Spain vs Portugal: the same money under two tax systems (2026)

Every rule below is real and is left out on purpose. Modelling it would need information this form does not ask you for, or a mechanism we have not built yet. What matters is not that something is missing, but which way it moves your number, so that is what we tell you.

• Your real tax may be LOWER: Portugal: Tax credits for documented expenses (health, education, rent, and the general family expenses credit) are not modelled, and neither is the income-dependent cap on them. The tax shown is therefore an upper bound: it is what you would pay if you claimed nothing. This also means a small tax is shown at incomes just above the minimum-existence threshold, where the general family expenses credit would in practice cancel it. Applies to: Residents who file receipts, which is nearly everyone.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Portugal: Married couples and civil partners may elect to be taxed jointly, which splits the income between two taxpayers and usually lowers the total tax when one partner earns much more than the other. We model a single taxpayer only. Applies to: Couples filing jointly, especially where incomes are unequal.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Portugal: Madeira and the Azores replace the national IRS scale with their own, lower one. Select your region in the form and the calculator applies it. Two island details stay approximate: the mínimo de existência (the low-income abatement) is applied with the national parameters, because no citable regional norm settles how the islands adjust it; and the Azores scale's average-rate column is derived from the statutory 30% reduction formula, since no official table of it exists, so the tax authority's own software could round a step differently, a cents-level effect. Applies to: Residents of Madeira or the Azores, though the abatement point only matters on low salaries.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Portugal: The dependant credit is higher for a second and further child aged up to six, and the ascendant credit is higher when only one ascendant lives with you. We apply the base amounts only. Applies to: Families with more than one young child, or with a single ascendant in the household.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Portugal: The specific deduction can be raised above the fixed amount for fees paid to a professional order, when membership is required for the job. We apply the standard amount. Applies to: Employees who must belong to a professional order: lawyers, doctors, engineers, architects.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Portugal: In the first two years of activity the deemed-cost coefficients for services are cut (by half in the opening year, by a quarter in the next), and social security contributions are not due at all for the first twelve months. Neither relief is applied here. Applies to: Anyone who has just registered as self-employed, which is most people arriving in Portugal.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Portugal: Part of the deemed expense allowance has to be backed by real, documented expenses: if you cannot show them, the taxable base is increased. We do not model that add-back, so a freelancer with few real expenses is shown a lower tax than the law would charge. Applies to: Freelancers on the simplified regime with few documented expenses or contributions.
• May not apply to you: Portugal: Contributions are really assessed quarterly on the previous quarter's income, and you may adjust the assessed base up or down by up to 25%. We compute an annual figure from the income you enter, so your monthly bills will not match this line exactly even when the yearly total is close. Applies to: Everyone paying social security as a self-employed worker.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Portugal: Tax credits for health, education, rent and general family expenses are not modelled (see the income tax calculator for the same limitation). The tax shown is before them. Applies to: Residents who file receipts, which is nearly everyone.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Portugal: Most councils charge no municipal surcharge at all on companies whose prior-year turnover was EUR 150,000 or less (Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia charge a reduced rate instead). The calculator applies the full municipal rate to everyone, so it shows a surcharge you may not owe. Applies to: Companies with prior-year turnover of EUR 150,000 or less, which is most founders in their first year.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Portugal: The reduced 15% band is granted by a headcount test (fewer than 250 staff, or fewer than 500 for a small mid cap), not purely by turnover. We approximate it with the EUR 50,000,000 turnover limit, so a small mid cap above that turnover is denied the band here even though the law may grant it. Applies to: Companies above EUR 50,000,000 turnover with fewer than 500 staff.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Portugal: Autonomous taxation (tributacoes autonomas) is a real corporate charge, but it falls on certain expenses (company cars, entertainment, undocumented spending) rather than on profit, so it cannot be derived from the numbers this form asks for. Applies to: Companies that run cars or incur entertainment expenses.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Portugal: The reduced 15% band is granted here to every company at or below the turnover limit, but the law also demands a headcount test and a commercial, industrial or agricultural main activity. A company under the turnover limit that fails either test would not get the band. Applies to: Companies below the turnover limit with 500 or more staff, or whose main activity is not commercial, industrial or agricultural.
• May not apply to you: Portugal: Corporate tax is charged on the taxable base after carried-forward losses and tax benefits, while both surcharges are charged on taxable profit before them. This calculator uses one profit figure for all three, so the numbers diverge once you carry losses forward. Applies to: Companies carrying losses forward or claiming tax benefits.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Portugal: Aggregation (englobamento) is not a per-dividend choice: electing it drags every item of your investment income for the year (other dividends, bank interest, bond coupons) onto the scale as well, and those enter in full, while only company profits enter at 50%. This page compares the two routes for one dividend in isolation, so it understates what aggregation really costs you. Applies to: Anyone with investment income beyond this dividend who is considering aggregation.
• : Portugal: The official average-rate column for the Azores is not published anywhere we found. The law prescribes '30% off the national rates in force each year', so the average_rate values here are 0.7 × the printed national column B. Rounding of the final printed figure by the tax authority could move the tax by a few cents. Applies to: All Azores residents (cents-level effect).
• : Portugal: The minimum-existence abatement (art. 70.º CIRS) references the first-bracket rate and limit of art. 68.º; whether the reduced regional rate feeds that formula for Azores residents is unverified, so the national minimum_existence parameters may misstate the tax of low earners in the region. Applies to: Azores residents with income near the minimum-existence range.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Portugal: The minimum-existence abatement (art. 70.º CIRS) is adapted in Madeira so that the regional minimum wage, which is higher than the mainland one, stays fully exempt; the national parameters in pit.json would overstate the tax of low earners in the region. The exact regional rule is not yet sourced. Applies to: Madeira residents with income around or below the regional minimum wage.
• : Portugal: The solidarity surcharge (2.5% above EUR 80,000, 5% above EUR 250,000) applies in Madeira at the full national rates. It is not part of the regional reduction. Applies to: Madeira residents with taxable income above EUR 80,000.

