Portal das Finanças for landlords: access, leases and rent receipts

As a landlord in Portugal, you deal with the tax authority (AT) almost entirely through the Portal das Finanças. You need to do four things there. First, get a way to log in. Second, report each lease by the end of the month after it starts, and pay stamp duty of 10% of one month's rent. Third, issue an electronic rent receipt every time you are paid, unless you are exempt (for example, because you are 65 or over), in which case you file one annual return, Modelo 44, instead. Fourth, report any change to the lease, and its end, by the end of the following month. You can do all of this from abroad.

The portal is in Portuguese; menu names below are in italics, and typing them into the portal's search bar is often the quickest route.

How do I log in to the portal, including from abroad?

To log in you need your NIF (tax number) and one of two things: a password (senha de acesso), or Autenticação.gov, which means the Portuguese Citizen Card or the Chave Móvel Digital (CMD, a mobile login that uses your phone number and a PIN).

Option 1: password by post

1. On the portal, choose Registar-se (register).
2. Fill in the form with your NIF and tax address, and choose a security question.
3. The AT posts the password by CTT (Portuguese mail) to your tax address (domicílio fiscal). It is never emailed or sent elsewhere; if you have a fiscal representative, it goes to them.
4. The AT gives an average of 5 working days for delivery. Post to an address abroad usually takes longer.
5. Log in with Iniciar Sessão (log in). You must set a new password straight away, because the posted password expires after its first use.

Check first that your tax address is up to date. Once you are in, confirm your phone number and email under Dados de Contacto (contact details). With a confirmed phone, you can recover a forgotten password by SMS (Recuperar senha, recover password) instead of waiting for another letter. You can also turn on two-step login by SMS (Segundo Fator de Autenticação, second authentication factor).

Option 2: Chave Móvel Digital

Foreign citizens can link a CMD to their passport, but a passport-based CMD has to be activated in person. You can do this at a citizen service desk in Portugal or, by appointment, at a Portuguese consulate abroad. Take your passport and the phone that will receive the SMS code.

Letting someone else do it

You can authorise a third party, such as a property manager, to issue receipts for you. Do this in Modelo 2 or in the portal. The authorisation covers only receipts; it does not let them see the rest of your tax data. You remain responsible for anything filed late or wrongly.

Where are the landlord services?

The AT groups landlord services in its rental area, Arrendamento (sometimes shown as e-Arrendamento). The main options are:

• Contratos (contracts): Comunicar contrato (report a lease), Comunicar Alteração (report a change), Comunicar Cessação (report the end of a lease) and Consultar contrato (view a lease).
• Recibos de Renda (rent receipts): Emitir (issue) and Consultar (view, and cancel from there).
• Modelo 44: Preencher Declaração (fill in the return) and Consultar Declaração (view a return you sent).

How do I register a lease and pay the stamp duty?

Every lease, sublease, and promise of lease where the tenant already has the property must be reported to the AT on Modelo 2 (the stamp duty return). The deadline is the end of the month after the lease starts (for a lease starting on 10 November, by 31 December). If there are several landlords, one of them can file for all, naming the others.

1. Search for Comunicar contrato, or open Contratos > Comunicar contrato.
2. Identify the property by its matrix article (artigo matricial) and fraction, as shown on the caderneta predial (property record).
3. Enter each landlord and tenant by NIF. Tenants need Portuguese NIFs.
4. Enter the start date, duration, rent, how often it is paid, and the use. For a home, the use is habitação (housing). Since 2026 the tax rate on rent can depend on the lease being for housing only, so get the use right.
5. Save the draft, check it and submit.
6. When you submit, the AT calculates the imposto do selo (stamp duty) and issues a payment document. The rate is 10% of one month's rent (General Stamp Duty Table, item 2). If the rent changes over time in the contract, the tax is worked out on the highest rent. Pay it by the same deadline: the end of the month after the lease starts.

You can file at a tax office (Serviço de Finanças) instead only in two cases: if you are 65 or over, or if you have no electronic mailbox and your rental income is below the threshold described in the next section. Everyone else must file online.

A late or missing Modelo 2 can be fined €150 to €3,750 (RGIT art. 117(1)). Unpaid stamp duty also attracts interest.

Changes to the lease

• The yearly legal rent update does not have to be reported. Report it only if you want the receipts to show the new rent automatically.
• A rent increase agreed by changing the contract terms is a change: report it with Comunicar Alteração by the end of the following month. It attracts stamp duty of 10% of the monthly increase.
• If the landlord, tenant, property or type of contract changes, you cannot use the online change form. Use e-Balcão, the portal's online help desk, or a tax office.

