Since January 2025, the majority of self-declarations of illness have been made, either during the holidays, on holidays, or up to the day before the general strike.
A self-declaration of illness it is a document that proves that the user is in a situation of illness – but it is a document declared by the user, under oath.
It is the user himself taking responsibility for justifying that he was absent from work because he was sick, as explained by .
Self-declaration of illness can be requested by any worker aged 16 or over. And it can be requested within a maximum period of 5 days, counting from the first day of absence due to illness.
The measure in May 2023. From the beginning, the objective was lighten the burden on health centers in cases of workers with minor illnesses, but who need to justify absences from work.
But the feeling remains that Portuguese people take advantage of this possibility to extend holidays, weekends or heights of parties. Or even take advantage of the general strike.
Did you notice that, since January 2025, the majority of self-write-offs have occurred at a Monday.
At different times: December 29, 2025 and January 5, 2026, there were more than 5 thousand declarations each – both days were included in the season of Christmas and New Year.
The same happened on January 6, 2025, with just under 5 thousand self-declarations of illness, and also still in the “hangover” from the parties.
December 15th and January 20th of last year, and also January 12th of this year were also Mondays with more than 4 thousand auto-registrations, on each of those days.
However, the day that recorded the most self-declarations of illness was January 2, 2025. It was the day right after New Year. It was a Thursday that had practically 6 thousand auto-registrations.
In the top-10 are still December 9th and 2nd, 2025, Tuesday following public holidays.
And also December 10, 2025. day before the general strike. In other words, many people will have missed work practically this entire week, even though there is only one holiday (the 8th, Monday).
