Tenho uma empregada só duas horas por semana. Preciso mesmo de seguro?

Sim. O que conta é a regularidade da relação, não o número de horas. A lei só exclui do serviço doméstico o trabalho acidental ou uma tarefa isolada de frequência intermitente. Uma limpeza semanal fixa é serviço doméstico e exige seguro de acidentes de trabalho.

Como sabe a trabalhadora se tem seguro?

Pelo recibo de retribuição, que deve identificar a seguradora, como indica a ASF. Se não recebe recibos, deve pedir ao empregador o nome da seguradora e o número da apólice. É um direito dela e um bom hábito para ambos.

Se contratar uma empresa de limpeza, preciso de fazer algum seguro?

Não tem de fazer seguro de acidentes de trabalho para os profissionais da empresa: essa obrigação é de quem os emprega. Convém confirmar que a empresa tem esse seguro e responsabilidade civil em vigor, e manter o seu seguro multirriscos habitação atualizado.

O seguro da empresa cobre um objeto que desapareceu?

Em regra, não. As condições gerais de responsabilidade civil para serviços de lar costumam excluir furto ou roubo de bens na casa do cliente. Por isso, escolha uma empresa que seleciona e forma a própria equipa, controla os acessos e mantém registo de cada visita.

Back to the journal

31 October 2026

Insurance in Domestic Cleaning: What the Law Requires and Who Pays

If you hire someone directly to clean your home in Portugal, it is mandatory to take out work accident insurance in their name, even if they work only a few hours a week. Conversely, if you hire a cleaning company, the employer becomes the company, and it is responsible for insuring its professionals and covering damages caused in your home. In this guide, we explain both situations, what the insurance covers, what to do if there is an accident, and what questions to ask before letting someone into your home.

In summary

Direct employer: those who have a domestic worker must transfer the responsibility for work accidents to an insurance company, under the legal regime of domestic service.
Few hours do not exempt: what is excluded is accidental work or an isolated task, not regular cleaning of two or three hours a week.
Without insurance, you pay out of pocket: fines and compensation to the worker are the employer's responsibility.
Cleaning company: must have work accident insurance for the team and, ideally, civil liability for damages to third parties. Always ask for confirmation.
Read the exclusions: civil liability insurance often excludes theft and poorly executed work, so trust in the team matters as much as the policy.

Index

Two ways to have a clean house, two insurance regimes
Hiring directly: work accident insurance is mandatory
What work accident insurance covers
If there is an accident in your home: the steps and deadlines
Hiring a cleaning company: what insurance should it have
Our vision: insurance is the minimum, trust is the service
Professional cleaning in Lisbon, without you being the employer
Frequently asked questions
Sources

Two ways to have a clean house, two insurance regimes

The first question is not "what insurance do I take out?", it is "who is the employer?". The answer changes everything: who pays the insurance, who communicates with Social Security, and who is held accountable if something breaks.

Situation	Who is the employer	Work accident insurance	Damages in your home
Hires a domestic worker directly	You	Mandatory, contracted by you	Resolves directly with the person or through your home insurance
Hires a professional on green receipts	The professional themselves (independent)	Generally, the professional must have insurance	Depends on the professional's civil liability insurance
Hires a cleaning company	The company	Company's obligation	Company's civil liability, according to the policy

The distinction is not a legal detail. The brochure of the White Paper on domestic service notes that those working through digital platforms or cleaning companies may not be covered by the domestic service regime. In other words, that person's protection depends on the contract they have with their employer, which is why it is worth knowing who you are really hiring.

Hiring directly: work accident insurance is mandatory

The Decree-Law No. 235/92, in its consolidated version, states that the employer must transfer to an authorized insurance company the responsibility for repairing damages from work accidents in domestic service. In simple terms: if the person cleaning your house works for you, regularly and under your guidance, the insurance is yours.

The insurance is taken out in the name of the employer and identifies the worker. Most insurers require the name, identification number, salary paid, and number of hours, as the premium mainly depends on the declared remuneration. Therefore, a weekly cleaning of a few hours tends to have a low annual premium, and the more accurate the salary declaration, the fewer surprises there are in compensation.

Few hours a week also count

This is the most common misconception. Many families think that with four hours on Friday, the obligation does not apply. DECO PROTeste is clear: full-time or just a few hours a week, all domestic service workers have the right to social protection.

