What does legalização mean in Portugal?
Legalização is the procedure to regularise an unlicensed or non-compliant building operation. If the work can be made to comply with current rules, the council notifies those concerned to legalise it within a set period.
- Rests on
- RJUE, art. 102.º-A n.º 1 to n.º 3
- Law
- Decreto-Lei n.º 555/99 (RJUE), as republished by Decreto-Lei n.º 108/2026
- Version
- In force since 1 October 2026 (Decreto-Lei n.º 155-B/2026)
- Official text
- data.dre.pt/eli/dec-lei/108/2026/05/29/p/dre/pt/pdf
- Sources
- data.dre.pt/eli/dec-lei/108/2026/05/29/p/dre/pt/pdf
data.dre.pt/eli/dec-lei/155-b/2026/07/31/p/dre/pt/pdf
data.dre.pt/eli/declretif/29-a/2026/07/27/p/dre/pt/pdf - Checked
- 2026-11-05
What it means for the owner
- The council can ask for documents such as the specialist projects with their termos de responsabilidade, or approval certificates (art. 102.º-A n.º 3).
- Where works were done without the required procedure, the promoter, the owner of the work, those responsible for the use, the contractor and the diretor de obra are jointly liable (art. 100.º-A n.º 3).
- A property owner counts as promoter of unlawful works that the owner knew of; knowledge is presumed if the owner let the person responsible use the property (art. 100.º-A n.º 5 b)).
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