Moving your peopleto your own company.
In most cases the employment transfers automatically under Portuguese transfer rules, which keeps service, terms and accrued holiday intact. Teamed plans the date and runs both payrolls through the change.
Two routes, one of them worse
How do people move from an employer of record to your company
There are two ways to do this and they are not equivalent, whatever a spreadsheet says. One preserves everything your people have built up. The other quietly throws it away.
Portugal applies the European transfer of undertakings rules through its Labour Code. Where they apply, the employment moves to the new employer automatically, on the same terms, with continuous service intact. Nobody resigns and nobody is rehired. The contract simply has a different employer on it.
The alternative is to end the employment and start a new one. It is faster to arrange, which is exactly why it gets chosen, and it resets the clock on everything that depends on length of service.
Why continuous service is the whole argument
Portuguese employment protection is strong and most of it is earned through time served. Breaking the chain hands that back.
Compensation is calculated from length of service. Start somebody again at zero and years of accrued entitlement disappear with them.
Notice periods and the protection around dismissal both lengthen with service. A new contract resets both.
What moves and what does not
What actually transfers
Where a transfer applies, the terms move with the person. Salary, notice, holiday entitlement, accrued but untaken leave, contractual benefits and the original start date all carry over. So do liabilities, including anything unresolved on the day before.
Portugal adds two things worth planning for. Employees are entitled to holiday and Christmas allowances, the thirteenth and fourteenth months, and how those are apportioned across a mid-year change of employer needs deciding rather than assuming. And employee representatives, where they exist, have to be informed and consulted before the transfer rather than told afterwards.
Timing
Pick the date around payroll, not around the paperwork
The cleanest transfer lands on the first day of a pay period. Move somebody mid month and two employers each run a part period, which means two payslips, two sets of social security contributions and a much higher chance of somebody being paid twice or not at all.
Confirm the entity can employ
The company exists, it is registered with social security as an employer, and the bank account can pay salaries.
Inform and consult
Employees, and their representatives where there are any, told in writing and in good time about what is changing and when.
Mirror the terms
Contracts on the same terms with the original start date carried over, and the holiday and Christmas allowance position agreed.
Transfer on the first day of a pay period
The old payroll closes, the new one opens, and leave balances carry across as they stood the night before.
Check every payslip by hand, once
Social security and cumulative figures are where errors surface, and they are far cheaper to fix in month one.
Worth saying plainly
This is the step where doing it cheaply costs the most
A resign and rehire can be arranged quickly and looks like a saving. In a country where severance is calculated from length of service, it is the most expensive shortcut available, and the cost lands on your people rather than on you.
If your timeline is too tight to do this properly, the better answer is usually to stay where you are for another quarter and move cleanly.
Teamed's employer of record in Portugal is a flat €560 per employee per month, with zero FX mark-up in any currency pairing and one invoice at the end of it. Contractors, employer of record and your own entity all run on one platform, so moving between them later does not mean changing provider or re-onboarding anybody. Real HR and legal experts handle the work, not a ticket queue.
Talk to a member of the team and we will tell you plainly which one suits where you are. If you would rather look at the numbers yourself first, the crossover calculator models it for Portugal.
Who carries it
Your own entity, when it's time. We set it up, migrate you in, and hand it back intact.
Global Entity and Employment Operations, which we call GEMO, is how Teamed forms your company, registers it for corporation tax and payroll, runs it month to month and keeps its filings current, across 100+ countries. You stay the employer. We do the work behind it.
In Portugal that matters a little more than elsewhere, because Teamed employs through its own local entity rather than a partner. The people who would run your company are the people already running ours.
They set up our EU entity and moved hires across without missing a payroll.
Questions
Questions about moving people across
Do employees have to agree to the move?
Where the transfer rules apply the employment moves automatically, so it does not depend on each person agreeing. They do have to be informed, and representatives consulted where they exist.
Does their start date change?
No. Continuous service carries across, so the original start date stays. In Portugal that matters more than most places because severance is calculated from it.
What happens to unused holiday?
Accrued leave moves with the employee as it stood on the transfer date. It is not paid out and it does not reset.
What about the thirteenth and fourteenth months?
The holiday and Christmas allowances need apportioning across the change of employer. Agree that before the date rather than discovering it on the first payslip.
Can we change terms at the same time?
Changing terms because of the transfer is the thing these rules exist to prevent. Changes need a reason of their own and, usually, agreement.
Sources
- Codigo do Trabalho, transmission of undertaking and employee rights
- Codigo do Trabalho, severance calculated on length of service
- Seguranca Social, employer registration and monthly contributions
The rest of the Portugal guides
Looking for a job in Moving From Eor To Your Own Entity yourself? Teamed does not hire people directly. Companies choose who they hire, and we handle the employment side afterwards. Here is why we cannot help with your search.
