Wage garnishment in Portugal: how much can be taken and what is protected

The law protects two thirds, it does not authorise one third

Article 738 of the Portuguese Code of Civil Procedure opens by making two thirds of the net amount of wages, salaries, retirement payments, other social benefits, insurance, accident compensation, life annuities and any payment securing the debtor's subsistence unseizable¹.

Note which side the provision legislates on. It does not say a third may be seized. It says two thirds are protected. While nothing else interferes the two formulations produce the same number, which is why the popular version caught on. But the next paragraph adds a floor and a ceiling, and it puts them on the protected part. From there the two readings diverge, and they diverge by hundreds of euros a month.

The list of covered income is deliberately broad, and it is not only salaries. It includes retirement pensions, payments under any social benefit scheme, life annuities, accident compensation and, as a catch-all, any payment of any nature securing the debtor's subsistence. The test is not the legal nature of the payment but its function: if it is what the person lives on, it falls under this rule.

What counts as the net amount, and the deduction that does not

Paragraph 2 is a short sentence with large consequences: in working out the net amount of the payments referred to above, only legally mandatory deductions are taken into account¹.

Legally mandatory deductions means income tax and social security contributions. Nothing else. Health insurance taken out through the employer, union dues, the company gym scheme, a savings plan paid by deduction from the payslip and, most importantly, a loan the worker is repaying to the employer itself do not enter this calculation.

The practical consequence is the most common source of surprise. People calculate on the money that actually lands in their account at the end of the month, which is already net of all those deductions, and arrive at a lower seizable figure than the real one. The enforcement agent calculates on the fiscal net, which is larger. If you do not know your net pay on this definition, work it out first on the net salary calculator and take that figure to the wage garnishment calculator.

The two limits, and the band where a third is true

Paragraph 3 is the heart of the provision: the protection has a maximum equal to three national minimum wages at the date of each seizure, and a minimum, where the debtor has no other income, equal to one national minimum wage¹.

With the 2026 guaranteed minimum monthly wage of 920 €, that is a 2760 € ceiling and a 920 € floor. Both apply to the protected part, and that is what inverts the popular rule at both ends.

At the bottom, the floor works for the debtor. On 1100 € net, two thirds would be 733.33 €, below the minimum wage. The law does not let the protection fall there, so it rises to 920 € and the garnishment drops to 180 €. A third would have been 366.67 €: the floor saves 186.67 € every month. Taken to its limit, anyone on 920 € or less with no other income cannot be garnished at all, because the protection covers everything they receive.

At the top, the ceiling works against them. On 4500 € net, two thirds would be 3000 €, above three minimum wages. The law does not let the protection rise there, so it stops at 2760 € and the garnishment climbs to 1740 €. A third would have been 1500 €: the ceiling costs 240 € a month. And the effect compounds quickly, because above 4140 € of net pay the protected part stops growing: every euro earned above that line is seizable in full. On 6000 € net the garnishment is 3240 €, not the 2000 € a third suggested.

Between 1380 € and 4140 € of net pay neither limit bites, and there the garnishment really is exactly one third. Both thresholds fall straight out of the arithmetic: two thirds of 1380 € is 920 €, and two thirds of 4140 € is 2760 €.

The condition buried in the middle of paragraph 3 is worth underlining because it is easy to miss: the floor exists only where the debtor has no other income. A second job, a pension or rental income makes it disappear, and the debtor returns to the plain two thirds. That is why the calculator asks about other income before giving a figure.

One last geographical detail. The provision says national minimum wage, and it is the mainland figure that counts. Someone living in Madeira, where the regional minimum is 980 €, or the Azores, where it is 966 €, still has the limits fixed at 920 € and 2760 €. The several minimum wages are covered in the article on the Portuguese minimum wage.

Maintenance debts follow different arithmetic

Paragraph 4 opens with a total exclusion: the preceding paragraphs do not apply where the debt being enforced is a maintenance debt, in which case only an amount equal to the full non-contributory social pension is unseizable¹.

The two thirds disappear, the one-minimum-wage floor disappears and the three-minimum-wage ceiling disappears. What remains is a fixed amount equal to the non-contributory social pension, which in 2026 is 262.40 € a month. Everything else can be taken, and the protection does not rise with income.

The contrast with the ordinary case is the single most useful fact in this article. On the same 1100 € net, a bank debt allows 180 € a month to be garnished; a maintenance debt allows 837.60 €. That is the difference between a garnishment you feel and one that reorganises the life of the person subject to it, and it is explained by the nature of the credit: on the other side is someone whose own subsistence depends on that money.

Bank balances and self-employed income

Where what is seized is not the salary but money already deposited, paragraph 5 applies: in the seizure of money or a bank balance, a global amount equal to the national minimum wage is unseizable, or the amount in the preceding paragraph where the obligation is one of maintenance¹.

There is no fraction here. It is a flat global amount: on a 3000 € balance, 920 € is protected and 2080 € can be taken. Paragraph 7 closes the door on stacking protections by providing that the protections in paragraphs 1 and 5 are not cumulative: it is not possible to claim the two-thirds salary protection and, on top of it, the balance protection, for the same month.

Self-employed people have their own rule in paragraph 8, which applies paragraphs 1 to 4 with adaptations. The first is the one that matters: the net amount of the income is 75% of the total paid or made available to the debtor, excluding VAT charged¹. It is a fixed coefficient, not the actual costs of the business. On a 2000 € invoice net of VAT, the net amount is 1500 €, the protection 1000 € and the garnishment 500 €.

The same paragraph adds two practical points. Subparagraph (f) reserves this rule for debtors who receive no salary, pension or other subsistence payment in the month of seizure, which prevents someone with both sources from choosing whichever is more favourable. And subparagraphs (c) and (d) require the payer to report to the enforcement agent, before paying, the total amount, the unseizable amount worked out and the amount to be garnished, with the agent having two working days to confirm. Paragraph 9 gives that obligation teeth: a payer who fails to comply is answerable in the proceedings as trustee of the amounts that should have been seized.

What the law leaves to the judge, and what sits outside this calculation

Paragraph 6 is the system's release valve. Weighing the amount and nature of the debt as well as the needs of the debtor and their household, the judge may exceptionally, and on the debtor's own application, reduce the seizable part of the income for a period considered reasonable, and even exempt it from seizure for a period of no more than one year¹.

Every word of that provision limits the next: it is exceptional, it depends on the debtor's own application, the period is set by the judge, and full exemption is capped at one year. It is neither an automatic right nor a calculation that can be anticipated, which is why the calculator does not estimate it. What the calculator gives is the figure the rule produces, which is the starting point for any application to reduce it.

Also outside this calculation are the absolutely unseizable assets of article 736 and the relatively unseizable ones of article 737², which are categories of property rather than fractions of income, and the costs of the enforcement proceedings themselves, which are covered by the court fee calculator and the party costs calculator.

A closing note on what this article is and is not. The figures described here are what the rule produces, and the official calculation for each seizure is made by the enforcement agent, who works out the unseizable amount globally, month by month. If you are in enforcement proceedings, use these numbers to know what to expect and seek legal advice on your own case.