Filing your IRS in the Algarve: a practical guide for expat freelancers

The Algarve has one of the highest concentrations of expat freelancers in Portugal. English speakers in Lagos, Faro, Portimão, Albufeira, and Tavira are all working online (consulting, designing, writing, building) and every April they face the same question: what do I actually need to do for my IRS?

The answer is less complicated than the local Facebook groups make it seem. Here's the practical version.

What you're actually filing

If you're a freelancer earning income through Recibos Verdes (Portugal's self-employment invoicing system) you're filing a Modelo 3 IRS declaration for the 2025 tax year. The filing window runs from April 1 to June 30, 2026.

The form lives entirely online at Portal das Finanças. Nothing gets mailed. Nothing requires going to a local tax office (the repartição de finanças in Faro or wherever). Your declaration is submitted digitally and that's that.

The Algarve-specific dynamic

The Algarve expat scene has a particular dynamic worth naming: many people offering IRS filing help in local communities aren't certified accountants (contabilistas certificados). They're consultants, fiscal representatives, or experienced expats who've been through the process themselves and started helping others for €200-400 a year.

Many do solid work. But it's worth understanding the difference: a contabilista certificado registered with the Ordem dos Contabilistas Certificados (OCC) is regulated, insured, and bound by professional standards. Someone who isn't may still do a perfectly good job, they're just not accountable in the same way.

This is worth knowing when deciding whether to hire someone, what to pay, and what questions to ask.

Who needs to file

If you're a Portuguese tax resident, which you become after 183+ days in Portugal in a calendar year, or if you have a primary home here, you must file IRS for 2025 if you had any of the following:

• Self-employment income (Recibos Verdes, freelance services)
• Rental income from Portuguese property
• Portuguese pension or investment income
• Any combination of the above

If you became a tax resident partway through 2025, you still file, only for the period you were resident.

Non-residents with rental income from Portuguese property also file, but through a different mechanism and often through a fiscal representative.

What you need before you start

Portal das Finanças credentials. Your NIF and either your AT password or Chave Móvel Digital (CMD). If you've never logged in before, get this sorted well before June, setting up CMD can take 3-5 business days.

Your invoicing record. Every Recibo Verde you issued in 2025 is already visible in Portal das Finanças under Recibos Verdes Eletrónicos. Log in, view the records, and total your gross income for the year. This is your primary input.

Your e-fatura expenses. If you paid for professional expenses in 2025, software subscriptions, a co-working space in Lagos, professional training, and those invoices were issued to your NIF, they're in e-fatura. Log in and categorize anything still showing as unclassified. Uncategorized expenses won't appear in your tax deductions.

Social Security contribution records. If you made quarterly SS declarations in 2025, you'll reference those for Anexo SS. Log in to Segurança Social Direta to pull your records.

Your previous comprovativo (if you've filed before). Not required, but your 2024 comprovativo is the fastest orientation for this year's filing, it shows exactly which annexes you filed and what the structure looked like. If you want to read it in plain language, the IRS declaration reader does that, upload your comprovativo PDF and it walks you through every field.

The annexes you're filing

Most Algarve expat freelancers will file three or four of these:

Rosto: the cover page. Fiscal year, your NIF, household composition, your tax regime. Fill this first.

Anexo B: self-employment income. On the simplified regime (regime simplificado), you enter your gross income and the system applies a coefficient. For service income (consulting, design, writing), the coefficient is 0.75, meaning 75% of your gross becomes taxable. The system runs the math and you don't itemize expenses. For a campo-by-campo breakdown of every field, see the Anexo B field guide.

Anexo SS: Social Security reconciliation. Filed alongside Anexo B. Mandatory for every freelancer declaring self-employment income. It reconciles your declared income against your SS contributions.

Anexo H: tax benefits and deductions. Pre-filled from your e-fatura data. Review it, health and education expenses often appear here, but so do errors. Some invoices you paid in Portimão or Albufeira might not show up if the vendor never submitted them to AT.

Anexo J: if you have foreign income. Employment from a company outside Portugal, foreign pension, dividends from foreign accounts. Many Algarve expats working for UK or US clients while living here will need this.

Anexo L: if you're on NHR or IFICI. If you registered as a Non-Habitual Resident before 2024, or applied for the new IFICI regime (the NHR replacement), this annex is where you declare it.

For most Algarve freelancers with Recibos Verdes income only, no foreign pension, and no NHR: Rosto + Anexo B + Anexo SS + Anexo H. That's it.

The timeline

April 1 – April 30: Filing window open. Best time to file, the Portal das Finanças gets significantly slower in May and June as the deadline approaches. The system has crashed before. Filing in April means you get your refund (if any) faster.

By February 15 (if you haven't already): You should have confirmed your household composition and e-fatura deductions in Portal das Finanças before filing season opened. If you skipped this, check now, uncategorized expenses in e-fatura won't appear in your deductions.

June 30, 11:59 PM: The deadline. No extensions. Fines start at €200 for late filing.

What happens when you submit

AT processes your declaration. If you're due a refund, it usually arrives in July or August via bank transfer to the IBAN you have on record with AT. If you owe tax, AT sends a payment reference, you pay via Multibanco or MB Way.

AT may also request additional documents (pedido de elementos) if something looks unusual. Respond within the deadline they give you, this is rare for straightforward simplified regime filings.

Do you need local help?

Probably not, if your situation is what most Algarve expat freelancers have: Recibos Verdes income only, no foreign assets, no rental income, no NHR status, no major life changes in 2025.

The situations that genuinely benefit from professional help: significant foreign income across multiple countries, NHR or IFICI claims, property sales, or income from multiple activity categories that interact in non-obvious ways.

If you do hire someone, the OCC credential matters, as covered above, a contabilista certificado is regulated and insured in ways that informal helpers aren't.

Filing it yourself

The IRS declaration reader is free and works entirely in your browser, upload your previous comprovativo and it explains every field in plain language. No sign-up required.

If you want to go further, generate your actual Modelo 3 XML and download it for submission to Portal das Finanças, that's what Descodify's IRS filing flow does. It's free during early access.

For a complete step-by-step walkthrough of the filing process itself, see How to file your IRS in Portugal.