I asked my lawyers (IAS), and they said if I did that I would “be responsible for obtaining the necessary declarations for the Golden Visa process”.
I know about the “Certidão de Dívida e Não Dívida”, that’s easily obtainable from the Finanças web portal where we also sign up for the tax notifications.
What other documents are those tax representatives usually responsible for? The one I’m worried about is the “Segurança Social – Declaração da Situação Contributiva”, since looking at the login page for Segurança Social Direta, I don’t have the Cartão de Cidadão ou Chave Móvel Digital they require to get in, and my understanding is otherwise i have to go to one of their offices in person to get the declaration.
If anyone has had experience with this directly I’d really appreciate some insight on whether ditching the tax representative is a good idea before I get my GV card, or citizenship even! From experience I’ve learned to double check anything my lawyers tell me with this forum, thank you in advance!
Following. I have nothing to add, but would like to do this as well. I remember there was a cheaper service that cost like 100 euros a year or something? Maybe im confusing with something else
You can get some info about a few online NIF providers below €100 here. The article is not yet updated for 2025, so some pricing might be a bit outdated, but is more or less in the ballpark.
Social Security is a separate organization, totally unrelated to your question on the tax rep.
So if you are already happy to obtain your own declaration of ‘no debt’ from AT, then you can safely dispose of the tax rep.
In fact, I am not sure why IAS gave you that comment as I assumed that regardless of a tax rep position, anyone can give a PoA to their lawyer who then goes to the AT office and obtain a ‘no debt’ declaration.
But that’s a moot point for you as you said you have your online access to the Portal das Financas and therefore can get your declaration yourself.
Now when it comes to Social Security, there are two ways to achieve what is required:
If you don’t have a NISS and don’t want it, you get a ‘not registered’ declaration from Social Security (either at an in-person appointment, or via your lawyer with a PoA)
Otherwise you get your NISS first, which enables you to obtain a declaration of ‘no debt’ thereafter, and that can be done online. But there is a registration process to go through twice here - once to get the NISS, and then to get your online access. Again you can use your lawyer with a PoA for all of the above if you so wish.
Wonderful, yeah just heard back from IAS and you are 100% right, the tax representatives have nothing to do with Social Security! The lawyers will handle social security stuff whether or not i stop paying for tax representation
Ok just heard back from the lawyer, and the “Certidão de Dívida e Não Dívida” is the only document the tax reps ever produce for me. That’s literally a couple clicks in the web portal, no need to pay someone hundreds for that!
The lawyer also said: “However, please note that you´ll be responsible for any notification that the Tax Authority might sent to you.”
What kind of notifications do they send you? How often do they send one? Is it just like a notification of an audit or something? Has anyone here ever received one?
You can just authorise the gov to take whatever they want so that notices don’t matter. I know roughly how much and when I have to pay so I just keep that plus 5K in a separate account.
The response I heard from IAS also said that the tax representative does the following:
receive notices of payment of property tax notifications that should be forwarded to Mercan and, which, in the event of non-compliance, may lead to tax execution proceedings and seizures;
requests for land registers necessary for your Golden Visa process.
I might just keep the tax representative just not to mess anything up the normal flow of information, but at least for my spouse (whose name isn’t on the property) it sounds totally unnecessary and I’ll cancel that
I recently renewed my GV residency card. My lawyer was able to handle all documentation except that she asked my fiscal representative for “extrato do e-factura no período compreendido entre 04-09-2023 e 04-09-2025.” If this can be obtained from the Financas portal, then I suppose that there is no need for a fiscal representative. I thought that a fiscal representative was required for non-residents who have income within Portugal, but I looks like this requirement is no longer in place?
Any other feedback / thoughts on stopping grizzly services? I just received a bill for the next 5 years, which I assume they want paid in advance. I am invested in Mercan hotel properties, in case that makes a difference.
I’m leaning toward keeping them, for the same reasons momo cited: I don’t want to mess things up to save some euros…
Right that’s the situation I was in: for me turns out I’ve already paid for the 5 years;) The thing is you should be fine… the Finanças portal stuff is easy… but worried that IAS told me they have some communication with them about land registry stuff which I didn’t learn how to do. My end conclusion was even though its kind of a rip off i didn’t want to mess with their usual flow - this process takes way too damn long anyway;)
Land registry is a separate system, not related to your tax representation at all. It costs ~€15 to download the fresh certificate.
The RE document to be downloaded from the Portal das Finanças is called Caderneta Predial. It is free of charge, same as the declaration of no-debt from the same Portal.