What the law excludes from domestic service is something else: accidental work, the execution of an isolated task of intermittent frequency, and work in an au pair, autonomy, or volunteer regime, according to the same decree-law. Calling someone just once to clean after a party is not the same as having someone every week. If the relationship is regular, treat it as employment.

What happens if you do not have insurance

Without a policy, the employer is directly responsible for the expenses and compensations due to the worker, which may include treatments, lost wages, and, in serious cases, disability pensions. This is in addition to the fine: ACP indicates amounts between €500 and €3750 for those who do not have mandatory insurance.

Consider the most mundane scenario: the person slips on the wet kitchen floor and fractures a wrist. That means weeks without working, consultations, and physiotherapy. With insurance, the insurer covers it. Without insurance, the bill is yours.

Social Security is the other half of the obligation

Work accident insurance does not replace registration with Social Security. The practical guide from Social Security on domestic service states that the employer is responsible for registering the worker if they are not already registered and must communicate their admission on the Social Security Portal. Contributions can be calculated based on the actual salary or a conventional remuneration, hourly, daily, or monthly, and the guide has the updated rates.

Both obligations go hand in hand: insurance protects against accidents, while Social Security guarantees illness, parental leave, unemployment, and retirement. Failing to meet either leaves the person unprotected and the employer exposed.

And if the person works on green receipts?

If the person cleaning your house is an independent worker, with an open activity and multiple clients, the work accident insurance is generally theirs. The Caixa Geral de Depósitos reminds that most independent workers are required to have insurance, unless the production is exclusively for themselves or their family unit. Even so, ask to see the policy: if the person works only for themselves, with fixed hours and under your instructions, the relationship may be considered domestic service.

What work accident insurance covers

The guaranteed benefits are set out in Law No. 98/2009, of September 4, the regime for repairing work accidents. In summary:

Medical assistance: consultations, surgery, medications, hospital admission, and rehabilitation.
Temporary incapacity: compensation for the days the person cannot work.
Permanent incapacity: pension or capital, depending on the degree of incapacity.
Death: pensions for family members, death benefit, and funeral expenses.

The insurance covers accidents during work and also on the route between the worker's usual residence and the workplace, as explained by the ACP. The Insurance and Pension Funds Supervisory Authority (ASF) adds that this insurance is valid throughout the national territory.

What is usually excluded

Work accident insurance protects the person, not your home. A broken vase, a stained sofa, or a scratched countertop are not covered: for that, you need home multi-risk insurance or, in the case of a company, its civil liability. It also does not replace prevention. The practical guide of the new domestic service regime from the Order of Certified Accountants reminds that the employer is responsible for ensuring that the workplace, tools, and cleaning products do not jeopardize the safety and health of the worker.

In practice: stable ladders, products stored in their original packaging, no mixing bleach with ammonia, and gloves available. Preventing an accident is always better than compensating for one.

If there is an accident in your home: the steps and deadlines

The deadlines are in Law No. 98/2009 and are short.

Ensure assistance. If the injury is serious, call 112. In minor cases, follow the insurer's instructions: many have a support line and a network of contracted clinics, and using that network avoids upfront expenses.
The worker informs the employer within 48 hours, unless the employer already knows about the accident (which happens whenever it is in their home).
The employer communicates with the insurer within 24 hours. Have the policy number, date, time, location, and a simple description of what happened ready.
Keep evidence. Photographs of the site, names of those present, and medical documents help the insurer decide quickly.
Follow up on the process. In accidents with permanent incapacity, the insurer must report the case to the competent court within eight days after discharge; in fatal accidents, immediately.

If the person works for several families, ask where the accident occurred and at what time. The brochure of the White Paper highlights the difficulties of compensation when there are multiple employers, which is another reason for each to have their policy up to date.

Hiring a cleaning company: what insurance should it have

When you hire a company, the employer obligations transfer to it. The company must have work accident insurance for its professionals, just like any other employer. For you, this means less paperwork, but it does not mean you should stop asking questions.