3 figures are applied in practice, but the text that fixes them for this tax year does not exist yet: either the statute has not been passed, or the body that sets the figure publishes it later than the year it applies to. We show them because leaving them out would give you a worse answer, not a safer one, and we show you exactly what each one rests on.

• Spain: regimes[0].reduced_contribution.amount_per_period (EUR 80/month, tarifa plana): EUR 80/month was fixed by law only for 2023-2025 (DT 5ª RDL 13/2022); from 2026 the amount must be set by the annual Budget Law, which has not been passed (budget rollover). No norm of statutory rank sets the 2026 figure. Seguridad Social nevertheless applies EUR 80 de facto and publishes the 2026 tables with it. Publishing it is less wrong than omitting the reduced cuota altogether, which would overstate a new freelancer's first-year cost by roughly EUR 1,400. (what we relied on) · we re-check after 2026-12-31
• Spain: regimes[0].reduced_contribution.surcharge_per_period (EUR 8.64/month, MEI on top of the reduced cuota): Derived from the total of EUR 88.64/month that Seguridad Social publishes for 2026 (88.64 - 80.00). It rests on the same unpassed Budget Law as the EUR 80 itself, and the MEI base used by the administration to reach 88.64 is not stated in any norm we could open. (what we relied on) · we re-check after 2026-12-31
• Portugal: surcharges[derrama_municipal].localities[].rate: These are the rates levied on the 2025 tax period, not 2026. A Portuguese municipal council sets its derrama municipal rate for a year during that year and reports it to the tax authority, which publishes the consolidated national table only in the February that follows: the 2025 table appeared on 2 February 2026, so the 2026 table is not due until around February 2027. No 2026 rate therefore exists for any municipality today. All eleven rates offered here (Lisboa 1.50%, Porto 1.50%, Cascais 1.00%, Oeiras 1.50%, Sintra 1.50%, Braga 1.50%, Coimbra 1.45%, Faro 1.20%, Matosinhos 1.50%, Vila Nova de Gaia 1.25%, Setúbal 1.50%) come from that one official 2025 list. A derrama deliberation stays in force until the council passes a new one (art. 18.º/1 of Lei n.º 73/2013), and most councils leave their rate unchanged for years, so last year's rate is the best available estimate for 2026. But it is an estimate, not the 2026 rate: a council is free to raise or cut it, and you would not learn of the change until 2027. The alternative was to omit the surcharge, which would understate the tax of a company based in Lisboa by 1.5% of its taxable profit. (what we relied on) · we re-check after 2027-02-01