Portugal IRS Jovem 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 €40,656 ≈ €3,388 a month · effective rate 18.7%

Gross salary	€50,000
Social security — Segurança Social (employee)	-€5,500	11.00%
Income tax	-€3,844	IRS Jovem — partial exemption for young taxpayers: 100% of the income exempt (€29,542.15), but the exempt part still sets the rate — 25.70% (the average rate on the full base of €44,500) applied to €14,957.85
Take-home pay	€40,656	Effective rate 18.7%

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

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 IFICI calculator

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

Do I qualify for IRS Jovem?

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).

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

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.

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

Compare with another country:Spain

What “exempt” buys you, mechanically

The exemption is a slice of your gross category A or B income (salary or self-employment, before the specific deduction): 100% of it in your first year of earning income, 75% in years two to four, 50% in years five to seven, 25% in years eight to ten. After 10 earning years it is over.

Two mechanisms then eat into that headline, and the calculator above models both.

The cap. The exempt amount (not your income: the exempt amount) tops out at €29,542 a year. That is 55 × IAS, so it is re-fixed each year with the IAS.

In a 75%-exemption year the cap starts binding around €39,390 of gross; past that, every additional euro is fully taxable and the exemption is flat.

The rate. The exempt income does not leave the computation. Art. 12.º-B routes it back through the englobamento rules: it is counted, without deductions, to fix the rate that applies to everything else. You pay the average rate of your full income, charged on the non-exempt slice only. The solidarity surcharge and the fixed family credits run as normal, because IRS Jovem is a variant of the general scale, not a parallel tax.

Year two, €45,000 gross

Say this is your second year of earning income, on €45,000. The naive reading (75% exempt, so you are taxed on €11,250) is wrong twice.

First the cap: 75% of €45,000 is €33,750, which is more than the ceiling allows, so the exemption stops at €29,542.15 and the taxable slice is €15,457.85, a third bigger than the naive figure.

Then the rate: that slice is not taxed as if it were your whole income. The full €45,000 is counted back in to set the rate, and the slice pays the average rate of the whole. Still a large saving, but visibly less than “75% off” suggests: put the same salary through the general scale in the form above and look at the gap.

The counter counts earning years, nothing else

“First year” means the first year you earned category A or B income: not the year you first ticked the box, and not the year you arrived. A year with no such income at all is skipped: it does not burn one of the ten. The form asks for the year number directly because no payslip reveals it, and nothing checks it for you: you declare it.

Who the door is closed to

The entrance: aged 35 or under on 31 December of the tax year, and not counted as a dependant in someone else’s household. The exits are permanent: anyone who benefits or has ever benefited from NHR or from IFICI is out for good, as is anyone who opted for the former-residents regime of art. 12.º-A, and anyone whose tax situation is not in order. The past tense is the trap: one NHR year long ago closes IRS Jovem today. The option itself is exercised in the annual return, year by year.

What changed in 2026

Nothing structural. The age limit, the ten-year horizon and the four-step exemption ladder are the shape Lei n.º 45-A/2024 gave the regime, and 2026 carries them unchanged. What moved is the base of the cap: the ceiling is 55 × IAS, and for 2026 it stands at €29,542.

In 2025 the same ceiling was €28,737.50; the IAS underneath the 2026 figure is €537.13.

Everything here assumes a single filer on the mainland — Madeira and the Azores run their own scales. The rest of the salary machinery — the specific deduction, the minimum-existence abatement, the surcharge — lives on the Portugal salary page.

Questions people actually ask

Is the first year of IRS Jovem completely tax-free?

On your employment or self-employment income, and only up to the cap. The exempt share in the first earning year covers all of that income, but the exempt amount can never exceed the annual ceiling of fifty-five times the IAS: earn past the ceiling and the excess is taxed, at a rate set by your whole income. Everything outside categories A and B (rent, dividends, capital gains) was never in the regime to begin with.

Do I have to apply for IRS Jovem, or is it automatic?

It is an option you exercise in your annual IRS return, year by year. Nothing happens by default. And note what the option does not control: the ten-year window runs on years of earning income whether or not you opt in, so a year in which you earned but did not tick the box is a year spent all the same.

I used NHR years ago — can I claim IRS Jovem now?

No. The regime is closed to anyone who benefits or has ever benefited from NHR or from IFICI, to anyone who opted for the former-residents regime, and to anyone whose tax situation is not in order. The exclusion is written in the past tense on purpose: it does not expire when the earlier regime does.

Does a year without income reset my IRS Jovem counter?

It is skipped, not spent. The count runs on years in which you actually earned employment or self-employment income; a year with none of that income does not consume one of the ten slots. The calculator takes the year number as an input, because nothing in a salary figure reveals it. It is yours to count, and nothing in the engine can verify it for you.

Does IRS Jovem cover freelance income or only salaries?

Both. The exemption applies to category A employment income and category B self-employment income alike: the same share of gross by earning year, the same ceiling, the same rate mechanics. If you invoice rather than draw a payslip, the freelancer calculator carries the rest of your bill.

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.