The eighth amendment to the 1.º Direito program, established in 2018, addresses “constraints in the documentary validation of payment requests, likely to create financial difficulties for the final beneficiaries, particularly those with projects that are in an advanced stage of execution or already completed, which require the contracted public support with the Institute for Housing and Urban Rehabilitation (IHRU)” according to the decree of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers approved on October 3.
In Decree-Law No. 116/2025, promulgated on the 16th by the President of the Republic, the Government states that “some adjustments” to the payment regime of 1.º Direito are necessary. The approved amendment aims to “ensure greater agility and efficiency in the respective payments for executed works or those in an advanced state of execution.”
According to the Government, 1.º Direito plays “a predominant role in the execution of investments RE-C02-i01 – Support Program for Access to Housing provided in the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP), whose deadlines are urgent to meet” by 2026.
Implemented since 2018, well before the approval of the RRP in 2021, 1.º Direito is a public support program aimed at promoting housing solutions for people living in inadequate housing conditions who lack the financial capacity to afford suitable housing.
Besides adjusting the payment regime, this new amendment to the program also aims to allow access to support from 1.º Direito “for beneficiaries of other supports for the same purposes, as long as in the last 15 years the mentioned supports have been less than 20 times the value of the social support indexer [522.50 euros],” which means below 10,450 euros.
Finally, the Government simplifies the procedure for ordering applications subject to conversion to the special co-payment regime introduced by Decree-Law No. 44/2025, “only considering the final goal of developing housing solutions.”
“This decree-law applies to acts and contracts to be carried out after its entry into force, as well as to already constituted legal relationships and applications that have been timely submitted under Notice No. 01/CO2-i01/2021,” states the decree published in the Diário da República.
With an execution period until 2026, the RRP aims to implement a set of reforms and investments with a view to economic recovery following the damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, with funding from the European Union.
