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Asbestos-cement roof: is it dangerous, must I remove it, is there help?

The questions of people living with an asbestos roof: health, rainwater, duty to remove, new 2026 rules, aid, neighbours and selling the house.

Topic
Fibre cement
Reading
14 min
Reviewed
03/11/2026

Many houses, garages, sheds and warehouses in Portugal still have a roof of corrugated fibre-cement sheets. Some of them contain asbestos. People who live under a roof like this nearly always ask the same questions: is it dangerous? must I remove it? is there money for it? what if it is my neighbour’s roof? This guide answers each one with what the law and the health authorities say, and says clearly what we could not confirm.

Updated on 3 November 2026. General information. It does not replace an assessment by a technician, a doctor or legal advice. The rules for the removal job itself (ACT authorisation, waste, e-GAR) are in the guide roof with asbestos: what the law says and who can remove it.

The short version

  • A fibre-cement roof in good condition is, as a rule, a low risk to health, says the Directorate-General of Health (DGS). The danger is fibres in the air, and they come loose when the material breaks, is cut, drilled or crumbles.
  • The law does not force a private owner to remove a roof just because it contains asbestos. But it does require the house to be kept safe and healthy, and the municipality can order works.
  • Removal is not a job to do yourself. It is done by a firm authorised by the ACT, with a work plan, and the waste goes to a licensed landfill.
  • Since 1 June 2026 the rules are stricter: the limit for fibres in the air dropped from 0.1 to 0.01 fibres per cm³, and materials must be analysed by a laboratory accredited by IPAC.
  • There is no national public aid today for private owners to replace an asbestos roof. There were one-off municipal schemes, now closed. Ask your municipality.

1. How do I know if my roof contains asbestos?

You cannot tell by looking. Asbestos-cement sheets and newer asbestos-free ones look very alike: grey, corrugated, and over time covered in moss and lichen.

What makes it likely:

  • The age of the building. DGS says asbestos was widely used in Europe between 1945 and 1990. In Portugal, placing products with asbestos on the market and using them has been banned since 24 June 2005. A roof laid before that may contain asbestos; one laid well after, in principle, does not.
  • Paperwork. The plans, the invoice for the works or the previous owner may say which material was used.

What confirms it: a laboratory analysis. Decreto-Lei n.º 109/2026, in force since 1 June 2026, requires materials that may contain asbestos to be analysed by a laboratory accredited by IPAC (the Portuguese Accreditation Institute) when there are works. A search for «amianto» on the IPAC website on 3 November 2026 returned 9 accredited laboratories, among them the National Health Institute Doutor Ricardo Jorge (INSA), CTCV and ISQ. The list does not separate labs that analyse materials from labs that count fibres in the air: check with the lab what it does.

Do not break off a piece of the sheet to take to the lab. Ask the laboratory how the sample should be taken, or have a technician take it.

2. Is it dangerous to live under an asbestos roof?

What the authorities say:

  • The World Health Organization (WHO) says all forms of asbestos cause cancer of the lung, larynx and ovary, and mesothelioma (a cancer of the lining of the lungs). It also causes asbestosis, a disease that scars the lungs.
  • The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the WHO, writes that these cancers usually appear several decades after the first exposure.
  • DGS says materials in good condition that are not friable (that do not crumble by hand) are, as a rule, a low risk to health. Any work that breaks the material greatly increases the risk of releasing fibres.

In plain words: the risk does not come from having the roof, it comes from breathing fibres. A whole roof left alone releases very little. A broken roof, crumbling at the edges, swept, pressure-washed or cut with an angle grinder releases far more.

When the risk goes up:

Sign on the roof What it means
Whole sheets, no cracks, just dirt Keeping it and checking it is usually enough
Worn surface, fibres showing, edges crumbling The material is deteriorating: ask for a technical assessment
Broken sheets, holes, pieces on the ground Do not touch the pieces. Ask for an assessment and plan removal
Roof hit by a storm or a falling tree Do not sweep or vacuum the debris. See section 10

If you have lived or worked for a long time near damaged asbestos and you are worried about your health, talk to your family doctor.

3. What about rainwater from the roof?

The WHO Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality set no limit value for asbestos in water. The reason given: there is no consistent evidence that swallowed asbestos harms health. The same WHO fact sheet warns, however, that collecting rainwater from a badly sealed asbestos-cement roof can add to exposure.

