80% of companies default on payment dates – companies

The average delay in payment terms in Portugal has improved since 2020, but is still at 23 days.

At the end of June 2023, only 19.5% of companies in Portugal met payment deadlines. The data, from Informa D&B, puts Portugal in one of the “worst positions internationally in terms of delays in payments by companies to suppliers”.

The value represents an increase in the number of compliance cases, which in June last year accounted for 18.4% of the total. Before the pandemic in June 2019, the rate was 14.2%.

However, the company, which analyzes business fabric behavior, notes that the average delay of 23 days has been declining since the end of 2020. That year, the delay was 27.3 days.

Two-thirds of companies pay with a delay of up to 30 days. 8.3% take 30 to 90 days, and 5.6% pay more than 90 days after the agreed deadline. A year ago, this segment represented 6.1% of the total, and in June 2019 it reached 9.4%.

Most business-to-business transactions in Portugal are carried out on credit, with the amount being paid to suppliers over a set period of time. In May 2023, the total amount to be paid to suppliers is around 65 billion euros.

The accommodation and catering sector is the least compliant: only 11% of companies in this activity pay on time. Shortly after comes the transfer at 12.4%. This is also the sector with the highest number of companies paying more than 90 days late (8.8%).

On the other side is the ICT sector, which has the largest number of compliant companies: 26.7%.

Informa D&B also adds that there are 43,000 companies at risk of significant delays in the next 12 months.