Portugal just widened the Kristin overtime rules to cover all five months of the emergency
A decree approved on 20 August extends the exceptional overtime regime to the entire Kristin calamity period, 28 January to 28 June, and puts central government, municipal and state-owned company staff under one set of rules.
If you spent January nights clearing drains, reopening roads or answering phones in a council office while the water rose, you worked well past your hours. What stayed unresolved for months was how those hours would be paid — and whether the answer changed depending on which employer’s badge you happened to be wearing.
The Council of Ministers settled it on 20 August. A decree-law was approved amending the regime for overtime worked in response to Storm Kristin, guaranteeing uniform treatment for staff of central and local public administration and of the state and municipal business sector.
Two things change
The first is the calendar. The exceptional regime now applies across the whole calamity period, from 28 January to 28 June. That is five months, not just the dramatic weeks of January and February. Anyone who worked recovery operations in April or May falls under the same framework as the crews out on the first night.
The second is consistency. Until now the same extraordinary shift could be treated differently depending on whether the worker sat in a central government service, a câmara municipal or a municipal company. There is now one framework for everyone involved in the response.
An exceptional overtime regime exists precisely for this. It lifts limits and conditions that would ordinarily cap how many extra hours can be accumulated. Outside a declared calamity the normal rules apply, and we went through those when the 15 August public holiday fell on a Saturday.
What is not settled yet
Approval by the Council of Ministers is not the same as being in force. Promulgation and publication in the Diário da República still have to happen, and it is the published text that will spell out which uplifts apply and how back-adjustments work for anyone already paid on a different basis.
It is also worth keeping this separate from the reconstruction money. Kristin also pushed the government to raise the Territórios Resilientes programme to €80 million, and that funds councils, not payslips.
If you worked through that window, hold on to your attendance records. When the adjustment rules land, your own timesheet is what will count.
Image: © European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 (2026)