In practice: do not use rainwater from a fibre-cement roof for drinking or cooking. For watering the garden, the main care is not to let sludge and bits of sheet build up in tanks and gutters, because once dry they can give off dust.

4. Must I remove the roof?

No law forces a private owner to remove a roof just because it contains asbestos. Products installed before 2005 may stay until the end of their useful life.

The laws that require asbestos to be found and removed are for other buildings:

  • Lei n.º 2/2011 applies to public buildings, installations and equipment.
  • Lei n.º 63/2018 applies to company buildings, installations and equipment.

That does not mean an owner can let the roof fall apart. The Legal Regime for Urban Development and Building (RJUE), article 89, says that:

  • buildings must have maintenance works at least once every eight years, and the owner must carry out the works needed for safety and health;
  • the municipality may, at any time, on its own initiative or at anyone’s request, order the works needed to correct poor safety or health conditions.

The Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) says that badly deteriorated fibre-cement roofs can be reported to the municipality under articles 88 and 89 of the RJUE. In other words: you do not have to remove a sound roof, but a badly deteriorated one can lead to an order from the municipality.

5. Keep, encapsulate or remove: how to decide

APA gives three paths, based on a risk assessment (state of the material, access, contact, number of people and time exposed):

  1. Keep it and check it. Look at the roof from the ground or a window at least once a year and after every storm. Take photos from the same spot each time, so you can see whether cracks grow.
  2. Encapsulate or seal it. Apply a product that binds the fibres to the surface. It only makes sense on material that is still firm. It is a job for trained professionals, not DIY.
  3. Remove it. When the material is deteriorating, when you are doing roof works anyway, or when you want to end the problem for good.

For firms, the law changed tone in 2026: Decreto-Lei n.º 109/2026 added that in any activity with likely exposure to asbestos, removal should be given priority over other ways of handling it. It is a rule for whoever does the work, not a duty on the homeowner, but it shows where the law is going.

If you are replacing the roof for another reason (leaks, insulation, a sale), that is the best time to remove it: you pay for scaffolding and labour once.

6. Can I clean, paint or cover the roof?

Cleaning. Do not wash a fibre-cement roof with a high-pressure washer or scrub it with a wire brush: that is exactly the kind of damage to the material that, according to APA and DGS, raises the risk of releasing fibres. We found no Portuguese official text that forbids a private owner from cleaning it, but the risk is clear. See also the guide on roof cleaning methods and their risks.

Painting. An encapsulating paint is one of APA’s three options. But preparing the surface (scraping, brushing, washing) is the dangerous moment. Ask a firm that works with asbestos.

Covering it over (laying sandwich panel or new sheeting on top of the old sheets). We found no Portuguese official rule on this. In practice the asbestos sheets stay there, hidden, and the screws for the new roof go through them. If this is offered to you, ask whether the firm has ACT authorisation to work with asbestos and how it will drill without releasing dust, and check with the municipality whether the works need a permit (guide to permits for roof works).

7. Can I take the sheets off myself?

APA says removing asbestos is never DIY. Decreto-Lei n.º 266/2007 regulates the work of whoever removes it (firms and workers): training, masks, an approved plan, air measurements and waste treated as hazardous. We found no text that covers a private owner taking the sheets off their own house, but the waste is still hazardous and cannot go in the household bin, with ordinary rubble or onto a plot of land.

Do not let an odd-job man do it without paperwork either. The list of what to ask the firm for is in the guide to the law and removal.

8. What changed in 2026

  • A limit ten times lower. Decreto-Lei n.º 109/2026, of 29 May, transposed Directive (EU) 2023/2668. Since 1 June 2026 the exposure limit for workers is 0.01 fibres per cm³ (it was 0.1). From 21 December 2029, measurement will also count the thinnest fibres, using electron microscopy.
  • Identify before touching. The new article 10-A requires the employer, or the client in the cases set by law, to identify materials that presumably contain asbestos before starting, with analysis by an IPAC-accredited laboratory.
  • More diseases monitored. Workers’ health checks now include cancer of the larynx, cancer of the ovary and diseases of the pleura.
  • Storm Kristin. In the municipalities covered by the state of calamity, the ACT’s prior authorisation for removing asbestos is suspended until 31 December 2026 (Decreto-Lei n.º 40-A/2026, extended by Decreto-Lei n.º 202/2026). Notifying the ACT is still required before work starts, and the limit value and safety rules still apply.

