Leaving Portugal

Leaving Portugal looks simple: you pack, you go, you stop being resident. The Código do IRS is more precise than that. It decides on which day your residence ends, it can pull you back in for the whole year, it keeps Portuguese nationals resident for years after a move to a listed territory, and it treats your departure as a sale of your crypto. Here is what to settle before you leave with a US LLC, and what goes wrong if you don't.

When you are resident, and what that means

Under CIRS art. 16 you are resident in Portugal for a year if you spend more than 183 days there, consecutive or not, in any 12-month period that starts or ends in that year. With fewer days, you are still resident if on any day of that period you have a home there in conditions suggesting you intend to keep and occupy it as your habitual residence. Any full or partial day that includes a night in Portugal counts as a day of presence.

This matters because residents are taxed on their worldwide income, including income earned outside Portugal. Non-residents are taxed only on Portuguese-source income. In a split year, each status applies to its part of the year.

The split year and its two exceptions

As a rule, you stop being resident from your last day in Portugal. Two rules can make you resident for the whole year instead:

• The departure-year rule (art. 16 n.º 14). You are resident for the whole year in which you leave if, cumulatively, you spent more than 183 days in Portugal that year and after your last day there you earn income that would have been taxable, and not exempt, had you stayed resident. It does not apply if you show that this income is taxed by a similar income tax in your new state of residence within the EU or the EEA, or in another state at a rate of no less than 60% of the Portuguese rate (n.º 15).
• The return rule (art. 16 n.º 16). If you become resident again in the year after the one in which you lost residence, you are resident for the whole of that later year.

For an LLC owner, the first rule is the one to watch. If you leave after more than 183 days in the year and the LLC keeps earning, the question is whether those profits would have been taxable in Portugal and whether your new country taxes them enough. Since Portugal's classification of a US LLC is unresolved (see below), that question has no automatic answer.

The blacklist rule for Portuguese nationals (art. 16 n.os 6 and 7)

Portuguese nationals who move their tax residence to a country, territory or region on the list approved by Portaria (Portaria n.º 150/2004) remain resident in Portugal in the year of the move and the four following years, unless they prove valid reasons for the move, for example temporary work there for an employer domiciled in Portugal. The rule stops applying in the year they become tax resident in a country that is not on the list. If you hold Portuguese nationality alongside another one, this rule reaches you too.

The list changes. Portaria n.º 292/2025/1 removed Hong Kong, Liechtenstein and Uruguay from it with effect from 1 January 2026. Check the consolidated list in force for your destination before you move.

Telling the tax authority: LGT art. 19 as currently worded

The Lei Geral Tributária, art. 19, last amended by Decreto-Lei n.º 44/2022, sets the paperwork:

• Domicile: a change of domicile has no effect until you report it to the tax authority (AT).
• Residence status: a change of residence status must be reported within 60 days.
• Tax representative: taxpayers resident abroad, and residents absent for more than six months, must appoint a tax representative resident in Portugal. Without one, you cannot exercise your rights before the AT, including complaints, appeals and challenges.
• EU or EEA move: appointing a representative is merely optional if you move to an EU or EEA state with the required administrative cooperation.
• Electronic notifications: the obligation does not apply if you join the public electronic notification service linked to the morada única digital, the Portal das Finanças electronic notification regime or the electronic mailbox.
• Outside the EU and EEA: cancelling your electronic notification sign-up only takes effect once you have appointed a tax representative.

Crypto: leaving counts as a sale

For crypto-assets, losing Portuguese residence is treated as an onerous disposal (CIRS art. 10 n.º 25, renumbered by Decreto-Lei n.º 97/2026). Separately, gains and losses on crypto-assets held for 365 days or more are excluded from the capital gains charge (art. 10 n.º 22). The code does not spell out how the two rules interact on departure, so document the acquisition dates and the value of every holding on the day you leave.

While you are still resident: the CFC rule

Until your residence ends, CIRS art. 20 n.º 3, read with CIRC art. 66, can tax you on the LLC's profits whether or not they are distributed:

• Who: residents holding at least 25% of the capital, voting rights or rights to income or assets of a non-resident entity. A single-member LLC owner is at 100%.
• Which entities: those under a clearly more favourable tax regime, meaning the territory is on the Portaria list or the profit tax actually paid is below 50% of the tax due under the IRC Code. An LLC that pays no tax is below 50%.
• The exclusion: no imputation if the entity's passive income (royalties, dividends, interest and the other categories in CIRC art. 66 n.º 7) is no more than 25% of its total income.
• How it is taxed: imputed profits count as category B income if the holding belongs to a business or professional activity, otherwise as category E.
• No double tax: profits already imputed are deducted when they are later distributed.

Whether Portugal treats a single-member US LLC as transparent or as a separate entity is unresolved: we have not read any statute or binding AT ruling that decides it. Do not plan as if the answer were settled. How the LLC is treated on the US side is covered in the tax treatment of an exempt LLC.

The exit sequence

Sources

Checked 26 October 2026.

• Código do IRS, art. 10: Portal das Finanças
• Código do IRS, art. 15: Portal das Finanças
• Código do IRS, art. 16: Portal das Finanças
• Código do IRS, art. 20: Portal das Finanças
• Código do IRC, art. 66: Portal das Finanças
• Lei Geral Tributária, art. 19: Portal das Finanças
• Portaria n.º 292/2025/1, amending Portaria n.º 150/2004: Portal das Finanças

General information, not advice for your case

This page is general information and does not replace advice on your own situation. Your individual case is checked in the consultation, which is held in English.