The specific deduction is a floor, not a percentage
Before applying the scale, Portugal subtracts from your income the category A dedução específica. It does not work like the Spanish earned-income reduction: it is not a percentage, it is the GREATER of a fixed figure and whatever you actually contributed.
That fixed figure is 8.54 times the IAS, the social support index. With the 2026 IAS — 537.13 € — that comes to 4,587.09 €. The practical consequence is a cut-off point: up to around 41,701 € of gross the fixed figure wins, and above it the 11 % you contributed wins. Below that point you are deducting more than you pay to Segurança Social.
The minimum of existence and the trap inside it
The minimum of existence in article 70.º of the CIRS does not exempt a band of income, the way an ordinary tax-free allowance would. It subtracts an amount from your base, and that amount is WITHDRAWN as you earn more: first at 2.60 € for every additional euro, and then at 1.35 €.
Withdrawing 2.60 € of deduction per euro earned means that, in that band, your next euro costs far more than the rate printed in the table. Between roughly 12,880 € and 15,910 € of gross, the REAL marginal rate shoots well above the 12.5 % of the first bracket. That is precisely where a calculator ignoring this mechanism is wrong by hundreds of euros, and it is also where a large share of the country's salaries sit.
Where these figures come from, and the typo they caught
The brackets and rates come from article 68.º of the CIRS with the 2026 limits; the additional solidarity rate from 68.º-A, which sits apart from and on top of the scale; and the employee contribution is a flat 11 % with no ceiling of any kind.
Portugal publishes no official calculator, but it publishes something almost as useful: its scale appears TWICE in article 68.º, once with each bracket's marginal rate and once with the average rate accumulated at its ceiling. That second column is a better anchor than any calculation of our own, because it summarises the whole scale up to that point.
And it caught a typo immediately. A secondary table gave 1,474.53 € as the parcela a abater in the fourth bracket; checked against the average rates in the article itself, the correct figure is 1,476.53 €. With the wrong one, a salary of 30,000 € came out two euros off. All eight ceilings of the scale now match the published figures to three decimal places.
What this calculator does not include
- The Azores and Madeira, which apply reduced rates to this same table. The figures here are for the mainland.
- IRS Jovem, which exempts a large part of your income for ten years. It depends on age, which this tool does not ask for, and if you qualify you will pay considerably less than shown here.
- The tax credits that require receipts: health, education, housing, deductible VAT. Only the general family expenses cap is applied.
- The monthly withholding minimums, because what is computed here is the tax for the YEAR and not what comes off each month's payslip.
Last updated: October 8, 2026