The 30-Day CIRE Deadline: What Portuguese Law Says About Construction Insolvencies

Name: ObraXRAY
Author: ObraXRAY

4 April 202610 min read

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The 30-day CIRE deadline is, arguably, the most important legal fact anyone with an ongoing construction project in Portugal needs to know. If your contractor declares insolvency and you miss this deadline without filing your credit claim, you lose the right to be recognized as a creditor. There is no second chance, no exception for not knowing, no practical recourse. The money you paid upfront simply disappears from the process.

This article is a complete legal reference on that deadline: what the law says, how to count the days, what your claim must include, and where the homeowner sits in the queue of creditors. Every case is different, always consult a lawyer for your specific situation, but here are the fundamentals you need to know.

What is the CIRE

The CIRE - Código da Insolvência e da Recuperação de Empresas (Insolvency and Corporate Recovery Code) is the legislation that governs all insolvency proceedings in Portugal. It was established by Decree-Law 53/2004 of 18 March, and has undergone several amendments since.

In practice, the CIRE defines what happens when a company cannot pay its debts: how it is declared insolvent, who manages the process, how creditors file their claims, and how the company's assets are distributed. It applies to any Portuguese company, including construction firms, property developers, and individual contractors with business activity.

It is an extensive and technical code, but for the average homeowner, two articles matter above all others: Article 36 and Article 128. These define the deadline and the format for claiming credits.

Article 36 - The insolvency judgment

When the court declares a company insolvent, it issues a formal judgment. Article 36 of the CIRE defines what that judgment must contain. It is a detailed document with several provisions, but the one that matters directly to creditors is paragraph j) of section 1.

This provision states that the insolvency judgment must set a deadline of up to 30 days for creditors to file their credit claims with the appointed insolvency administrator. The important detail here is "up to 30 days." The judge sets the exact deadline in the judgment, and it can be shorter, 20 days, 15 days, whatever the court considers appropriate for the complexity of the case. The 30 days are the legal maximum, not the automatic standard.

The judgment also identifies the appointed insolvency administrator (the person to whom claims are addressed), sets the date for the creditors' meeting, and orders publication of the proceedings on CITIUS (the Portuguese courts portal) and in the Diário da República (Official Gazette). All the information needed to act is in the judgment. The problem is that most people do not know they should look for it, or where.

Article 128 - Filing credit claims

If Article 36 defines the deadline, Article 128 defines the content. This is the article that explains exactly what a valid credit claim must contain. And being valid is critical, because an incomplete claim can be rejected, and the deadline does not wait.

According to Article 128 of the CIRE, the claim must include:

The origin of the credit - where the debt comes from. For a homeowner, this is the construction contract, the promissory purchase agreement (CPCV), advance payments for work not carried out.
The amount of the credit - the exact value claimed, including principal and default interest if applicable.
The nature of the credit - whether it is a common, privileged, secured, or subordinated credit. For most homeowners, the credit is common (créditos comuns), unless there is a real guarantee over a property.
Supporting documents - everything that proves the existence and value of the credit: signed contract, bank transfer receipts, invoices, correspondence with the company, photographs of the state of the works.

The claim is addressed to the insolvency administrator named in the judgment, not directly to the court. It should be sent by registered mail with acknowledgment of receipt, and you should keep copies of everything, including the proof of dispatch with the date. The dispatch date is your proof that you met the deadline.

How to count the 30 days

This is the part where many people get lost, and where getting lost has irreversible consequences.

The deadline set in the judgment is counted from the publication of the judgment. In practice, the judgment is published on CITIUS (the Portuguese courts portal) and in the Diário da República. The clock starts ticking from that publication.

There is an additional protection under the law for creditors who were not directly notified by the insolvency administrator: these creditors benefit from an additional 5 days after publication in the Diário da República. So if the deadline set in the judgment is 30 days and you were not directly notified, you effectively have 35 days from the DR publication.

Regarding weekends and public holidays: the general rules for counting procedural deadlines apply. If the last day of the deadline falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or public holiday, the deadline is extended to the next business day.

The practical advice is simple: do not wait until the last day. If you learn of the insolvency, start preparing your claim immediately. Documents take time to gather, especially old bank statements and correspondence scattered across WhatsApp, email, and phone.

