Portugal - Avoiding Duty on Imported Household Goods (HHG)

Residencies & citizenships
1

My wife is an Irish, citizen. I am American. We will immigrate to Portugal in April, 2021, and rent. We are concerned about bringing in our HHG duty free as it may take us 6 to 9 months to find a home to buy. I have seen conflicting allowed time periods for HHG to arrive duty free:

1.Does the allowed time start after you have arrived in Portugal or after you have gained residency

  1. Is the allowed time 3 months or can it be up to 12 months?

Thanks all.

Lloyd

1 Like
2

Have you priced hhgs in Portugal? Might be cheaper, at least for some things.

3

It is 90 days and I haven’t found a way to extend it. Just yesterday, I was searching for personal storage in PT and found them all over portugal so you should be able to organize the transport direct to a storage unit with your shipping company.

4

Thanks for your input Cheryl. I have to say it alarms me. My wife and I have what we think is a unique and complex situation as it regards moving to Portugal at the end of this year. Please bear with me and allow me to post an email I put together to detail the entire picture we face. Perhaps some other Nomadgate participants can help also.

MOVING TO PORTUGAL - GETTING DUTY FREE STATUS ON BOTH VEHICLE AND HOUSEHOLD GOODS
Introduction: We have an unusual situation as regards moving to Portugal at the end of this year and would appreciate guidance on how we make certain what to expect as regards bringing our Household goods (HHG) in at a later date.

  1. My wife is an Irish, citizen. I am American. We will travel to Portugal from our last residence (UK) in December this year and search for a home.
  2. We will drive to Portugal in our UK Registered automobile and declare it after arrival to be certain there is no Customs Duty fees.
  3. Our retirement income (where we are subject to taxation) is the USA
  4. Although we have lived in the UK temporarily for 3 years, our last residence (for 10 years) was India. All of our major Household Goods have been stored there. It will take approximately 45 to 60 days to arrange all the necessary paperwork including a Portuguese baggage certificate from the Portuguese India Embassy and then ship to a Portuguese port.
  5. We are concerned about getting duty free status on both our vehicle and our HHG as it may take us to 3 to 6 months to find a home to buy. We do not want to bring a 40’ ocean container load of HHG earlier than when we find a home. It would be costly to rent a large home, just to accommodate our HHG until we have found a permanent home.
  6. I have seen conflicting input on the allowed time periods for HHG to arrive duty free:
    a) Does the allowed time start after we arrive in Portugal or after we have gained residency
    b) Is the allowed time 3 months or can it be up to 12 months?
    c) Is it a problem to get duty free status on both the vehicle and HHG if they arrive separately?

Thanks to all. Your guidance will be much appreciated
Sincerely, Lloyd and Vanessa, two worried senior citizen retirees

5

Hi All:

Is anyone aware of how to escrow taxes for importing belongings and cars? If you’re not a resident (have lived in Portugal) you can’t import without paying duty taxes, but supposedly there’s a way to escrow the tax and get it back. Wondering if anyone had gone through this and got the taxes back? What did you do and how?

Many thanks.

T