You researched the visa. Did you check what it does to the company?
There is a great deal written about which Portuguese permit to apply for, and almost nothing about the consequence that arrives afterwards: moving yourself can move your company. Portuguese law treats a company as resident here if either its registered office or its place of effective management is in Portugal. The person who decides is the company’s centre of gravity, and when that person relocates, the company can follow without anyone filing anything.
We do not do immigration, and this page is not a visa guide
It would be easy to publish a list of permits and collect the search traffic. We are not going to, for two reasons that are worth saying out loud.
- Which permit to apply for, and the requirements attached to each
- Golden visas, and anything structured around obtaining one
- Family reunification, naturalisation and citizenship timelines
- AIMA appointments, processing times and what to do when one is missed
- Whether your move makes your existing company Portuguese tax resident
- Whether working here creates a taxable presence for a foreign employer
- What becoming Portuguese-resident does to dividends you planned to take
- How to pay yourself once you are here, and what it costs
- Whether IFICI applies to you, and what it is worth if it does
The second reason is practical. Portuguese immigration law has changed twice inside a year — Law 61/2025 came into force on 23 October 2025 and Law 62/2026 followed it, between them closing the route that let people regularise from inside the country. Any page we wrote listing requirements would be stale before it was useful. We refer that work to people who practise in it, and we take nothing for the introduction.
Three questions about you, not your paperwork
Each consequence below is triggered by facts, not by which permit you hold. Answer honestly about where decisions actually get taken.
1What are you in the company?
2Where is the company now?
3Will you actually live and work here?
Answer the three questions and the consequences below will light up.
Article 2(3) of the Corporate Income Tax Code makes a company resident here if it has its registered office or its place of effective management in Portuguese territory. The two are alternatives. If the decisions that run a foreign company are taken from Lisbon, the company can become Portuguese tax resident — and residents are taxed on worldwide income under Article 4(1).
CIRC Articles 2(3) and 4(1). Portuguese arbitral case law describes effective management as where the key general and commercial decisions are substantively taken.Working from Portugal for a company established elsewhere can give that company a permanent establishment here, with the filing and tax that follow. It depends on what you do rather than on your job title: concluding contracts and running operations weigh far more than answering email.
A separate analysis, because the test is about activity rather than about residence.The exemption on profits distributed by a free-zone company runs to 31 December 2033 — but paragraph 11(b) of Article 36.º-A excludes shareholders resident in Portuguese territory, with carve-outs only for industrial and shipping entities. The company keeps its 5%; you lose the relief at the moment the money reaches you.
EBF Article 36.º-A, paragraphs 10 and 11(b).Once you are here and the company is Portuguese, taking money out becomes a Portuguese question: salary against dividends, employer social security at 23.75% on top of gross across fourteen payments, and the aggregation election that usually decides the answer.
Not a risk, a planning item — and the one with the largest numbers attached.Three answers cannot see a treaty tie-breaker, a second residence, or a board that genuinely meets elsewhere. Treat this as a way of finding which conversation you need, not as a conclusion about your case.
IFICI: 20%, if the activity qualifies
The successor regime to the old non-habitual resident rules, and the piece of Portuguese tax law most relevant to someone moving here to work. It is narrower than its predecessor and turns on what you do rather than on who you are.
A special rate applies to category A income derived from the eligible activities, in place of the progressive scale. For someone arriving into a qualifying role, the difference against the top marginal rate is substantial and runs for a ten-year window.
EBF Article 58.º-AThe regime is for people who become Portuguese tax resident and were not tax resident here in the five years before. Returning after a short absence does not qualify, which catches people who left recently and assumed they could come back into it.
Residence test, not a nationality testEligibility is defined by activity, with the qualifying professions listed in the implementing portaria. This is where most applications succeed or fail, and it is worth checking against the list before building a plan on the rate.
Portaria 352/2024/1, as amended by Portaria 52-A/2025/1Enrolment is not automatic and it is not open indefinitely: it has to be made by mid-January of the year following the one in which you became resident. Miss it and the benefit, where it is still available at all, runs only for what remains of the window.
Check the current deadline before relying on itForeign-source income in several categories is exempt under the regime, with income from blacklisted jurisdictions excluded. We have deliberately not reproduced the full category list here, because the detail has already been amended once and the tax authority’s own circular is a better place to read it than a page like this one.