Who must issue electronic rent receipts, and who is exempt?

Under CIRS article 115 and Portaria 98-A/2015, you must issue an electronic rent receipt (recibo de renda eletrónico) for every amount a tenant pays you. This includes deposits (caução) and rent paid in advance (adiantamento). The AT says to issue the receipt when you receive the money.

You are exempt (art. 5 of Portaria 98-A/2015) if any one of these applies:

• Age: you were 65 or over on 31 December of the previous year. The exemption is personal. If co-owners own the property, only the co-owner aged 65 or over is exempt.
• Rural leases: the rent comes from a lease under the rural lease regime.
• Small income without an electronic mailbox: both of these must be true.
  • You do not have, and are not required to have, an electronic mailbox (caixa postal eletrónica).
  • Your rental income the previous year was no more than twice the IAS (the social support index). For income received in 2025 that was €1,045. For 2026 the AT gives €1,074.26. If you had no rental income last year, the test is whether you expect this year's rent to stay within that limit.

Being exempt does not mean you can stay silent. If you are exempt and choose not to issue electronic receipts, you must file Modelo 44, which lists the rent you received in the year. It is due by the end of February of the following year. This deadline was moved from January by Decree-Law 49/2025 and applied for the first time in 2026; because 28 February 2026 was a Saturday, that year's deadline fell on 2 March. Under its current leaflet, the AT accepts Modelo 44 only online, via Modelo 44 – Preencher Declaração. You still have to give your tenant some proof of payment.

If you are exempt, you can still choose to issue electronic receipts. Once you issue the first one, the normal rules apply to you. On that same day you must also issue receipts for the earlier months of the year.

How do I issue a receipt each month?

You can only issue receipts once the lease has been reported.

1. Open Recibos de Renda > Emitir (or search for "recibo de renda").
2. Choose the lease.
3. Enter the period the payment covers and the date you actually received the money (data de recebimento).
4. Check the amount. The portal fills in the rent from the lease, but you can change it to the amount actually paid. Choose the type of payment: rent, deposit or advance.
5. Issue the receipt. The tenant can see it in their own portal area. Issued receipts stay available for 4 years.

Some practical points:

• One receipt covers the lease even if there are several tenants.
• Co-owners can issue one receipt for the whole rent, or each issue a receipt for their own share.
• The AT's guidance is to issue a separate receipt for each month's rent, rather than one receipt covering several months.
• Not issuing a receipt, or issuing it late, can be fined €150 to €3,750 (RGIT art. 123).

Correcting or cancelling a receipt

You cannot edit a receipt once it has been issued. To fix a mistake, find it under Recibos de Renda > Consultar, cancel it (Anular), and issue a correct one. You can cancel a receipt up to the end of the IRS filing period for the year the rent belongs to. That period normally ends on 30 June of the following year. A cancelled receipt has no tax effect, and the AT tells the tenant that it has been cancelled.

What if the tenant pays late or only part of the rent?

A receipt is proof of payment. If the tenant has paid nothing, you do not issue a receipt.

• Partial payment: issue a receipt for the amount actually received, for that month. Issue another one when the rest arrives.
• Late payment: when the money arrives, issue the receipt for the month it covers, with the real date you received it. Under Civil Code art. 1041, once rent is late you can also claim compensation of 20% of the amount owed. You lose this right if the tenant pays within 8 days of the due date. If there is a guarantor (fiador) and the tenant has not paid within those 8 days, you must notify the guarantor within the next 90 days.
• Persistent arrears: you may end the lease if the tenant is 3 months or more behind (Civil Code art. 1083(3)). You may also end it if the tenant pays more than 8 days late more than four times in 12 months, provided you warned them by registered letter after the third delay (art. 1083(4)). A bill passed in Parliament on 30 September 2026 would shorten these periods, but it is not yet law.

How do I report the end of a lease?

When a lease ends for any reason, report it with Contratos > Comunicar Cessação by the end of the month after it ends. Give the actual end date. Make sure you have issued receipts for every payment received up to that date.

Ending is not cancelling: Anular under Consultar contrato is for a lease registered by mistake, and is impossible once receipts exist.

Key deadlines

If you get stuck, use e-Balcão in the portal or call the AT's helpline on +351 217 206 707 (working days, 09:00–19:00).