Amendments to the legal regime of social integration income (“RSI”)

07 / 28 / 2017

Decree-Law no. 90/2007 was published today, in the Official Gazette, which introduces significant changes to the legal regime of social integration income ("RSI") aimed at dignifying this benefit and reinforcing its integrative and inclusive nature.

Due to its importance, we would like to highlight the following changes:

The need to reassess the requirements and general conditions of attribution of the RSI is reassessed, namely with regarding the legal residence in Portugal and the terms of evidence;
The right to the RSI benefit is recognized as of the date on which the application is duly instructed, and does not depend on the execution of the insertion program;
The insertion agreement should promote an adequacy of the measures to the characteristics of the beneficiaries and their households, through formal and express commitment, assumed by the beneficiary, as a tool to promote effective social inclusion;
Citizens who are transiently accommodated in social responses of a temporary nature with a defined personal insertion plan or in internment situations in therapeutic communities or in inpatient units of the integrated national continuing care network or in Compliance with the penalty of imprisonment require the provision of IHR before departure, discharge or release, beginning the payment of the benefit in the month of exit or discharge;
The concept of household and the income to be considered in the determination of the amount of the RSI benefit are also standardized, taking into account the total income of the household, earned in the month prior to the date of the presentation of the application; and
The annual renewal of this benefit shall be carried out by means of a rigorous assessment of the maintenance of the attribution conditions, through an ex-officio verification of income, being no longer dependent on a bureaucratic process of submission of the renewal application and other documentation by the respective beneficiaries.

This Decree-Law enters into force tomorrow, July 29.