Setting Up a Company in Portugal as an American or a Briton

An American or a Briton creates a company in Portugal either at an Empresa na Hora counter, where all the partners must be present, or online through the Registry’s Empresa 2.0 service. The official pages open both to any person and ask each individual partner for a Portuguese tax number (NIF).

This guide goes through the two official services, then the steps the pages list after the registration. It is a reading of official pages, not legal advice, and it does not choose a legal form or tax regime for you. We read the pages listed at the end on 18 October 2026.

What kinds of company can you create?

Both services let you create three types: a sociedade unipessoal por quotas (a single-member limited company), a sociedade por quotas (a limited company with two or more partners) and a sociedade anonima (a public limited company). The Empresa na Hora page says the counter cannot create European public limited companies.

If you only want to work for yourself, the government’s page on starting a business activity with the tax authority describes a different, lighter step: independent workers and freelancers must file a declaration of start of activity at the latest on the day they give as the start date. That is not a company. Which form suits you is a question for an accountant; the work routes are laid out in working in Portugal as an American or a Briton.

Can an American or a Briton create a company at all?

The pages we read do not set a nationality or residence condition. The Empresa na Hora page says, under “Quem pode criar”, that any person or legal entity can create a company. The Empresa 2.0 page says any person can, with authentication and a digital signature, and lists a “foreign citizen” with a Digital Mobile Key linked to the passport, or European eIDAS authentication.

What the pages do require from an individual partner:

• A NIF. The counter page says individual partners present an identification document (citizen card, identity card, passport or residence permit) and state their NIF. The online page says you cannot create a company online if a partner has no Portuguese NIF. Our guide to the NIF covers how a foreigner gets one.
• A valid identification document. At the counter, a passport is on the list.

The tax authority’s leaflet on the NIF for non-resident foreigners (July 2025) says the NIF can be requested online by a legal representative with a power of attorney, or at a tax office or Loja do Cidadao by appointment, and that asking for the NIF does not require a tax representative. It describes individuals, not company founders. It also says that a non-resident who establishes a tax relationship, for example by carrying out a self-employed activity in Portugal, must appoint a tax representative or join electronic notifications within 15 days, and that someone living in a non-EU country who carries out a self-employed activity must appoint a VAT representative before starting. The pages on creating a company do not say how this applies to the partners of a company, so we do not extend it. Ask the tax authority or an accountant before relying on either reading.

How do you create a company at an Empresa na Hora counter?

The Registry’s page says the whole process happens at one counter, at one time, and that all the partners must be there. You can use any counter regardless of where the company will have its registered office. The page lists what you must have decided:

1. The company name. Choose from the pre-approved list (the firm and denomination exchange) or present an admissibility certificate already approved by the national register of legal persons. The gov.pt page adds that at the national register’s counter you can have the name approved at the moment of creation.
2. The articles of association. Pick one of the pre-approved models. The gov.pt page says you do not have to fill it in beforehand, but it goes faster if you know the model.
3. The accounting. Name a certified accountant, pick one from the list offered at the counter, or file the start of activity declaration at any tax office within 15 days after the company is created.
4. The capital. The partners must deposit the capital in the company’s bank account or declare that it will be deposited or handed to the company’s cash office.

The partners sign the articles at the counter and the commercial registration is done there. The page says you then receive the articles, the access code to the permanent commercial certificate, the access code to the company card and the company’s Social Security number. The administrators and managers also receive their business attributes in SCAP automatically and free of charge. SCAP lets them use their citizen card and Digital Mobile Key to authenticate and sign some documents for the company.

If a partner cannot attend, gov.pt says he or she can be represented by another person who brings a power of attorney and his or her own citizen card. If a partner is itself a company, the page lists the extra documents: the company’s identification card or access code, the minutes of the general meeting authorizing its legal representatives, the representatives’ identification documents and the up-to-date articles or incorporation document.

How do you create a company online?

The online service is called Empresa 2.0 on the Registry’s page. Steps as the page gives them:

1. Open the service and choose an authentication method: citizen card, Digital Mobile Key, a legal professional’s digital certificate, or European authentication (eIDAS).
2. Fill in the form: type of company, partners and managers, economic activity (CAE code), corporate purpose, capital, registered address, contacts, company name and beneficial owner. Documents in a foreign language must come with a translation.
3. Pay by MB Way, Multibanco or credit card within 48 hours of submitting. A name taken from the firm exchange or approved automatically is reserved for 24 hours until payment, renewed to 48 hours when you choose a payment method.
4. Each partner, manager or administrator named in the request is notified by email to authorize data sharing, sign the acceptance of office and sign the articles with the Digital Mobile Key. The page says all partners must have digital authentication and an active digital signature.

