IRS Jovem

IRS Jovem is a tax relief scheme for workers aged 35 or under in Portugal. If you earn income from work (employment or self-employment) and you were 35 or younger on 31 December of the income year, a portion of that income may be exempt from IRS.

The exemption is generous upfront and tapers down over time.

How the exemption works

The relief is capped each year at 55 × the IAS, so the ceiling moves with the IAS rather than being a fixed euro figure, and it follows the year the income was earned rather than the year you file. The IAS is 537,13 € (2026) per month for 2026. The percentage exempt depends on which year of the scheme you're in:

Year of benefit	Exemption
Year 1	100%
Years 2–4	75%
Years 5–7	50%
Years 8–10	25%

So in your first year of eligible income, you pay no IRS on the qualifying income up to that ceiling. The exemption then holds at 75% through year four, drops to 50% for years five to seven, and finishes at 25% for years eight to ten.

Exempt income is still englobado: it counts when AT works out the general IRS rate to apply to the rest of your income. The exempt slice isn't taxed, but it isn't invisible to the rest of your return either.

Ten years, counted not elapsed

The ten years are a counter, not a calendar window. A year only counts if you actually earned Category A or Category B income in it as a taxpayer in your own right. Years where you had no work income, years where you were a dependant in someone else's household, and years where you were exempt from filing under Art. 58 CIRS are skipped, not spent. Someone who takes three years out on a research grant can still have their remaining counted years available afterwards, spanning more than ten calendar years, subject always to the age limit: banked years are lost once you turn 36.

Who qualifies

Three cumulative conditions:

1. You were 35 or younger on 31 December of the income year
2. You earned Category A (employment) and/or Category B (self-employment) income
3. You are a taxpayer in your own right, not a dependant in someone else's household

The third one catches more young freelancers than people expect: if you're still listed as a dependant on a parent's IRS return, you can't claim IRS Jovem on your own income, however much you earned.

You're excluded if you benefit from, or have ever benefited from, NHR or IFICI, if you've elected the ex-residentes regime (Programa Regressar), or if your tax situation isn't regularised.

There is no requirement to be in your first year. You can enter the scheme at any counted year and claim at whatever band you've reached: someone whose first work income was in 2022 and who claims for the first time in 2025 claims at year 4, not year 1.

The clock is one counter across both categories, not one per category. If you earned Category A employment income in 2016 and then started Category B self-employment in 2017, 2017 is your year 2. Starting freelancing does not open a fresh year 1.

IRS Jovem and freelancers on Recibos Verdes

Freelancers with Category B income can use IRS Jovem. The exemption isn't applied at the invoice level, so nothing about how you issue recibos verdes changes.

Your income still goes into the ordinary Anexo B Quadro 4 campos, in full. What you add is the option itself: Anexo B, Quadro 3E.1 is a yes/no field for the Art. 12-B regime, and once you tick it AT applies the exempt share automatically when it assesses the return. Employees do the equivalent in Anexo A, Quadro 4F.1.

The benefit is claimed by annual option on the return itself. There is no separate IRS Jovem registration held at AT to check or activate: you exercise the option each year you want it.

Employees have a further step, telling their employer so withholding is reduced through the year. There is no equivalent for Category B. The reduced-withholding mechanism was never extended to freelancers, so a freelancer sees the benefit at assessment rather than in monthly cash flow.

IRS Jovem vs NHR vs IFICI

These regimes can't be combined. The bar is per taxpayer, not per income stream, and it is permanent: it reaches anyone who has ever benefited from NHR or IFICI, not only current holders. Electing the ex-residentes regime (Programa Regressar) excludes you too.

NHR is closed to new entrants, so for anyone 35 or under today the live comparison is IFICI. The trade-off is a rate against a capped exemption: IFICI applies a 20% flat rate to qualifying income with no ceiling, while IRS Jovem exempts a share of income, with the exemption itself capped at 55 × the IAS. Which wins depends on your income and on which band of the ladder you're in, so it's worth running both. IRS Jovem is the simpler of the two to access: it needs no application beyond the option on your return.

If you're 35 or under, earning work income in Portugal, and don't have NHR or IFICI, IRS Jovem is worth understanding before you file.