Portugal IRS calculator

Portugal does not define its tax by marginal brackets

Article 68 of the Portuguese income tax code prints two columns beside each band: a taxa normal and a taxa média — a normal rate and an average rate. It then instructs you, in paragraph 2, to split your income in two.

One part is equal to the ceiling of the largest band that fits inside your income, and it is taxed at that band's average rate. The other part is the remainder, and it is taxed at the normal rate of the band above.

For €30,000 of taxable income that means €29,397 at 20.579% plus €603 at 34.9% — €6,260.06 of tax, an effective rate of 20.9%.

This is almost the same arithmetic as marginal brackets, and the "almost" is the point. The average-rate column is published rounded to three decimal places, so the statutory answer and the marginal-bracket answer differ by a couple of euros. This engine implements the statutory method and tests that the two agree within that rounding.

Most Portuguese calculators run marginal brackets. They are not wrong by much, and they are not doing what the law says.

Nine bands, and how steeply they climb

Portugal has nine bands, more than any other European country on this site. They run 12.5%, 15.7%, 21.2%, 24.1%, 31.1%, 34.9%, 43.1%, 44.6% and 48%.

They are also narrow at the bottom. The first four are used up by €23,089 of taxable income, which is below the average Portuguese full-time wage. The rate reaches 31.1% at €23,089 and 34.9% at €29,397.

The steepest single step is from 34.9% to 43.1% at €43,090 — more than eight points in one move, and the largest jump in any European scale covered here. The band it opens is only €3,476 wide before the next one begins.

The top rate of 48% starts at €86,634, which in relation to Portuguese salaries is very early. Add the solidarity surcharge above €80,000 and the top marginal rate reaches 53%.

The whole table was replaced for 2026 by Lei n.º 73-A/2025 of 30 December, the budget law. Portugal changes this scale most years, which is why the year on a Portuguese rate table matters more than it does in most countries.

The solidarity surcharge, on top of a 48% top rate

Article 68-A adds a separate charge on taxable income above €80,000: 2.5% on the part between €80,000 and €250,000, and 5% on anything above €250,000.

It is not a band of the main scale and it does not appear in the article 68 table. It sits alongside, which is why the Portuguese top marginal rate is quoted as 53% rather than 48% by anyone who has read both articles.

That 53% is the highest marginal rate on employment income anywhere on this site, ahead of the Netherlands' 49.5% band and Ireland's 48% combined income tax and USC.

Like the main scale, it is halved for a jointly assessed couple: paragraph 3 applies the calculation to half the income and doubles the result, exactly as the quociente conjugal does for article 68.

The threshold has not moved in years while the bands beneath it have been adjusted, so the surcharge reaches steadily further down the income distribution in real terms.

What "rendimento coletável" means, and why this page asks for it

The nine bands run on rendimento coletável — taxable income — and that is what this calculator takes. It is not gross salary, and the gap between them is larger in Portugal than in most systems.

Employment income first gets a specific deduction under article 25: 8.54 times the IAS, the social support index, or the full amount of your mandatory social security contributions where those are larger. An employee contributes 11% of gross pay, so for salaries above roughly €40,000 it is the contributions that decide the figure.

The effect is that Portugal exempts social security contributions from income tax outright at higher salaries, and grants a flat floor below that. It is an unusual construction and it is why a Portuguese gross-to-taxable conversion cannot be done with a single percentage.

After the scale come the deduções à coleta — deductions from the tax rather than from the income: a general per-taxpayer amount, amounts per dependant, and percentages of health, education, housing and general invoiced expenditure, each with its own cap. None of them is applied here.

So the figure on this page is the tax on a stated taxable income, before any of those. For most households the actual bill is lower, and how much lower depends on what was invoiced with their tax number on it — which is a piece of Portuguese daily life that no calculator can guess.

The scale at four incomes

Each figure is rendimento coletável for a single taxpayer, split as article 68 paragraph 2 directs.

On €15,000: €12,587 at the average rate of 13.579% plus €2,413 at 21.2% — €2,221 of tax, an effective rate of 14.8%.

On €25,000: €23,089 at the average rate of 17.705% plus €1,911 at 31.1% — €4,682 of tax, an effective rate of 18.7%.

On €45,000: €43,090 at the average rate of 25.130% plus €1,910 at 43.1% — €11,652 of tax, an effective rate of 25.9%.

