Regulatory updates - Portugal

Although the Portuguese budget law for 2025 strongly focuses on tax measurements, it also impacts e-invoicing regulation. With this approval, invoices in PDF format will continue to be accepted and treated as equivalent to electronic invoices until December 31, 2025. In other words, taxpayers sending PDF invoices will be allowed to continue to do so all through 2025.

The mandatory submission of the SAF-T file to the tax authorities has also been postponed. This regulation was initially scheduled for 2026; however, with the state budget approval, it has been delayed to 2027.

The postponement of these mandates means businesses will have an additional year to implement QES on e-invoices. Likewise, postponing the SAF-T submission gives companies more time to make the necessary changes and be prepared when the implementation date becomes effective.

The deadline was first moved to 1 January 2023, then to 1 January 2024, and later to 1 January 2025 in response to the technical and financial challenges businesses faced in adopting QES.

The new Portuguese 2025 Budget Proposal, published on 10 October 2024, includes in number 3 of Article 88 a provision to postpone the QES requirement to 1 January 2026. If approved, PDF invoices without a QES will remain valid for tax purposes until the end of 2025.

Additionally, the mandatory submission of the accounting SAF-T file, originally scheduled for 2026, is proposed to be deferred to 2027 for the 2026 financial year, as outlined in number 2 of Article 88.

The impact of these changes is that businesses will have an additional year to prepare for implementing QES on e-invoices, allowing more time for system updates. Likewise, postponing the SAF-T submission gives companies extra time to ensure their accounting systems are fully compliant.

These changes will take effect if the proposed law is officially enacted.

As of 1 January 2025, a QES will be mandatory for every issued PDF on B2B and B2C transactions, instead of 1 January 2024.

Furthermore, it is important to mention that micro, small, and medium-sized companies must send e-invoices in a CIUS-PT format to public authorities starting from 2025 instead of 1 January 2024.

The provisions reflecting the changes can be seen in the new Budget Law, article 182-A, paragraph 4 for PDFs requiring QES, and paragraph 5 for e-invoicing for the public sector.

Portugal has gradually implemented e-invoicing in the B2G sector. Back in 2019 and 2020 central and local public administrators were obligated to receive e-invoices.

Since 1 January 2021, large suppliers doing business with the public sector have been obligated to issue e-invoices. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and micro enterprises were the last groups to adhere to the mandate on 1 January 2023. However, in a previous Communiqué Portugal announced that SMEs and micro enterprises would get an extension to adhere to the e-invoicing obligation.

On 19 July 2023, eSPap announced that SMEs and micro enterprises will have to adhere to the mandate on 1 January 2024. This new deadline has given SMEs and micro enterprises a one-year extension and therefore can continue using other invoice exchange mechanisms than e-invoices until 31 December 2023.

Micro businesses and SMEs that were supposed to fall under the e-invoicing mandate from 1 January 2023 have received a grace period for complying with the requirements. Therefore, Micro companies, SMEs and public entities will be able to continue using other invoice exchange mechanisms than e-invoices. No specific timelines for the grace period are currently given.

More information can be found in the Communiqué (in Portuguese). 

Portuguese authorities have published a new Dispatch 8/2022-XXIII, announcing an extension for the validity of PDF e-invoices. This announcement emphasizes that PDF invoices will be accepted as e-invoices until 31 December 2023. Consequently, digital signatures will not be required in PDF invoices until 1 January 2024.

At the same time, medium and small businesses were supposed to issue e-invoices for B2G operations starting 1 January 2023. With the release of the new Dispatch, these entities will also be able to send PDF invoices until 31 December 2023

As of 1 July 2022, taxpayers were supposed to start issuing invoices using qualified electronic signatures or seals (QES) or EDI with security measures stated in the European Model EDI Agreement to comply with Decree No. 28/2019.

However, on 26 May 2022, the Portuguese authorities published a new Dispatch 49/2022-XXIII, postponing the obligation to use qualified electronic signatures or seals on PDF invoices. According to this new publication, PDF invoices will be considered e-invoices for all purposes provided for in tax legislation until 31 December 2022.

With the new timeline, all non-EDI invoices in B2B and B2C transactions will require QES starting 1 January 2023.

The Portuguese Tax Authority has released documentation on regards to the communication to obtain the ATCUD number. ATCUD is a unique number that will identify each different tax document (invoice, credit notes, dispatch advice, simplified invoice, etc.). 

As Pagero has published previously, the implementation of the ATCUD number was suspended, as mandatory, for the year 2022. Nevertheless, it is now possible for taxpayers in Portugal to include it on invoices and other tax-relevant documents (voluntarily). The ATCUD number also forms part of the QR code. If ATCUD is displayed on tax documents, it will also have to be included inside the QR code. If ATCUD is not used, the ATCUD section inside the QR code will contain “0” as previously expressed. 

Taxpayers will need to communicate the document series they intent to use for each document type to the Tax Authority, The Tax Authority will then provide a validation code. The request of these validation codes can be carried out manually in the portal or via webservice. 

Once taxpayers get the validation code, the ATCUD number will be created adding the validation code and the document series.  

Example of an ATCUD number:  

Document series: FT BNH/4561 

Validation code given by the TA: TES123TE 

ATCUD to be displayed: ATCUD:TES123TE-4561 

Stay tuned with Pagero to be on top of every relevant information on regards to e-invoicing and e-document in Portugal. 

The requirement will apply to any transaction types within B2G, B2B and B2C sectors. However, the companies sending invoices to public entities behind eSPap will have to do it in the structured format CIUS-PT, not in PDF format. Although PDF invoices are considered electronic for tax purposes, eSPap only accepts structured e-invoices, which PDFs are not.

Furthermore, the same Dispatch 351/2021-XXII officially suspends the ATCUD number on tax-relevant documents until 2023. As we wrote last month, the Budget Draft for 2022 already had the intention to postpone it.

At the same time, the QR code requirement is not affected, so the code will have to be displayed on every tax-relevant document (e.g., invoice, credit notes, dispatch advice, etc.), starting 1 January 2022. The QR code has a special section for the ATCUD; in this section, a number “0” will have to be displayed until taxpayers can generate the ATCUD number from the validation code provided by the Ministry of Finance.

The Draft budget for 2022 proposes suspending Article 7 and Article 35 of the Decree-Law 28/2019 and making it voluntary. Therefore, it is now optional to display The Unique Identification Code (ATCUD) on invoices and all other relevant fiscal documents (credit notes, dispatch notes, etc.).

Even though ATCUD will not be mandatory in 2022, The Portuguese Tax Authority gives economic incentives to those taxpayers implementing ATCUD voluntarily. Specifically, taxpayers will be able to deduct 120% of their expenses related to ATCUD implementation costs as long as they display the ATCUD number on invoices and all relevant fiscal documents by 1 January 2023.

On the other hand, the QR code requirement is not affected by the Draft Budget, and 1 January 2022 remains the mandatory deadline.

More information about the ATCUD will be available soon from the Portuguese Tax Authority.