Portugal IFICI Calculator — 2026

Amounts you enter are per Annual gross salary Dependent children Children who live with you and have little or no income of their own. Of those, children under 4 Dependent parents or grandparents living with you How you are taxed

General IRS scale — The default progressive scale — how you are taxed unless you qualify for and choose a special regime.
IRS Jovem — partial exemption for young taxpayers — You are 35 or under and within your first 10 years of earning employment or self-employment income (closed to anyone who has used NHR or IFICI).
IFICI — tax incentive for scientific research and innovation — You have just become a Portuguese tax resident (not resident in the five preceding years, never on NHR) and work in a qualifying research or innovation activity.

Year in the regime The exempt share of your income falls as the years in the regime pass.

Take-home pay €35,600 ≈ €2,967 a month · effective rate 28.8%

Gross salary	€50,000
Social security — Segurança Social (employee)	-€5,500	11.00%
Income tax	-€8,900	IFICI — tax incentive for scientific research and innovation: flat 20.00% on a taxable base of €44,500
Take-home pay	€35,600	Effective rate 28.8%

Which regime is mine?

Each regime below is checked against the amounts and activity you entered in the form. The conditions the calculator cannot see — how long you have been in the country, what you did before — you confirm yourself.

General IRS scale — The default progressive scale — how you are taxed unless you qualify for and choose a special regime.

Fits what you entered in the form.

Take-home pay: €33,064

IRS Jovem — partial exemption for young taxpayers — You are 35 or under and within your first 10 years of earning employment or self-employment income (closed to anyone who has used NHR or IFICI).

Fits what you entered in the form.

Available for 10 tax years in total
Aged 35 or under on 31 December of the tax year, not counted as a dependant in someone else's household, earning employment (category A) or self-employment (category B) income, and within the first 10 years of earning such income. The option is exercised in the annual return, year by year. Closed to anyone who benefits or has benefited from the NHR regime or from IFICI, who has opted for the former-residents regime of art. 12.º-A CIRS, or whose tax situation is not in order.

Take-home pay: €40,656 IRS Jovem calculator

IFICI — tax incentive for scientific research and innovation — You have just become a Portuguese tax resident (not resident in the five preceding years, never on NHR) and work in a qualifying research or innovation activity.

Fits what you entered in the form.

Available for 10 tax years in total
Not a Portuguese tax resident in any of the five preceding years, never an NHR beneficiary, and working in a qualifying research or innovation activity at an eligible entity listed in Portaria 352/2024/1; registration by 15 January of the year after becoming resident

Take-home pay: €35,600

Ticking a box is your own confirmation, not advice — the conditions come from the same verified sources as the rates.

Do I qualify for IFICI?

You have just become a Portuguese tax resident (not resident in the five preceding years, never on NHR) and work in a qualifying research or innovation activity.

The conditions the calculator cannot check for you — confirm them yourself:

Available for 10 tax years in total
Not a Portuguese tax resident in any of the five preceding years, never an NHR beneficiary, and working in a qualifying research or innovation activity at an eligible entity listed in Portaria 352/2024/1; registration by 15 January of the year after becoming resident

Anything measurable — income limits, the type of activity — is checked live by the calculator above as you type.

Compare with another country:Spain

The flat rate lands on net income, and that is not a detail

IFICI (Portugal’s tax incentive for scientific research and innovation, the regime people sometimes call “NHR 2.0”) taxes qualifying employment and self-employment income at a flat 20%. Every summary stops there. The statute does not: the rate applies to net category A and B income, after the specific deduction. Not to your gross.

For an employee, that deduction is €4,587 or your mandatory social security contributions, whichever is larger, never both. Contributions run at 11% of gross with no ceiling, so on any salary big enough to make IFICI interesting, the contributions are the deduction, and the flat rate only ever sees what is left after them.

Take €80,000 gross. Employee social security is €8,800 — already past the fixed amount, so it becomes the deduction. Net category A income: €71,200. IFICI tax: 20% of that, €14,240. The naive version, 20% straight off the gross, says €16,000. That is €1,760 a year of tax you were never going to owe, invented by skipping one sentence of the statute.