The order that avoids the expensive discovery
Most of the damage we see came from doing these in the wrong order, not from doing any of them wrong.
Before anything else, answer honestly: after the move, who takes the decisions that run the company, and from where. If that is you and you will be here, plan on the company being Portuguese tax resident rather than hoping it is not.
Particularly dividends. A Madeira shareholding, a holding company, a treaty position that depended on where you lived — all of these can change value the day your residence changes, and the change is not reversible by moving back.
Not against the headline. If the role genuinely qualifies, the rate is worth planning around and the January registration deadline becomes a date in your calendar. If it does not, better to know before the move than after.
With the corporate and tax picture settled, the immigration question is simpler and cheaper to answer, because you know what the structure needs to look like. Done in the other order, the permit sometimes commits you to a structure you would not have chosen.
What this page is based on
- Corporate Income Tax Code, Article 2(3) — a company is resident where it has its registered office or its place of effective management in Portuguese territory; the two are alternatives. Article 4(1) — residents are taxed on worldwide income.
- EBF Article 58.º-A — the tax incentive for scientific research and innovation, created by Law 82/2023 and regulated by Portaria 352/2024/1 of 23 December, as amended by Portaria 52-A/2025/1. Guidance in the tax authority’s Ofício-Circulado 20276/2025 and the accountants’ order practical guide.
- EBF Article 36.º-A, paragraphs 10 and 11(b) — the exemption on distributed profits to 31 December 2033 and its exclusion of shareholders resident in Portuguese territory.
- Social security — employer contributions at 23.75% and employee at 11%, across fourteen salary payments a year.
- Immigration law — Law 61/2025, in force 23 October 2025, and Law 62/2026. Referenced only to explain why this page does not cover permits. For current requirements, AIMA and the consolidated law are the sources, not us.
On the immigration side we are relying on secondary reporting from Portuguese law firms rather than on our own reading of the diplomas, because it is outside our practice. We have said what we know and pointed at who to ask. Where this page gives a tax or corporate rule, we have read the article.
What founders ask once they see the corporate side
Can moving to Portugal make my foreign company Portuguese for tax?
Yes, and this is the consequence people discover last. Article 2(3) of the Corporate Income Tax Code treats a company as resident in Portugal if it has either its registered office or its place of effective management in Portuguese territory. The two are alternatives, so a company registered elsewhere becomes Portuguese tax resident if the decisions that actually run it are taken here. Residents are then taxed on worldwide income under Article 4(1).
What counts as place of effective management?
Portuguese arbitral case law describes it as the place where the key decisions needed to run the company as a whole are substantively taken, covering both general and commercial management. It is a question of fact, not of paperwork: a board minute signed in another country does not help if the person who decides is in Lisbon every week.
I am a shareholder in a Madeira company and I am moving to Portugal. Does that matter?
A great deal. The exemption on distributed profits in Article 36.º-A runs to 31 December 2033, but paragraph 11(b) excludes shareholders resident in Portuguese territory, with carve-outs only for industrial and shipping entities. The company keeps its 5% rate; you lose the exemption on the way out. For a founder planning to move, this can erase most of the advantage.
What is IFICI and would I qualify?
The tax incentive for scientific research and innovation, Article 58.º-A of the Estatuto dos Benefícios Fiscais, created by Law 82/2023 and regulated by Portaria 352/2024/1 as amended. It applies a 20% rate to employment income from eligible activities and exempts most foreign-source income, for someone who becomes tax resident and was not resident in Portugal in the preceding five years. Eligibility turns on the activity rather than on your nationality, and registration has a January deadline.
Do you handle visa applications?
No, and we say so on every page where it comes up. Immigration is not our practice: we will name a firm that does it properly and take nothing for the introduction. What we do is the part that sits on the other side of the decision — what your move does to the company, its residence, its tax position and its filings.
Which permit should I apply for?
That is the question to ask an immigration lawyer, and the honest reason we do not answer it here is that Portuguese immigration law has changed twice inside a year, with Law 61/2025 in force from 23 October 2025 and Law 62/2026 following it. A page like this one would be out of date before it was useful. Check AIMA and the current consolidated law, or ask someone who practises in it.
Model the move before you make it
Tell us where the company is, who takes its decisions and where you are going. You will get a written view on whether the company follows you into Portuguese residence, what happens to dividends you were counting on, whether IFICI reaches you, and what paying yourself will actually cost. For the permit itself we will point you at someone who does that work.