What happens if you miss the deadline

The short answer: you lose the right to be recognized as a creditor in the insolvency proceedings.

In practice, this means that even if the company owes you 50,000 or 100,000 euros, if you did not file your claim within the deadline, you are excluded from the list of recognized creditors. You do not participate in the creditors' meeting, you do not vote on the company's fate, and you receive nothing from any eventual liquidation of assets.

It is one of the harshest rules in the Portuguese legal system, but it exists for a reason: the insolvency process needs to move forward within defined deadlines, and cannot remain indefinitely waiting for creditors who did not come forward. For those on the outside, that reasoning is irrelevant, the result is the same: money lost, with no practical recourse.

Credit hierarchy: where the homeowner stands

Even if you claim within the deadline and your credit is recognized, there is a reality you need to face: not all creditors are equal before the law.

The CIRE establishes a clear hierarchy for distributing the insolvent company's assets:

Claims against the insolvency estate - costs of the insolvency process itself, including the insolvency administrator's fees.
Workers' privileged credits - unpaid wages and employee compensation.
State credits - debts to the Tax Authority and Social Security.
Secured credits - credits with real guarantees, such as mortgages on the company's properties.
Common credits - all remaining credits, including, in the vast majority of cases, homeowners' credits.
Subordinated credits - credits from shareholders and persons related to the company.

The homeowner who paid advances for work not carried out is, typically, a common creditor. This means they only receive payment after the process costs, workers, the State, and secured creditors have been paid. In practice, by the time common creditors are reached, very little or nothing usually remains.

Recovery rates for common creditors in Portuguese insolvency proceedings are typically very low, often below 10%, and in many cases zero. This does not mean you should not claim, you should always claim to preserve your rights. But it means that prevention is infinitely more effective than recovery.

PER vs. insolvency

It is worth distinguishing two processes that are frequently confused: insolvency and PER (Processo Especial de Revitalização), which translates roughly to Special Revitalization Process.

Insolvency is the more severe scenario: the court declares that the company cannot pay its debts and initiates the process of liquidating assets to pay creditors. This is where the 30-day deadline described above applies.

PER is different. It is a restructuring attempt, the company acknowledges it is in difficulty but believes it can recover if it renegotiates terms with creditors. During PER, the company continues to operate, and creditors negotiate a payment plan that may include debt reduction or extended deadlines.

If your contractor's company has initiated PER, the situation is less urgent but no less serious. If the PER fails, the process advances to insolvency, and that is when the 30-day deadline comes into play. Stay informed about how the process evolves.

The role of the insolvency administrator

The insolvency administrator (administrador de insolvência, or AI) is the central figure in the entire process. They are appointed by the court in the insolvency judgment and take over the management of the company and its assets during the proceedings.

In practice, the AI is the person who:

Receives and analyzes all credit claims
Prepares the provisional list of recognized credits
Manages the company's assets during the process
Organizes the creditors' meeting
Proceeds with asset liquidation, if that is the decision
Distributes recovered amounts to creditors according to the legal hierarchy

The AI's name and contact details are listed in the insolvency judgment published on CITIUS. Contact them as early as possible to obtain information about the exact deadline, the required documents, and their preferred method for receiving claims. Some AIs provide their own forms, which simplify the process.

How ObraXRAY helps

The core problem with the 30-day deadline is not the complexity of the claim, it is the lack of awareness. Most homeowners find out about their contractor's insolvency when it is already too late: the works have stopped, the phone goes unanswered, and only weeks later, while searching for answers, they discover the deadline has already expired.

ObraXRAY monitors court records on CITIUS and cross-references information from 7 Portuguese public databases to identify insolvency proceedings as soon as they are published. If you checked your contractor before hiring, you already have the baseline information. If we detect a new insolvency filing associated with a company you searched, you are alerted before the deadline starts running against you.

If you are already in an insolvency situation, check our urgent guide on what to do in the first 30 days for the concrete steps to prepare and submit your claim.

If you are still at the stage of choosing a contractor, search the NIF on ObraXRAY before signing a contract. Knowing that a company has court proceedings, state debts, or directors with a history of insolvencies before paying the first euro is the best way to ensure you never need to use the 30-day deadline.