Portugal: Employer Remote work in practice

In 2025, a share of 37% of companies in Portugal offered remote work arrangements (RWA) to their employees. By contrast, 33% of companies reported that remote work was not feasible due to the nature of the tasks performed, while 30% do not allow employees to work remotely despite having job tasks that could be performed remotely.

Companies in the industry “information and communication” are most likely to offer RWA (83 %). Only 11 % of companies in this industry don’t allow employees to work remotely despite having job tasks that could be perfomred remotely. In addition, only 6 % of companies in this industry report that none of their employees have remote work feasible job tasks.

Remote work arrangements are also very common in companies in “professional, scientific and technical services” (70 %) as well as in the financial and insurance industry (53 %) . In the manufacturing industry, approximately every one third of firms allow at least some of their employees to work remotely at least some of their working hours. In this industry, nearly one quarter of companies indicate that none of their employees perform job tasks that could be done remotely. This share is much higher than in the observed services industries, but lower than in the remaining industries that are combined in the group “others”.

There is no difference between smaller and medium sized firms in offering at least some of their employees remote work arrangements. 37 % of both smaller and medium sized firms offer remote work arrangements to their employees. The share of companies indicating that none of their employees perform rwa-feasible job tasks is higher among small companies (33 %) than among medium-sized (15 %). 48 % of medium sized firms don’t allow employees to work remotely despite having job tasks that could be perfomred remotely. This figure reduces to 29 % for small sized firms.

Note: Statistics for Large size category are not published because the sample size is too small to ensure data confidentiality.

The share of companies offering remote work arrangements is not that different between urban and rural areas (40 %). 27 % Companies in suburban areas offer such arrangements. The share of companies indicating that none of their employees perform rwa-feasible job tasks is highest in suburban areas (44 %). This figure is 37 % in rural areas.

In Portugal, 20 % of companies allow at least some their employees to work remotely on 1-2 days per week. Remote work arrangements that allow for 3-4 remote working days per week are used by 14 % of companies.

Among companies offering remote work, 53 % indicate that at least some of their employees are working remotely on 1-2 days per week. 38.5 % of companies with remote work arrangements allow at least some of their employees to work remotely 3-4 days per week and 22 % allow 5 or more remote working days per week.

Employers do not indicate significant differences in the use of remote work with respect to the gender of their employees. Among all companies, a share of 6 % report that more than two thirds of their female employees work remotely at least one day per week. In addition, 4.5 % report that between one third and two thirds of their female employees work remotely. For the male employees, these shares amount to 4.6 % and 2 %.

Among companies that offer remote work, 42 % indicate that none of their female employees work remotely at least one day per week. For male employees, this share is 51 %. At the same time, nearly 17 % of companies offering remote work report that more than 66 % of their female employees work remotely at least one day per week. This figure is 12 % for male employees. Roughly 12 % of companies indicate that between one third and two thirds of their female employees works remotely. This figure is only 6 % for male employees