A service sector company typically has these insurances, according to the service company offerings from Fidelidade:

Insurance	What it protects	Why it matters to you
Work Accident	The professionals entering your home	If someone gets hurt, the responsibility does not fall on you
Civil Liability for Operations	Damages caused to third parties during service	Covers, according to the policy, accidental damages in your home
Multi-risk for Companies	Company facilities and assets	Ensures continuity if the company suffers a loss
Automobile	Vehicles used in the activity	Relevant when the team travels with equipment

Civil liability: read the exclusions

Civil liability is the insurance that matters most to the client because it is the one that responds if a professional knocks over a lamp or damages a floor with the wrong product. But it has limits. The general conditions of civil liability insurance for domestic services exclude damages resulting from theft or robbery of goods in the client's residence and damages resulting from poor execution of work.

This tells you two things. First, poorly done work is resolved with the company, through the quality guarantee of the service, and not through the insurer. Second, the protection of your belongings mainly depends on who the company selects, trains, and sends. A policy does not replace a trustworthy team.

Questions to ask before the first visit

Are the professionals employees of the company or subcontracted? If subcontracted, who insures them?
Do they have valid work accident insurance? Can they indicate the insurer?
Do they have civil liability? What is the capital and the main exclusions?
How do they report accidental damage and how quickly do they resolve it?
Who keeps the keys or access codes, and how is that access controlled?
Is there a written checklist of the service and a record of what was done at each visit?

A serious company answers these questions straightforwardly. If the answers are vague, it is a sign to keep looking.

Holiday homes and local accommodation

For those with a second home or local accommodation, the issue of insurance becomes more significant: cleaning often occurs without the owner present, with several changes of guests per month. The markets for cleaning seasonal accommodations show how prices and providers vary with the season and destination, but the essential question is the same everywhere: who is responsible if a professional gets hurt or breaks something when no one is home? Also, confirm that your home insurance covers the use of the house by third parties.

Our vision: insurance is the minimum, trust is the service

In Lisbon, we talk every week with families who have had a domestic worker and find themselves, unknowingly, as employers: with insurance to take out, contributions to declare, and no plan for the day when the person gets sick or injured. It is not a lack of care; it is that no one explained it to them. When the service is from a company, that burden is lifted from your shoulders.

But insurance is just the starting point. The exclusions show where the real risk lies: in the person entering your home and how they work. That is why, at Cleaning Point, our professionals are selected and trained by us, without random third parties, and we keep the same team whenever possible, so you know who has your keys.

We work with detailed and transparent checklists, quality control, and a digital report of each visit, so that a problem is seen and resolved quickly, not discovered weeks later. We manage access to the house with the same rigor, which matters a lot for those with a holiday home or preparing for a new tenant's arrival. And we do it in several languages, because a misunderstood rule is the quickest way for something to go wrong.

Our advice is simple: ask any company, including us, to explain how they protect their professionals and your home. The answer says a lot about the service you will receive.

— Taras

Professional cleaning in Lisbon, without you being the employer

If you want a well-kept home without managing contracts, insurance, and contributions, Cleaning Point takes care of the cleaning with consistent teams and clear standards, from regular maintenance to professional home cleaning, deep cleans, post-construction, and move-in or move-out cleaning.

Cleaningpoint

For holiday homes and second residences, the Residence Care service includes access management and a digital report of each visit. Before the first cleaning, you can ask us anything we listed above: we respond in writing.

Frequently asked questions

I have a worker for only two hours a week. Do I really need insurance?

Yes. What matters is the regularity of the relationship, not the number of hours. The law only excludes accidental work or an isolated task of intermittent frequency from domestic service. A fixed weekly cleaning is domestic service and requires work accident insurance.

How does the worker know if they have insurance?

By the pay slip, which should identify the insurer, as indicated by the ASF. If they do not receive pay slips, they should ask the employer for the name of the insurer and the policy number. It is their right and a good habit for both.

If I hire a cleaning company, do I need to take out any insurance?

You do not have to take out work accident insurance for the company's professionals: that obligation is on the employer. It is advisable to confirm that the company has that insurance and civil liability in force, and to keep your home multi-risk insurance updated.

Does the company's insurance cover an object that has disappeared?

Generally, no. The general conditions of civil liability for domestic services usually exclude theft or robbery of goods in the client's home. Therefore, choose a company that selects and trains its own team, controls access, and keeps a record of each visit.