Compliance tools · Portugal

Decreto-Lei n.º 156/2005, de 15 de setembro, que estabelece a obrigatoriedade de disponibilização do livro de reclamações a todos os fornecedores de bens ou prestadores de serviços que tenham contacto com o público em geral

Decreto-Lei n.º 156/2005, de 15 de setembro; Diário da República, legislação consolidada, versão de 22 de maio de 2026 · Portugal · Binding instrument

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This toolkit organises the duties of Decreto-Lei n.º 156/2005, de 15 de setembro, on making a complaints book available, into four working files of open questions answered from a business's own records.

Decreto-Lei n.º 156/2005, de 15 de setembro, requires every supplier of goods or provider of services that has contact with the general public to make a complaints book available. In practice this reaches shops, coffee shops and restaurants, hairdressers, garages, gyms, estate agents, online sellers, and the many other businesses that serve customers face to face or at a distance. The instrument also governs the response owed to a consumer or user who files a complaint, and the keeping of the related records.

The toolkit is a set of four working files that organise this instrument's obligations into phases of open questions a business answers from its own records, with the statutory text carried verbatim beside each duty. The first working file covers the consumer protection duties around making the complaints book available, including the notice that must be displayed. The second working file covers the remaining consumer protection duties and the rules on how the complaints book is presented and used. The third working file covers record keeping, and the fourth covers the obligation to respond to the consumer or user and the closing provisions.

Sections are served through a connector inside Claude, so the business works through the questions in place. The documents that come back are dated compliance reports the business keeps in its own file. The toolkit never gives advice and never presents a perspective; it carries what the authority wrote, organised.

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Which businesses must make a complaints book available?

The instrument applies to suppliers of goods and providers of services that have contact with the general public. That covers retail shops, hospitality, personal services, repair workshops, online sellers and similar activities. A business can confirm its own position by working through the open questions in the first working file.

What does the first working file ask about?

It covers the consumer protection duties around making the complaints book available, including the notice that must be displayed where customers can see it. The questions ask the business to state what it has in place and to point to its own records. The statutory text sits beside each duty so the wording can be read directly.

How is the complaints book presented and used?

The second working file covers the remaining consumer protection duties and the rules on how the complaints book is presented and used. The questions lead the business through what it must provide and how a complaint is recorded. Each duty is shown with the statutory text beside it.

What records must the business keep?

The third working file covers record keeping under the instrument. The questions ask the business to describe how complaints and related documents are stored and for how long. Answers come from the business's own records, and the reports produced are dated and kept in its file.

What response is owed to a consumer who complains?

The fourth working file covers the obligation to respond to the consumer or user, together with the closing provisions of the instrument. The questions ask the business to set out how a complaint is answered and within what arrangements. The statutory text is carried beside each duty.

How does the business work through the questions?

Sections are served through a connector inside Claude, and the business answers each open question from its own records. The questions are grouped into phases, so the work follows a sequence rather than a single list. Nothing is downloaded and nothing is installed.

What documents come back at the end?

The documents that come back are dated compliance reports. The business keeps them in its own file as a record of the answers it gave on a given date. Each report reflects the business's own material, organised against the duties in the instrument.

Does the toolkit tell the business what to do?

The toolkit never gives advice and never presents a perspective; it carries what the authority wrote, organised. The open questions draw out what the business already holds in its records. The statutory text is set beside each duty so the reader works from the law's own words.

Is the law's wording reproduced or summarised?

The toolkit carries the law's words exactly as the authority wrote them, placed beside each duty. The open questions around them are the business's own to answer. This keeps the source text visible at every step.

Which version of the instrument is used?

The toolkit works from Decreto-Lei n.º 156/2005, de 15 de setembro, in the consolidated legislation of the Diário da República, version of 22 de maio de 2026. The four working files divide its duties by subject. A business can see which duties fall to it by answering the questions in each file.

Source: Diário da República. Official text, free of copyright under CDADC art. 7. Official reference: Decreto-Lei n.º 156/2005, de 15 de setembro; Diário da República, legislação consolidada, versão de 22 de maio de 2026.

Related toolkits for Portugal: Lei n.º 24/96, de 31 de julho, que estabelece o regime legal aplicável à defesa dos consumidores · Lei n.º 7/2009, de 12 de fevereiro, que aprova a revisão do Código do Trabalho · Lei n.º 41/2004, de 18 de agosto, que transpõe para a ordem jurídica nacional a Directiva n.º 2002/58/CE, relativa ao tratamento de dados pessoais e à protecção da privacidade no sector das comunicações electrónicas · Lei n.º 93/2021, de 20 de dezembro, que estabelece o regime geral de proteção de denunciantes de infrações, transpondo a Diretiva (UE) 2019/1937