Limits stated on the page. You cannot create a company online if a partner is under 18, if a partner has no Portuguese NIF, if the company results from a merger or demerger, if a foreign company partner has no Portuguese NIPC, or if you want to contribute capital in kind such as real estate or movable goods. If a partner is a foreign company, the page asks for its NIPC and Portuguese NIF, the commercial register certificate of its home country, its up-to-date articles and the beneficial owner declaration.

After submission the Registry sends the payment document by email, checks the request and, if all is in order, approves it. If there are errors you have 5 consecutive days to correct them, for an extra 30 euros; otherwise the registration can be approved provisionally or refused. On approval you receive the access codes to the company’s electronic card and permanent commercial certificate, the articles and the Social Security number by email, and the physical company card later, at no charge.

What does it cost?

The counter page adds that if the capital is paid in goods other than money, the cost of the registration act for each good is added under the emolument rules. The gov.pt page lists payment at the counter by Multibanco, cash, or a banker’s or certified cheque in euros drawn on a Portuguese account. Fees on these pages carry no date, so check them on the day.

How much capital do you need?

The text of the Commercial Companies Code on diariodarepublica.pt says, for a sociedade por quotas, that the amount of the capital is freely fixed in the company contract and equals the sum of the quotas subscribed by the partners (article 201). It adds that quota values may differ but none can be less than 1 euro (article 219, number 3). For a sociedade anonima it says the minimum capital is 50,000 euros (article 276, number 5). We did not find a separate rule for the single-member company by quotas on the pages we read, so we do not state one.

Paying it in: the Registry says you have 5 working days after registration to deposit the capital in the company’s bank account. That does not apply if you already paid at creation, or if the partners declared they would hand the money to the company by the end of the first financial year, which is usually the end of the year. Article 202 of the Code has the same declaration. A company bank account is the next practical step; our guide to opening a Portuguese bank account covers what banks ask of newcomers.

What do you have to do after the company exists?

On the tax authority, the gov.pt service page for a resident legal person’s start of activity points to articles 117 to 119 of the corporate income tax code and article 31 of the VAT code as its legal basis. It says the declaration lets the company start activity for tax purposes. We did not read those code articles themselves.

On Social Security, the Institute’s practical guide (version 5.14, which shows the date 1 January 2024 but also cites 2025 material) says the registration of companies is mandatory and automatic, with no request needed, and that changes such as address, officers or articles must be communicated within 10 working days using form RV 1011. A company with employees then follows the employer rules, which we do not cover here. If you later take employees you will deal with the tax and labor rules in working in Portugal as an American or a Briton.

How does this connect to a residence visa?

The residence routes for entrepreneurs and independent workers are separate from setting up a company. The D2 entrepreneur visa guide goes through what the consular post and AIMA ask for, and the guide to the first month of paperwork follows what you do once you are in Portugal. If you will work as an individual, see freelancing and the independent worker regime.

Americans and Britons are in the same position on the pages we read: neither page treats the two nationalities differently. Whether a Portuguese company changes your US or UK tax filings is a separate question that these pages do not answer; our guide to US taxes for Americans abroad is the starting point for Americans, and we have not read UK sources on it here.

Date of the information

The gov.pt service page for Empresa na Hora carries an “updated” line of 4 September 2026, the page for the start-of-activity declaration of a resident legal person 29 July 2026, and the page on opening activity 8 July 2026. None of them says what changed, so those dates mark when the pages were last updated, and the first is this guide’s update date. The Registry fee tables are undated, and the tax authority’s leaflet on the NIF for non-resident foreign citizens is dated July 2025. The Commercial Companies Code articles quoted come from the consolidated text on diariodarepublica.pt, where articles 201 and 219 show Decree-Law 33/2011 and article 276 shows Decree-Law 49/2010 as their latest amendments. We read the pages on 18 October 2026.

Official pages read for this guide: the Registry’s pages for Empresa na Hora and for the online company service, the gov.pt page for Empresa na Hora, the gov.pt page for a resident legal person’s start of activity, the gov.pt page on opening activity with the tax authority, the Social Security Institute’s practical guide on company registration, the Commercial Companies Code on diariodarepublica.pt, and the tax authority’s leaflet on the NIF for non-resident foreign citizens.