On €90,000: €86,634 at the average rate of 34.856% plus €3,366 at 48% — €32,063 of tax including €250 of solidarity surcharge, an effective rate of 35.6%.

The effective rate climbs fast through the middle because the bands are narrow there. Between €23,089 and €46,566 of taxable income the marginal rate goes from 31.1% to 43.1% across three steps.

Joint assessment, and the regional scales this page does not use

A married or cohabiting couple may opt for joint assessment. Article 69 then applies the scale to half the combined income and doubles the result — the quociente conjugal, which is the same device as German splitting and a two-part quotient familial.

It helps when the two incomes are unequal and does nothing at all when they are similar, for the same reason splitting does not: dividing two equal halves changes nothing.

Separate assessment is the default in Portugal, and the couple has to opt in each year. That is the opposite of the German and French defaults, and it means the option is regularly missed by households it would help.

The Azores and Madeira apply their own reduced rates to residents, set as a percentage reduction on the mainland scale. Neither is modelled here, so a resident of either region will find this figure too high.

IRS Jovem, the reduced regime for young workers in their early years of employment, can cut the charge sharply for those who qualify and is also not modelled.

How Portugal compares with the rest of this site

Against Spain and Ireland, Portugal reaches its top rate far earlier relative to local salaries. €86,634 is not a high income in northern Europe and it is a very high one in Portugal, which makes the 48% band reach further into the professional middle than the equivalent band elsewhere.

Against Germany, the number of bands is the visible contrast — nine against a formula with none — but the deeper one is the method. Both countries decline to express the tax as a simple bracket table, for opposite reasons: Germany because it wanted a continuous function, Portugal because it wanted an average-rate construction.

Against the Netherlands, the top marginal rates are the two highest here: Portugal's 53% with the surcharge against the Dutch 49.5%. The Dutch reach theirs through credit tapers that produce a rate in no table; Portugal reaches its by printing a second article.

Against France, both halve income for a couple, and the French version scales with children while the Portuguese one does not.

What Portugal has that nothing else here does is the average-rate column. It is a small technical difference with a real consequence: the legal answer and the marginal-bracket answer are not the same number.

Four ways a Portuguese estimate goes wrong

Using gross salary. The scale runs on rendimento coletável, after a specific deduction of 8.54 × IAS or your actual social security contributions, whichever is larger.

Using last year's table. Portugal replaces this scale most years, and 2026's came from Lei n.º 73-A/2025. A table without a law reference attached is a table of unknown vintage.

Stopping at 48%. The solidarity surcharge in article 68-A adds 2.5% above €80,000 and 5% above €250,000, taking the top marginal rate to 53%.

Assuming the mainland scale applies everywhere. The Azores and Madeira reduce it for their residents, and the reduction is substantial.

Withholding tables, which are not the scale

Portuguese employers withhold IRS monthly using tabelas de retenção na fonte published separately from article 68. Those tables are not the tax: they are an estimate designed to land close to it by the end of the year.

They are also structured differently. Since the 2023 reform the withholding tables use a marginal formula with a fixed deduction per band rather than the flat percentage they used for decades, precisely so that a raise can no longer reduce take-home pay — which the old flat-percentage tables genuinely could do at a band boundary.

The tables differ by household situation, by whether both spouses earn, and by number of dependants, and there are separate tables for the mainland, the Azores and Madeira. A change in any of those mid-year changes the withholding but not the liability.

The annual return settles it. Filing runs from April to June for the previous calendar year, and pre-filled returns are offered to most employees with only employment income.

So the figure on this page and the figure on a Portuguese payslip are answers to different questions. This one is the annual liability on a stated taxable income; the payslip is a monthly estimate that will be reconciled.

Deduções à coleta, and the receipts that make them work

After the scale, Portugal subtracts a series of deduções à coleta — reliefs against the tax rather than the income. They are why the effective bill is usually well below what this page shows.

There is a general amount per taxpayer and a further amount per dependant, and then a set of percentage reliefs each with its own cap: health expenses, education, care home costs, rent or mortgage interest for permanent housing, and a general deduction for invoiced expenditure in certain sectors.

All of them depend on invoices carrying your NIF. Portugal built an entire consumer habit around this — asking for the invoice with the tax number is a daily reminder that relief is only available on spending the tax authority can see, which was the policy's explicit purpose.

