Leaving Portugal: what to sort out before you go and after you arrive

The checklist: before you go and after you arrive

Your last day in Portugal is the date that counts for IRS: tax residence ends on the last day you are here, with two exceptions explained in IRS in the year you leave. Plan the rest around it.

1. 1
   Weeks before: contracts
   Lease, internet, power, gas, water and gym each have their own notice. The order and the rules are in leaving Portugal: what to cancel, in what order.
2. 2
   Before you go, if you are moving outside the EU/EEA
   Sign up for electronic notifications on the Portal das Finanças, or appoint a fiscal representative, before or at the same time as you change the address. Without either, you cannot file complaints or appeals with the tax office.
3. 3
   If you receive unemployment benefit
   To keep it while looking for work in another EU/EEA country or Switzerland, ask Segurança Social for the U2 document before leaving.
4. 4
   If you hold a residence permit and will be away a long time
   A temporary permit can be cancelled after 6 consecutive or 8 non-consecutive months away; a permanent one after 24 consecutive months. If you will go beyond that, ask AIMA to justify the absence before leaving (see residence permit).
5. 5
   Within 30 days of stopping work
   Close your self-employed atividade on the Portal das Finanças; Segurança Social contributions stop from the first day of the following month.
6. 6
   Within 60 days: change the address
   With a Cartão de Cidadão, change the card address on gov.pt; without one, change it with the tax office. Until you do, the change has no effect for the tax office. Foreign residents also tell AIMA within 60 days.
7. 7
   Car
   If you take it with you and register it abroad, cancel the Portuguese registration at the IMT. Until then, IUC is due every year.
8. 8
   The following year: IRS
   Usually two returns for the year you left, one as resident and one as non-resident.

How IRS works in the year you leave

In the year you leave, you are resident until your last day in Portugal and non-resident from then on (Código do IRS, art. 16.º, n.º 4). Because you had two statuses in one year, you file one return for each (art. 57.º, n.º 6). The resident return covers your worldwide income for that period; the non-resident one covers only income obtained in Portugal (art. 15.º).

Residence is tested year by year. You are resident if you spent more than 183 days in Portugal in any 12-month period starting or ending in that year, or if, on any day of that period, you had a home here in conditions suggesting you intend to keep it as your habitual residence (art. 16.º, n.º 1). A day counts if it includes a night spent in Portugal (n.º 2).

Two exceptions keep you resident for the whole year of departure:

• you spent more than 183 days in Portugal that year and, after leaving, received income that would have been taxed here if you were still resident (n.º 14). This does not apply if that income is taxed in your new EU/EEA country of residence, or elsewhere at a rate of at least 60% of the Portuguese one (n.º 15);
• you become resident in Portugal again the following year (n.º 16).

Portuguese nationals who move to a country on the Finance Ministry’s list of clearly more favourable tax regimes remain resident in the year of the move and the following four, unless they prove good reasons, such as temporary work for a Portuguese employer (n.º 6).

How to change your tax address to one abroad

Your tax address (domicílio fiscal) is the place where you habitually live. When you move abroad, you change it and tell the tax authority (AT) about the change of residence status within 60 days (Lei Geral Tributária, art. 19.º, n.º 5). Until you do, the change of address has no effect for the AT (n.º 4): notices keep going to the old address.

With a Cartão de Cidadão. The card address is your address for tax, health and Segurança Social purposes (Lei 7/2007, art. 13.º). Changing it changes your tax address. You have 60 days; online on gov.pt it is free, at an IRN counter it costs €3 (Cartão de Cidadão fees), and the change is only complete once you confirm it with the letter sent by post.

Without a Cartão de Cidadão. According to the AT’s September 2026 leaflet, you file the request through the Portal das Finanças e-balcão (Registo Contribuinte, Identificação, Alteração Morada/Singulares) with scanned documents, at a Serviço de Finanças by appointment, or through someone with a power of attorney. To go from resident to non-resident you need:

• your ID document or passport;
• proof of the new address abroad, as an original or certified copy, with a certified translation if it is not in Portuguese;
• if you appoint a representative, their tax and civil ID and, through the e-balcão, a declaration accepting the role.

