Updated 22 September 2026 · 5 min read
Owning personally or through a company
The question has no general answer, but it does have a structure. Four taxes move together, and the decision is effectively made on the day of purchase.
By ATLANTIC’s property tax team
Whether to hold Portuguese property in your own name or through a company is the question international investors ask most often, and the one least suited to a general answer. What can be set out is what the answer depends on.
Four taxes, not one
An individual owner pays council tax (IMI) each year, and the additional council tax (AIMI) above €600,000 of patrimonial value. Rental income is taxed at 25%, or at 10% where the letting is residential and the rent is within the moderate limit. A gain on sale is taxed on half its value at progressive rates.
A company pays council tax on the same basis, but the additional council tax at 0.4% from the first euro with no allowance. Rental income is part of its profit, taxed at the corporate rate — 19% in 2026, falling to 17% by 2028 — after deducting the costs of earning it, which an individual largely cannot. A gain on sale is likewise part of profit.
Read those two paragraphs against each other and the shape appears. The company deducts more and pays a lower headline rate on profit. The individual gets an allowance the company does not, and a gain that is half exempt.
Then there is getting the money out
Profit inside a company is not yet money in the owner’s hands. Taking it out means dividends, which are taxed again, at a rate that depends on where the owner lives and what the relevant tax treaty says.
This is the step most comparisons leave out, and it is usually the step that decides the answer. A structure that looks efficient on the property can be inefficient at the point the owner actually wants the money.
What tips it one way or the other
How long you intend to hold. How much of the return comes from rent as against sale. Whether there are several owners, or heirs to consider. Whether you have other Portuguese activity the costs can sit against. And where you are tax resident, because that determines what happens to the income after it leaves Portugal.
Why the decision is made at purchase
A property bought personally and later moved into a company has been sold to that company. Property transfer tax and stamp duty are due on that sale, calculated on the value at the time, and the gain is taxed.
Which means the decision is not one that can be comfortably revisited. It is taken on the day of the deed, usually under time pressure, and lived with for as long as the property is held. That is precisely the kind of decision worth structuring in advance — and precisely the kind that is most often taken quickly.
Key takeaways
- Personal ownership brings a €600,000 AIMI allowance and a half-exempt gain; company ownership brings deductible costs and a lower rate on profit.
- Extracting profit from a company is taxed again, and that step often decides the comparison.
- Moving a property into a company later is a sale, with property transfer tax, stamp duty and a taxable gain.
Sources: Código do IRS; Código do IRC; Código do IMI; Código do IMT.
Since this was written
Download the 2026 Property Tax Guide
This article provides general information and does not constitute tax advice.