TO GET you started on the right foot in your new business, euroFINESCO offers the Sole Trader Start-up Plan. This comprehensive package of services includes everything that you will need to register and report your activity in the first year of business in Portugal:
Início de Actividade (registration)
Formal registration of your business activity with Finanças (tax office) is the first step, where we detail all the information that will be required about yourself and your planned endeavour.
Recibos Verdes (green receipts)
We include the mandatory receipt book that you must use to invoice your clients and we show you how to use it correctly.
Caixa (social security)
We register you with social security and apply for your Cartão de Utente (national health card). With this card, you gain access to local health centres as well as regional hospitals. This card also entitles you to reduced medication and prescriptions costs of 70-90 per cent at local pharmacies. As a registered participant in the Portuguese national health system, you will also be entitled to receive the European Health Card, assuring you of reciprocally arranged health care in public hospitals and health centres, wherever you may travel throughout the 25 countries of the European Union.
IRS (individual income tax)
Also included in this start-up package is the submission of your first IRS tax return. Not only will you be off to a good start, you will also have the necessary documents to establish proper Fiscal Residency in Portugal and stop any withholding tax at source that you may currently be suffering in your home jurisdiction.
IVA (value added tax)
Unless your income or activity exempt you from IVA (VAT), quarterly submissions need to be filed on your behalf via the internet concerning the IVA that you charge your clients as well as the IVA paid making any necessary expenditure during the course of your business activity.
Plain English
As you have probably already learned, Portugal has complex bureaucracy. All the forms and web pages are only available in Portuguese and instructions are often in a language that even native Portuguese sometimes have trouble understanding. We put the full process to you in plain English. With proper guidance, even those who speak English as a second language should have little trouble in getting off to a correct start in the first year of business.
