum in article 400.º: on an open-ended contract, 30 days with seniority up to two years and 60 days above that³. Two notes worth money: article 401(2) exempts a worker «a quem tenha sido reconhecido o estatuto de vítima de violência doméstica»; and a worker who terminates for just cause under article 394.º has no notice to serve and no indemnity to pay².

What else may be in the settlement, and what is not

Some lines depend on the company's records and cannot be guessed, but are worth looking for on the payslip: unpaid overtime, night work and bonuses, and training that was never provided. That last one has its own article: article 134.º orders paid, on cessation, «a retribuição correspondente ao número mínimo anual de horas de formação que não lhe tenha sido proporcionado, ou ao crédito de horas para formação de que seja titular à data da cessação»⁴.

On tax: holiday, the holiday allowance and the Christmas allowance are pay, so they carry the 11 % Social Security share and whatever income-tax withholding matches your bracket. That is a difference from dismissal severance, which has its own partial-exemption regime.

One year to claim, and no more

The deadline is the shortest in the whole Labour Code. Article 337(1): «o crédito de empregador ou de trabalhador emergente de contrato de trabalho, da sua violação ou cessação prescreve decorrido um ano a partir do dia seguinte àquele em que cessou o contrato de trabalho»². After that year, whatever went unpaid can no longer be demanded.

There is an important protection in paragraph 3 of the same article: the worker's credit «não é suscetível de extinção por meio de remissão abdicativa, salvo através de transação judicial»². Signing a paper declaring that you have nothing further to receive does not erase what you are owed.

The practical conclusion is simple: in the month the contract ends, do the sum independently and compare it with the payslip. A year passes quickly.