Licença de utilização in Portugal: what changed for buyers in 2024

For twenty five years no Portuguese notary would sign a sale of an urban building without seeing its licença de utilização. That rule is gone, and the document it referred to has changed shape twice since.

The licença de utilização was the municipal permit confirming a building could be used for its declared purpose. Decreto-Lei 10/2024 repealed the law that made notaries demand it at the deed, and the urban planning code now works with a comunicação prévia, a prior notification backed by a technician's declaration. The building's legality did not stop mattering; the person checking it changed.

What did the 2024 reform repeal?

Decreto-Lei 10/2024 of 8 January, the government's licensing simplification package, lists in article 24 the laws it revokes, and point b) is Decreto-Lei 281/99 of 26 July in its entirety. That was the decree whose first article required the licença de utilização, or proof it had been requested, to be shown to the notary before any transfer of an urban building. The consolidated text of Decreto-Lei 281/99 on Diário da República now shows every article as revoked, the first with effect from 1 January 2024 and the rest from 4 March 2024.

Article 21 of the same decree deals with the paper itself. All legal and regulatory references to the alvará de licença de construção and the alvará de licença de utilização are to be read as references to the receipt for payment of the fees legally due. The certificate a seller used to hand over has, in law, become a payment receipt.

What does the RJUE require instead?

The urban planning code, the Regime Jurídico da Urbanização e Edificação or RJUE, approved by Decreto-Lei 555/99, was rewritten again by Decreto-Lei 108/2026 of 29 May, in force from 3 August 2026 according to the annotations on the consolidated text. Its article 62 now states that a building or fraction may only be used after the works are completed, in conformity with the approved or submitted architectural and landscaping projects and with the rules that fix admissible uses.

Article 62-A makes the use of a building after licensed or notified works depend on a comunicação prévia to the câmara municipal, accompanied by a termo de responsabilidade in which the site director or the supervising director declares that the work conforms to the approved project. The building may be used immediately after that notification is submitted, and the municipality's control is a subsequent check of the documents. Article 62-B covers a use or change of use not preceded by such works, which goes through a comunicação prévia com prazo, a notification with a waiting period, to confirm that the intended use is permitted and the building suitable for it.

Which buildings are exempt?

The exemption for old buildings survives. The City of Porto's service page describes the isenção de licença de utilização as the exemption for a building constructed by a state body or before 1951, the year the Regulamento Geral das Edificações Urbanas introduced municipal control of use, and issues a certidão to prove it. A pre 1951 building in its original state therefore has no licence to show, and the certidão from the câmara is the document that says so.

What should a buyer still check?

Three things. First, whether the use recorded for the fraction matches the use you are buying it for, since article 62 ties lawful use to the approved project and the rules on admissible uses. Second, whether works were carried out after the last licence or notification, because those trigger a new comunicação prévia under article 62-A. Third, for a pre 1951 building, whether it has been altered since, which ends the exemption.

The registry side of the same purchase is described in our guide to the caderneta predial and the certidão permanente, where the 15 euro online certificate that lists registered charges is explained, and Spain's equivalent registry check is in our nota simple guide.

The notary's question disappeared in 2024; the buyer's question did not. AiMYNDi reads the caderneta, the certidão and the municipal documents together and flags a use that does not match.