Portugal's Electronic Complaints Book: the Link Your Website Must Show

There is a legal obligation that almost every Portuguese small-business website gets wrong — and it is not GDPR or cookies. It is a link.

Since Portugal introduced the electronic complaints book (Livro de Reclamações Eletrónico), suppliers of goods and providers of services have been required to display, on their websites, in a visible and prominent place, access to the official platform livroreclamacoes.pt. That wording comes straight from the law — article 5.º-B of Decree-Law 156/2005, as amended — and it is not a recommendation. It is a duty, enforced by ASAE, the economic and food safety authority.

If you run a business in Portugal — including as a foreign resident who never grew up with the red complaints book — this guide covers who is affected, how to comply in ten minutes, and what happens if you don't.

Who has to do this?

The short answer: almost every business that sells to the public. The regime covers the suppliers and service providers listed in the decree-law's annex, and since 1 July 2018 the electronic-book obligation extends to the generality of sectors (essential public services — water, energy, communications — were covered from 2017).

Two details that surprise people:

• Online-only businesses count. The law applies to businesses operating through digital means, not only to those with a physical door. An online store with no shopfront still needs the electronic book.
• The link duty applies if you have a website. Having a website is not mandatory; having one without the platform link is the infraction. If your entire online presence is a Google Business Profile, this specific duty does not reach you — but the day your site goes live, the link must be on it.

How to comply properly, in ten minutes

1. Put the link in the footer of every page. The law asks for "a visible and prominent place". The footer is the accepted convention — it is where consumers and inspectors look — as long as the link is legible and not buried among twenty others.

2. Use an approved logo or a clear text link. The Directorate-General for Consumers (DGC) provides official Livro de Reclamações logos designed for exactly this, linking to the platform. A text link reading «Livro de Reclamações» also complies, as long as it is unambiguous. What does not comply: a tiny nameless icon, or a link pointing to your own "how to complain" page.

3. Point at the official platform. The destination is https://www.livroreclamacoes.pt/ — not a copy, not your own form, not a PDF.

4. Check the mobile version. Footers that collapse away on small screens are more common than you would think. The duty has no mobile exemption, and mobile is where most of your visits are.

What happens when someone complains

The link is not decorative — there is a process with deadlines behind it:

• A complaint submitted on the platform goes to your business and to your sector's regulator or inspection authority.
• You must reply to the consumer within 15 working days of the complaint. That deadline is also in article 5.º-B.
• Ignoring a complaint is a separate infraction — replying late, or not at all, stacks a new problem on top of the original one.

Treat the reply as customer service, not paperwork: a fast, concrete answer resolves most complaints before they escalate, and your reply history is recorded on the platform.

What non-compliance costs

Breaches of the complaints-book regime are economic administrative offences under Decree-Law 9/2021, with fines that scale with the seriousness of the infraction and the size of the company — the DGC cites a range from €150 to €15,000. For a micro-business, a missing link will not reach the top of that table; but it is one of the easiest infractions in existence to detect, because any inspector (or competitor) can verify it in ten seconds without leaving their desk.

The maths is simple: the fix costs your developer ten minutes; the lowest fine costs more than that, and an ASAE inspection that starts with a missing link rarely ends with it.

While you are at it: the other missing block

While editing your footer, check the complaints book's cousin: the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR / "RAL") notice. Law 144/2015 requires businesses to inform consumers — including on their websites — about the alternative dispute resolution bodies they are bound to or that the consumer may use. In practice it is one more short footer block, naming the competent ADR body with a link (the official list is on the consumer portal, consumidor.gov.pt). The two duties tend to be inspected together.

Final checklist

• «Livro de Reclamações» link in the footer, on every page, legible
• Destination: https://www.livroreclamacoes.pt/
• Official DGC logo or an unambiguous text link
• Visible on mobile too
• ADR/RAL block with the competent body and its link
• An internal process to answer complaints within 15 working days

Honest note: this is a practical guide, not legal advice. The cited statutes have been amended several times — confirm the wording in force in the Diário da República or with ASAE before sensitive decisions.

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On the websites we build, the legal footer — complaints book, ADR notice, privacy policy, terms — is part of the delivery, not an extra someone remembers after the inspection. If your current site fails this checklist, or does not exist yet, describe your business in our estimate form and you will get a concrete figure with no sales calls. And if you want the full picture of what a site needs before going live, our launch checklist covers the 20 points we always verify.