9. Is there financial help to replace the roof?

For private owners, we found no national programme open. What exists and what does not:

  • The national asbestos removal programme is for public buildings. The 2026 State Budget (Lei n.º 73-A/2025, article 224) only opened it to bodies that run fire brigades, for their own buildings.
  • During the debate on that Budget, a «Programme for Removing Asbestos from Private Properties» was proposed, with grants for lower-income households. The proposal is not in the published law.
  • Municipalities. Some have helped private owners. For example, Murça municipality opened a scheme in 2020 paying 70% of the cost of removing and replacing fibre-cement roofs on homes of low-income households. It closed on 31 December 2020. We found no municipal scheme open in 2026, but it is worth asking yours.
  • 6% VAT. Item 2.27 of List I of the VAT Code gives the reduced rate for contracts to repair, renovate and maintain homes. The Tax Authority has said that cleaning-only work does not qualify. We found no binding ruling on asbestos removal, nor on garages and sheds that are not homes. Ask the contractor to state the rate in the quote and see the guide to VAT on roof works.
  • Insulation. If you replace the roof and insulate at the same time, see the roof insulation aid: it is for energy efficiency, not asbestos, but it can help with the new part.

Be wary of anyone who promises a «State grant to remove asbestos» without telling you the programme’s name and where it was published.

10. After a storm

If the wind broke sheets or a tree fell on the roof:

  • Do not step on, break further or cut the pieces.
  • Do not dry-sweep or vacuum the debris with a household vacuum cleaner: it spreads the dust.
  • Keep children and pets away from the area and close windows on that side of the house.
  • If the hole must be covered urgently, lay a tarpaulin over it without drilling the broken sheets.
  • Photograph everything for the insurer (see the guide to home insurance and storms) and for the first 48 hours.
  • Have the removal done by an authorised firm.

The press reported DGS advice along these lines after storm Kristin in February 2026. We did not find the original DGS text.

11. What if it is my neighbour’s roof?

You have no right to enter your neighbour’s property or touch their roof. But you can ask the right bodies for help. According to APA’s «Who to contact?» guide:

Situation Who to contact
Badly deteriorated fibre-cement roof that puts public health at risk Public Health Unit of your Local Health Unit (ULS)
Abandoned or badly kept house with a deteriorated roof Municipality (RJUE articles 88 and 89)
A firm removing asbestos carelessly (no protection, breaking sheets, throwing them off the roof) ACT, through the inspection request on the ACT portal
Asbestos sheets or debris dumped on a road or a plot of land GNR’s SEPNA, SOS Ambiente e Território line 808 200 520

Start by talking to your neighbour: often they do not know what they have or what to do either.

12. Selling or renting a house with asbestos

We found no Portuguese law that requires asbestos to be declared when a private house is sold or let. The energy certificate has no field for it. In 2021 the European Parliament asked for compulsory screening of buildings before sale or rent, but that was a resolution without legal force, and we found no EU law in force on it.

Even so:

  • Buyers should ask about the type of roof and its date. If it is old fibre-cement, allow for the cost of removing and replacing it in the price you offer.
  • Sellers gain from having an analysis, or the invoice and e-GAR of a removal already done: it avoids arguments and last-minute price cuts.
  • Tenants with a deteriorated roof should tell the landlord in writing. See the guide for tenants with a leaking roof.

13. How much does removal and replacement cost?

We do not publish prices: we found no official source with reference values. What a proper quote should list separately, so you can compare:

  1. analysis of the material (if you do not have one yet);
  2. work plan and application to the ACT;
  3. scaffolding, safety line and protection;
  4. removal, wrapping and transport of the waste with an e-GAR;
  5. disposal at a licensed landfill (the landfill’s name);
  6. the new roof (material, battens, insulation, gutters);
  7. the VAT rate applied to each part.

Get at least three quotes and compare them line by line. The quote checker helps you see what is missing, and the area calculator gives you the roof area to check the m² on the quote.

What we could not confirm

  • The original DGS text on precautions after storm Kristin (we only saw it in the press).
  • An official time, in years, between exposure and disease: the health sources speak of «decades».
  • Official Portuguese rules on washing, painting or covering an asbestos-cement roof.
  • Whether a private owner may legally remove the sheets from their own house.
  • Whether the 6% VAT rate applies to asbestos removal and to garages or sheds.
  • Municipal aid schemes open in 2026.
  • Exactly when asbestos-cement was made in Portugal.

Sources (read on 3 November 2026)

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