The new RJUE

The session presented the aims and some of the main changes to the legal framework for planning permission.

We attended the first briefing session on the new Legal Regime for Urbanisation and Building, the RJUE, on 5 May 2026, at the Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil in Lisbon. It was organised by the Ordem dos Arquitectos, with the support of Lisbon City Council, the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities and the LNEC, and was introduced by the Secretary of State for Housing. At that date, the decree had been approved by the Council of Ministers and had not yet been published.

Aims

Three main aims were set out: to clarify concepts, make procedures more flexible and speed up deadlines. Among the points covered, we would single out the division of the overall assessment deadline into deadlines by stage and the possibility of submitting project amendments only once, following the prior hearing. Under prior communication, the period for subsequent municipal control changes from ten years to one.

Also worth noting is the single electronic platform, an attempt to standardise the procedures and documents to be filed when an application is submitted to a municipality.

Decree-Law no. 108/2026 was published on 29 May, corrected in July, and comes into force on 1 October 2026.

Further information

• First briefing session on the changes to the RJUE — Ordem dos Arquitectos
• Changes to the RJUE — Ordem dos Arquitectos
• Decree-Law no. 108/2026 of 29 May — Diário da República
• Revised RJUE postponed until 1 October 2026 — Ordem dos Engenheiros