The e-fatura portal accumulates them through the year and the taxpayer validates the classification before filing. Expenditure that is not validated in time is simply not relieved.

The total of these is capped by an overall limit that tightens as income rises, so their value falls at the top of the scale — a taper that works in the opposite direction from an exempt band and in the same direction as the UK's allowance withdrawal.

IRS Jovem and the regional scales, both outside this figure

Two things can cut a Portuguese bill sharply and neither is modelled here.

IRS Jovem exempts a share of employment and professional income for young workers in their first years of work, on a scale that starts high and falls year by year, subject to an annual ceiling expressed as a multiple of the IAS. It was introduced to slow emigration by young graduates and has been widened more than once.

The Azores and Madeira apply their own reduced rates to residents, set as a percentage reduction on the mainland scale. The reduction is substantial rather than symbolic, and it applies to the whole scale rather than to a band.

Both are conditional on circumstances a calculator cannot know — age, years since first employment, tax residence in an autonomous region — which is why this page states them as excluded rather than guessing.

A third regime, the residente não habitual arrangement for new arrivals, has been closed to new entrants and replaced by a narrower incentive for scientific research and innovation. Anyone relying on published material about it should check which version they are reading, because the two are frequently conflated.

The mínimo de existência, a floor on net income rather than a band

Portugal has no zero-rate band, and it does have a guarantee: the mínimo de existência in article 70 ensures that tax does not reduce net income below a defined floor, expressed as a multiple of the IAS index.

It works differently from every other mechanism on this site. An exempt band, a credit and a rebate all act on a formula; the mínimo de existência acts on the result, reducing the tax by whatever is needed to keep net income at or above the floor.

Its reform in recent years made it apply as a smooth reduction rather than a cliff, which had previously produced the classic pathology of a floor: earning one euro more could leave you worse off.

It is not applied in the figure on this page, so for taxable incomes near the bottom of the scale the number here is higher than the actual charge — in some cases substantially.

Together with the specific deduction of 8.54 × IAS, it is how Portugal delivers a tax-free minimum without ever putting a zero into the rate table.

Questions

How much IRS do I pay on €30,000 of taxable income in Portugal?

€6,260 — €29,397 at the average rate of 20.579% plus €603 at 34.9%, as article 68 paragraph 2 directs. That is an effective rate of 20.9%, before any deduções à coleta.

What are the Portuguese IRS brackets for 2026?

Nine bands on rendimento coletável: 12.5% to €8,342, 15.7% to €12,587, 21.2% to €17,838, 24.1% to €23,089, 31.1% to €29,397, 34.9% to €43,090, 43.1% to €46,566, 44.6% to €86,634 and 48% above. Substituted by Lei n.º 73-A/2025 of 30 December.

Why does Portugal publish an average rate column?

Because article 68 does not define the tax by marginal brackets. It splits income in two: the ceiling of the largest band that fits, taxed at that band's average rate, and the remainder at the normal rate of the band above. The average column is rounded to three decimals, so the legal answer differs from a marginal-bracket answer by a couple of euros.

What is the top marginal rate in Portugal?

53%. The article 68 scale tops out at 48% above €86,634, and the article 68-A solidarity surcharge adds 2.5% on taxable income between €80,000 and €250,000 and 5% above that. It is the highest marginal rate on employment income of any country covered on this site.

What is rendimento coletável?

Taxable income — gross employment income less the specific deduction in article 25, which is 8.54 times the IAS index or the full amount of your mandatory social security contributions if those are larger. An employee pays 11% of gross, so above roughly €40,000 the contributions are what set the deduction.

Does joint assessment help a Portuguese couple?

It helps when the two incomes are unequal and does nothing when they are similar. Article 69 applies the scale to half the combined income and doubles the result, so an unequal couple moves income into lower bands. Separate assessment is the default and the couple has to opt in.

Do the Azores and Madeira use the same rates?

No. Both autonomous regions apply reduced rates to their residents, set as a percentage reduction on the mainland scale. Neither is modelled here, so a resident of either region will find this figure too high.

Are the deduções à coleta included?

No. Those come off the tax after the scale — a general per-taxpayer amount, amounts per dependant, and percentages of health, education, housing and general invoiced spending, each capped. For most households they reduce the bill materially, so this figure is an upper bound.