Ten consecutive years, and the clock starts at registration

The regime runs for 10 consecutive years from the year you register as a Portuguese resident. Consecutive is the operative word: the window is fixed at the start, and it does not wait for your first qualifying paycheck.

Qualification is a list, not a job title

Three gates, and all of them bind. You were not a Portuguese tax resident in any of the five preceding years. You have never benefited from NHR: not “are not on it now”, never. And you work in a qualifying research or innovation activity at an eligible entity, where “qualifying” means one thing only: the list in Portaria n.º 352/2024/1. Being a senior engineer at a serious company is not the test; the Portaria is. The checklist above walks the same gates one by one.

Then the deadline: register by 15 January of the year after you become resident. It is the least forgiving line in the whole regime, and the easiest to miss while you are busy moving countries.

You are allowed to say no to the flat rate

Article 58.º-A grants the special rate without prejudice to englobamento — you may aggregate the income under the general scale instead. That sounds like an option nobody would take until you look at where the scale starts: the first bracket charges 12.5%, well under the flat rate, while the top of the scale reaches 48%. High earners take the flat rate and stop thinking about it. On a modest income, run the calculator both ways before you decide; the preselect above does exactly that comparison.

What changed in 2026

The general IRS scale (the thing you are choosing against if you weigh englobamento) is the 2026 scale of Lei n.º 73-A/2025, the State Budget for 2026.
The IAS reference value for 2026 was set by Portaria n.º 480-A/2025/1, which puts the fixed specific deduction at €4,587: the floor of the IFICI base for salaries whose contributions have not overtaken it.
The IFICI parameters on this page come from article 58.º-A of the Estatuto dos Benefícios Fiscais as consolidated by the tax authority, cross-checked against PwC, verified in July 2026.

Everything here assumes mainland Portugal and a single filer. If you do not clear the IFICI gates, the general salary page covers the scale you fall back onto, including IRS Jovem, the other special lane, which IFICI locks you out of for good.

Questions people actually ask

Is IFICI the same thing as NHR?

No. You will see it sold as "NHR 2.0", and the nickname is doing a lot of work it has not earned. IFICI is a separate regime, created by article 58.º-A of the tax benefits statute, with its own qualifying-activity test and its own paperwork. The clearest proof that they are not the same thing is that they exclude each other: anyone who has ever benefited from NHR is barred from IFICI outright. Treat the nickname as marketing shorthand and read the conditions as if the old regime never existed.

Does the IFICI flat rate apply to my gross salary?

No, and this is the number one error in back-of-envelope IFICI maths. The rate applies to net category A and B income — after the specific deduction. For an employee the deduction is the fixed amount or your mandatory social security contributions, whichever is larger, and on a typical IFICI salary the contributions win. Multiply the flat rate by your gross and you overstate the tax by the rate times your contributions, every year.

What is the deadline to register for IFICI?

By 15 January of the year after the year you became a Portuguese tax resident. Miss it and the problem is not a fine. It is the regime.

Can I combine IFICI with IRS Jovem?

No. IRS Jovem is expressly closed to anyone who benefits or has benefited from IFICI, so this is a fork, not a stack. Which branch pays better depends on your age, your salary, and how many years of income you already have behind you — run the same number through both regimes in the calculator above and let the results argue.

Can I choose the normal progressive rates instead of the IFICI flat rate?

Yes. The law grants the special rate without prejudice to the option of englobamento (aggregating the income under the general scale). At a comfortable salary the flat rate wins without drama. At a modest one the bottom of the progressive scale sits below it, and the option stops being theoretical. It is a choice, so check it as one, with your own figure, not with the headline rates.

What this calculator does not model

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 — 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 — 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 — Madeira and the Azores apply their own, lower income tax rates. These figures are for mainland Portugal. Applies to: Residents of Madeira or the Azores.
Your real tax may be LOWER — 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 — 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.

This calculator is for information only and is not tax advice. Rates and thresholds change; check the methodology page for sources and verification dates, and confirm your own situation with a qualified adviser.