The same rule applies to residents who are away for more than six months (n.º 6). Outside the EU/EEA, without a representative or electronic notifications, you cannot file complaints or appeals with the AT (n.º 7). If you appoint a representative, your tax address becomes theirs. How to appoint or cancel one, and what it costs, is in fiscal representative.

Self-employed: closing your atividade

If you issue recibos verdes and stop working, close the atividade on the Portal das Finanças, under Serviços, Cessação de atividade, within 30 days of stopping (Código do IRS, art. 112.º, n.º 3); you can also do it in person at the tax office. Segurança Social deregisters you automatically, because the two services share data, and contributions stop from the first day of the following month, so the previous month may still be due. The closure is then reported in the following year’s IRS, annex B, table 14. If you will keep invoicing Portuguese clients from abroad, the situation changes and is outside this guide. Opening and the regimes are in becoming a freelancer in Portugal.

Social security: S1, U1, U2 and your pension

Your Portuguese contributions are not lost. For the pension, insurance periods in other EU and EEA countries, Switzerland, Turkey and countries with a social security convention with Portugal also count (totalisation), and each country pays its part under its own rules. The Portuguese pension can be paid abroad by bank transfer, postal order or cheque, with restrictions depending on the country.

For countries with a bilateral agreement, such as Brazil or Cape Verde, the health certificates are requested through the e-Clic channel on the Segurança Social portal («Viver, trabalhar, viajar fora da U.E.»).

SNS and your número de utente

If you are a Portuguese citizen and your SNS record has an address abroad and complete data, it becomes a «registo atualizado não residente»: the SNS keeps paying for your care, but you can no longer keep or be given a family doctor. For foreign nationals, a complete record requires a residence permit and a full Portuguese address; the non-resident category exists only for Portuguese citizens. The card address of a Cartão de Cidadão is the one health services use. More in SNS number: non-residents.

Residence permit: how long you can be away

A residence permit can be cancelled if, without good reasons, you are away from Portugal for (Lei 23/2007, art. 85.º, n.º 2):

• temporary permit: 6 consecutive months, or 8 non-consecutive months within the permit’s total validity;
• permanent permit: 24 consecutive months, or 30 non-consecutive months in a three-year period.

The law says the permit «can» be cancelled, not that it lapses automatically. A longer absence is justified with a request to AIMA before you leave or, in exceptional cases, afterwards (n.º 3), and the permit is not cancelled if you prove professional, business, cultural or social activity during the absence (n.º 4). Residents must also tell AIMA about a change of address within 60 days (art. 86.º). If you plan to come back, check how your years count for permanent residence and the rules for renewing your permit. EU citizens have their own regime, which this guide does not cover.

Contracts, bank, car and home

Contracts. The order, notice periods and the no-charge exit for telecoms when you move outside the EU are in what to cancel when leaving.

Bank. If you keep a Portuguese account, give the bank your new address and country of tax residence; if you close it, do so after the last direct debits (power, water, phone) have been paid.

Car. IUC is an annual tax owed by the person in whose name the car is registered, based on the Portuguese registration, wherever the car actually is (Código do IUC, arts. 3.º, 4.º and 6.º). When a car is exported, the owner must cancel the registration at the IMT with form Modelo 9, ID, the registration documents and proof that the car left the country or the new registration certificate. The fee is €10, waived if you present the registration certificate from another EU country.

Home. IMI is due from whoever owns the property on 31 December (Código do IMI, art. 8.º), resident or not. If you let it, the rent is income obtained in Portugal (Código do IRS, art. 18.º) and residential rent is taxed at the 25% flat rate (art. 72.º, n.º 2), so you keep filing IRS in Portugal as a non-resident.