CIRS 1326: Tax Code for Tourist Guides and Interpreter-Guides in Portugal

The query "CIRS 1326 Portugal" or "tour guide freelancer Portugal" rarely lands you on a page that answers the actual question: what tax code do you use, and what does it mean for your invoicing and IRS filing?

Code 1326 belongs to the CIRS Art. 151 table, the list of professional activities used when a sole-proprietor freelancer opens activity and issues Recibos Verdes. It is not a CAE code, and the confusion between the two systems catches nearly everyone.

Two classification systems

CAE (Classificação Portuguesa de Atividades Económicas) classifies economic activities. It is the code for commercial, industrial and agricultural activity, and it applies to sole traders as well as companies.

The CIRS Art. 151 table lists professional activities: the artistic, scientific and technical services a freelancer typically provides. The article itself only refers to a table approved by portaria (Portaria 1011/2001 and its later amendments), which the tax authority (AT) publishes. When you open your activity at the Portal das Finanças, you choose your activity from these codes.

The two are not mutually exclusive. Some freelancers hold both a CAE and an Art. 151 code, and on the IRS return they go in different fields of Anexo B. The CAE glossary entry covers both systems side by side, and the CIRS glossary entry explains where Art. 151 fits within the Portuguese tax code.

What CIRS 1326 is

In the Art. 151 table, code 1326 reads "Guias-intérpretes": guide-interpreters. If guiding tourists is your work and you invoice it yourself, this is the code to look at when you open your activity.

Two other codes come up in the same searches:

CIRS 1334: "Tradutores" (translators). If your work is translation rather than guiding, see the CIRS 1334 guide.

CIRS 1519: "Outros prestadores de serviços", the catch-all for services not specifically named in the table. It takes a coefficient of 35% instead of 75%. Registering under 1519 when 1326 describes what you actually do under-reports your taxable income, and the AT classifies on the activity you actually perform, not the code on file.

The tax mechanics for CIRS 1326

The coefficient. Under the simplified regime, 75% of your gross revenue from a table activity is taxable. The rest is treated as costs, but not entirely without proof: see the 15% rule below. You cannot swap the coefficient for your actual expenses unless you move to organised accounting.

Social Security contributions count toward that proof up to 10% of your gross income. Only the part above 10% is deducted separately, from your net income.

First-year discount. In the calendar year you start, the coefficient is reduced by 50%, and in the following calendar year by 25%. It runs by tax year, not 12 months from your start date: if you open your activity in April, April to December is your first year, and the whole of the next calendar year is your second.

Two conditions apply. Each year's reduction is lost if you have employment or pension income (Category A or H) in that year. And neither applies if you closed any activity in the five years before.

The 15% documented expense requirement. For services, documented expenses have to reach 15% of gross income, or the shortfall is added back to your taxable income. The specific deduction of €4,587.09 (2026), or your Social Security contributions up to 10% of gross if that is larger, counts toward it. By default the AT uses the business invoices it holds in e-Fatura under your NIF, and you can declare your own totals on the return instead. See the 15% expense rule fact page for the full mechanics.

Withholding from Portuguese clients. A client with organised accounting, which includes every Portuguese company, withholds 23% from what it pays you for a table activity and sends it to the AT. It is a pre-payment toward your IRS, not an extra tax. If you expect your income this year to stay under €15,000.00, and you did not reach that amount last year, you can claim a dispensation on the receipt instead; it stops from the month after you reach the limit. Any single withholding under €25 is not made at all.

Foreign clients. A UK travel agency or a German tour operator normally has no Portuguese organised-accounting obligation, so it does not withhold. The full invoice amount lands in your account, and your IRS on that income is still due. Budget separately for your year-end IRS settlement.

The Art. 53 VAT exemption. You are exempt from VAT under Art. 53 CIVA if your turnover in Portugal in the previous calendar year did not exceed €15,000.00. Income from foreign business clients does not count toward that figure. If you go over it in a year, the exemption ends on 1 January of the next year; if you go over €18,750.00, it ends immediately, and the invoice that crosses the line already carries VAT. While exempt you do not charge VAT or file periodic VAT returns, except to self-assess VAT on services you buy from foreign suppliers.

Working as an expat tourist guide in Portugal

Most freelancer guides covering CIRS codes are written for Portuguese professionals. If you moved from the UK, Germany, or the Netherlands and your tour bookings come from international operators, several points change.

Your old invoicing system is not legal here

Anyone who issues invoices with software has to use software certified by the AT, whatever their turnover. Certified software assigns ATCUD codes to each document, communicates invoices to the AT, and generates the SAF-T file.

FreshBooks, Wave, QuickBooks, Xero, and Stripe Invoicing are not AT-certified, so invoices from them are not valid Portuguese invoices. The free route is the AT's own Faturas e Recibos service on the Portal das Finanças. Its documents are in Portuguese only, and it can issue a credit note (nota de crédito) when an amount or the VAT of an invoice changes; cancellation (anulação) is kept for narrower errors such as a wrong customer NIF.

Invoicing foreign tour operators at 0% VAT

When you invoice a business in another EU country (a German tour company, a French travel agency), the service is outside Portuguese VAT: the place of supply is the customer's country, and the customer accounts for the VAT there. The invoice carries exemption code 115 and the mention "IVA - autoliquidação". The customer has to be a business (a taxable person), and a valid VIES number is the usual evidence of that.

In the normal VAT regime you also file the Declaração Recapitulativa for those EU business supplies, on the same cadence as your VAT returns. Under the Art. 53 exemption you no longer do for operations from 1 July 2025 onward: DL 35/2025 revoked the provision that extended that obligation to exempt taxpayers.

For business clients outside the EU, such as a UK or US travel company, it is the same rule and the same code 115.

Social Security quarterly declarations

If this is your first activity ever as a self-employed worker, nothing is due at first. Your Social Security obligation starts on the first day of the 12th month after you open your activity. From then until your first Social Security declaration, you pay a fixed €20.00 a month. That first declaration is filed in the next declarative month (January, April, July or October), and from then on you file one every quarter.

The Social Security declaration covers the income of the three months before it. The contribution is 21.4% of 70% of that income, spread over the following three months as monthly payments between the 10th and the 20th, and never less than €20.00 a month.

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The compliance picture for a CIRS 1326 guide with international clients: AT-certified invoicing with ATCUD codes, 0% VAT with code 115 on invoices to foreign businesses (with the Declaração Recapitulativa for EU clients if you are in the normal regime), no withholding from foreign payers so you set aside your own IRS provision, and quarterly Social Security declarations once the obligation starts.

Related: CIRS 1334: the tax code for translators in Portugal

Related: CIRS 1327: Tax code for journalists and reporters in Portugal

Related: CIRS: what the Código do IRS governs and how Art. 151 classifies your activity