A Portuguese company owes a certified accountant, monthly data to the tax authority and two annual returns from the day it exists — whether or not it has ever issued an invoice. Nothing arrives to remind you. The consequence surfaces months later, when you need something from the state and cannot have it.
Most foreign owners have heard of the corporate tax return and of nothing else on this list. The rest is where the penalties actually accumulate.
The figures in IES must reconcile with Modelo 22. Inconsistency between the two is a straightforward audit trigger.
A company with no employees can still owe social security on a remunerated director — the line that most surprises owners who assumed no staff meant no payroll.
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Not through carelessness — because nothing tells you. Answer honestly: click once for yes, twice for no. The result stays in your browser until you choose to send it.
Organised accounts under the national standard, primary documents processed, bank reconciliations and periods closed on time rather than in a rush at year end.
A Contabilista Certificado assigned to your company, who signs the accounts and carries professional liability for them. Not optional, and not a role your accountant at home can fill.
Modelo 22, IES, VAT, SAF-T, withholding and payments on account — prepared, reconciled against each other and submitted without your involvement in the process.
Salaries across fourteen instalments, contributions, employment contracts, holiday and the thirteenth and fourteenth months, plus registration of new staff.
Registered address, minutes of meetings, changes to the articles and to ownership, and the beneficial ownership register kept current.
Responses to enquiries from Autoridade Tributária, representation and support through inspections. Letters from Finanças arrive in Portuguese — we read them.
These lines exist from the day the company is registered. They do not depend on revenue, and they are the reason a dormant entity is never free.
Minimum wage is €920, paid across fourteen instalments — roughly €15,900 a year per employee once social security is added.
Corporate tax on zero profit is zero. The obligations around it are not.
What owners ask, usually just after the first letter from Finanças.
For companies with organised accounts, yes. A Contabilista Certificado must be assigned to the entity, signs the accounts and carries professional liability for them. It is a statutory role rather than a service you can economise on, it cannot be performed by your accountant at home however competent, and it applies even when the company is dormant.
There are fines, and they scale with delay. But the penalty that matters is not financial: a company with outstanding declarations loses its clean standing with the tax authority, and with it the certificate of no debt. That document is what banks, public tenders, licensing bodies and grant programmes ask for. The problem is created in month one and discovered in month eight, when something urgent depends on a certificate that can no longer be issued.
No. While the company exists in the register it files Modelo 22, IES and VAT returns — with zeros in the boxes, on the same dates. If the pause is long, there is a formal suspension procedure that reduces part of the burden. If you are not coming back, dissolving the company is cheaper than paying to maintain it for years.
Periodicity follows turnover: monthly above €650,000 a year, quarterly below it. In both cases the return is due by the 20th of the second month after the period. If you trade with businesses elsewhere in the EU you will also need VIES registration and recapitulative statements alongside the ordinary return.
Yes. Filing with the tax authority is entirely electronic, your accountant accesses the Portal das Finanças under a mandate, and primary documents are accepted digitally. Owners do not need to travel for compliance. Certain banking procedures may still require presence, but that is a separate question from reporting.
Almost always, and more routinely than most people fear. Late returns can be submitted, penalties for a small dormant entity are usually fixed rather than ruinous, and clean standing can be restored. What makes it worse is waiting: penalties escalate, and a company non-compliant for years attracts more scrutiny on resurfacing than one correcting a single missed date. We can pull the filing history and the debt certificate in an afternoon.
Tell us whether the company trades, has staff and operates inside the EU. We will price the monthly work and check whether anything has already been missed — that check costs nothing.