Green Receipts (Recibos Verdes) · 2026

How much do you keep from what you invoice?

Withholding tax is not your final tax bill — it's an advance payment. The year's tax is worked out on a fraction of your invoicing, so anyone withholding at 23% usually gets money back. This simulator runs both numbers: what's left each month, and what happens at the year-end settlement.

Your activity

These decide your IRS coefficient and withholding rate.

Amount excluding VAT, as it appears on your invoices. If you're starting partway through the year, enter what you expect to invoice through December.
€
Activities listed in the Article 151 table (lawyer, doctor, engineer, designer, consultant, among many others) withhold at 23%. Intellectual or industrial property income received by the original author withholds at 16.5%. All other activities withhold at 11.5%.
Expenses incurred in the client's name and on their behalf, and documented travel and accommodation expenses. These are not subject to withholding, under Article 101-B(1)(b). As a precaution, this simulator still counts them toward tax.
€
Optional. When the withholding on an invoice would come to less than €25, no withholding applies at all (Article 101-B(1)(d)): invoices up to €108.70 at the 23% rate, and up to €217.39 at the 11.5% rate.
€

Social Security

The contribution is calculated on part of your invoicing, with a minimum, a cap, and several ways to reduce it.

A sole proprietor (empresário em nome individual) or the holder of an individual limited-liability establishment (EIRL) contributes 25.2% instead of 21.4%. The 70% or 20% coefficient doesn't change because of this — it follows the type of income.
In year 1 there are no contributions and the IRS coefficient is halved. In year 2 the reduction is one quarter. The IRS reductions only apply if you have no Category A or H income and haven't ceased activity within the last five years.
In your quarterly declaration you can raise or lower the base by up to 25%, in 5% steps. Lowering it means paying less now and it counting less toward your pension; raising it does the opposite.
You may be exempt from contributions if your average monthly relevant income is below €2,148.52 (4 × IAS) and the pay from the other job is at least €537.13 (1 × IAS), with the two being distinct entities with no controlling relationship.

Special regimes

These don't stack: anyone opting for Article 58-A of the EBF cannot also use IRS Jovem.

Article 12-B of the Personal Income Tax Code (CIRS), available up to age 35, for ten years. Here the exemption is applied to the aggregated net income, with an annual cap of €29,542.15 (55 × IAS). Under Category B there's no reduced withholding rate: the benefit arrives at the year-end settlement.
The tax incentive for scientific research and innovation, which replaced the non-habitual resident regime. A special 20% rate on net Category A and B income, for ten years, with withholding also at 20%.

VAT

Invoicing under €15,000 isn't enough on its own: you also must not carry out exports or related activities, and must not have waived the exemption. Enter your actual VAT status.

Fine-tune the year's tax

Optional. Without these figures the simulator returns the most conservative estimate, that is, the highest tax and the lowest refund.

Staff, rent, and other goods and services related to the activity, with invoices reported to the tax authority. These count toward the 15% rule in Article 31(13), which only bites above roughly €30,580 of invoicing.
€
Health, education, housing, care homes, general household expenses, dependents, requesting invoices. These reduce the tax due and increase the refund. There's no automatic per-taxpayer deduction: Article 79 has been repealed.
€
Disposable for the year €0

How it's calculated. Social Security on 70% of invoicing for the provision of services and 20% for the sale of goods, hospitality, catering and beverages, at a rate of 21.4% or 25.2%, with an optional adjustment of ±25%, a minimum of €20/month and a base cap of 12 × IAS. The obligation to contribute starts on the first day of the 12th month after the activity begins, and there's an exemption for combining with employment under the Social Security Contribution Schemes Code. Withholding tax of 23% for activities listed in the Article 151 table, 16.5% for intellectual property income received by the original owner, 11.5% for all other activities, and 20% under the Article 58-A EBF regime, with the exemptions in Article 101-B. The year's IRS under the simplified regime: the Article 31(1) coefficient, the reduction under paragraphs 10 and 11 in years 1 and 2, the deduction of contributions for the part exceeding 10% of gross income (paragraph 2), the addition under paragraph 13, the Article 12-B exemption, the minimum-existence relief under Article 70 and the Article 68 tax brackets, or the special 20% rate under the Article 58-A regime.

What's left out. Individual taxation, with no dependents in the household beyond what you enter in tax credits. This simulator doesn't include advance payments on account under Article 102, the annual Social Security settlement from year 3 onward, joint taxation, the partial exemption under Article 58 of the EBF for literary, artistic and scientific property, or organised bookkeeping. Interpretation note: for Category B, the IRS Jovem exemption is applied here to net income, after the coefficient; the law is not explicit on this point.

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