News
RJUE postponement published: the reform takes effect on 1 October
It came out on Friday night, in the fifth supplement to that day's official gazette. Decree-Law no. 155-B/2026 of 31 July (Diário da República no. 147/2026, Supplement, Series I) redrafted article 13 of Decree-Law no. 108/2026: the revision of the Legal Regime of Urbanisation and Building takes effect on 1 October 2026, no longer on 3 August.
The postponing decree itself entered into force on the day after publication, that is, on 1 August 2026. It was promulgated and countersigned on 31 July, the same day it appeared.
Why it was postponed
The preamble is explicit. Applying the new rules "presupposes the prior adaptation and configuration of the municipalities' own IT platforms, so minimum deadlines must be guaranteed to municipalities for that purpose". Put plainly: the regime was ready, the systems that run it were not.
The portaria follows on its own
Earlier that same morning, Portaria no. 320/2026/1 of 31 July had been published. It approves the models for licence applications, prior notifications and prior information requests, identifies the instruction elements and revokes Portarias 71-A/2024 and 71-B/2024.
Article 5 of that portaria states that it enters into force "on the date of entry into force of Decree-Law no. 108/2026". It is tied to the date, not to 3 August. The practical consequence: the portaria follows the postponement, and the revocation of Portarias 71-A/2024 and 71-B/2024 only takes effect on 1 October. Until 30 September, the earlier models remain the correct ones.
What changes if you have a live application
- Until 30 September, applications keep running under the RJUE as it stood before the reform.
- Files sitting in screening and preliminary assessment are no longer at risk of switching rules halfway through, under the transitional regime.
- If you rushed to file in July to stay under the earlier regime, you lost nothing, but you did not gain what you thought either.
- Responsibility statements and instruction elements filed up to 30 September follow the models of Portaria no. 71-A/2024.
Two months that are not slack
The extra time serves one concrete purpose: getting the application file ready for the format that becomes mandatory. Annex VI of the new portaria sets the submission conditions. Written and drawn documents in PDF/A, dated and with a qualified electronic signature, with the IFC format optionally added. The site plan also in georeferenced dwg. The index calculation sheet in ODS, XLS or XLSX.
Annex VII approves the new responsibility statements, which now declare the professional liability insurance, with policy number, policyholder and estimated total cost of the works. Those are three items that many application files do not collect today, and that cannot be sorted out the night before submission.
Rectification Declaration no. 29-A/2026/1 of 27 July, which corrects inaccuracies in Decree-Law no. 108/2026, remains applicable.
In short:
- Decree-Law no. 155-B/2026, Diário da República no. 147/2026, Supplement, Series I, of 31 July 2026.
- The RJUE revision takes effect on 1 October 2026.
- Portaria no. 320/2026/1 follows, by force of its article 5.
- Until 30 September the earlier regime applies, along with the models of Portaria no. 71-A/2024.
- Use the two months for the policy, the policyholder, the cost estimate and the Annex VI formats.
Have a live application and want to know which regime it falls under? Talk to us at geral@certiamb.com or +351 910 441 470.