Starting a company in Portugal

Residencies & citizenships Portugal Golden Visa 🇵🇹
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I wanted to run down what we did for our Golden Visa and how we went about it. Unlike a majority of the people in this thread we went with the hire 10 employees method.

I started the process in August 22 by engaging an attorney and incorporating the company. Portugal allows you to do most steps in parallel so it was a quick process to get them company name, get the company NIF and have the attorney do English/portuguese incorporation documents .

Within a couple of weeks we were getting a bank account. The easiest was Novo but their online system is marginal. Lots of signing documents , matching passport signatures and then scanning and also sending FedEx .

We used our attorney for work contracts and my first hire was a manager for the office. Since she lived in Coimbra the office is located there. We do back office support for multiple industries . So customer service and overnight document processing .

Portugal allows you to figure out a monthly salary then multiply it times 14 (14 paychecks a year) and then divide by twelve . Social charges run 30-40%. There are minor items like health screening etc that have to be done but in general it was easy.

Portugal requires use to use an accountant so that was a fixed 400€ additional expense . Payroll is done by accountant who sends you the required files and tho process the payroll via your bank. It’s all automated and takes about 15 minutes . The major issue was getting money from US to Portugal.

Money movement - we started with bank wires (our clients pay the US entity and we send the money to Portugal for their costs) but that cost was expensive . It did get there quickly but wow!!!

I then moved to a currency transfer company which worked great. Cost was 39$ for the wire to NY and then a 3 day wait while money moved across the world. My only issue was the 3 days.

I decided to checkout Wise and while it took some time to get the company approved (wow!!! Understatement ) I can now move money in 90 seconds. Wise also offers 4.25% interest in their savings account so we park our payroll there before distributing .

Since we started in August 22, hired people in October 22 and got to our 10 in March 23. We applied for the GV in March 23, sued in October 23 under the basis that I needed visa for me to work there. We won the law suit in April 24, finger printed in August 24 (timing more than anything) and then I got my card in late November and my family in early January 25.

Company now has 15 people and has always been profitable so this program really worked for us.

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Thank you for explanation. I am curious about this because once I get assurances that AIMA will not screw me over, I am also interested in starting a company and hiring employees - separate from the GV process.

I have heard conflicting reports about work ethic, etc. Some have said that it is difficult to call in sick and employees follow rules very carefully to avoid getting fired. Others have said that employees don’t put in any effort. Can you elaborate on this?

Also, how do you handle the numerous holidays when people leave for 1 month at a time. Do you have to adjust schedules and give some people off a different month to have continuous coverage?

I assume in some ways things are easier because you aren’t paying for health care expenses and retirement plans. This is a huge expense in some countries.

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Work ethic is very good. My staff is really solid and performs at top level. I also do pay minimum wage. We’ve let go of one problematic person and used our local attorney for that . Not too bad.

You deal with the vacations … part of life .

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How did you figure out a company to start?

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Very interesting, @MadMartinB—thank you for sharing!

Is this business related to any kind of business you’ve been running abroad or was this a brand new endeavor for you?

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I was doing something similar but with Ava’s spread across world. I consolidated needs and resources to make a viable company.

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Looked at needs/requirements and then built from there .

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This is fantastic @MadMartinB – thank you so much for sharing!

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It makes 0 sense to start a company in Portugal other than if the market is actually based in Portugal. Like it makes 0 sense to start a tech company

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Not sure that makes any sense. You do you. I have my visa so it worked for me

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Sorry i miss-phrased. Other than the visa i mean. Glad it worked out for you. I’m commenting on the fact that if the government removed the incentive of visa / tax breaks, it makes 0 sese.

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perhaps in your case but works pretty good for me and most of the other foriegners who own businesses here.

Correct, its an European way of life. Almost every country in europe is similar in this regard.

Running a business in PT is not a super smooth ride like in Singapore or UAE but offers quite a bit of value considering the relatively lower salaries, decent skillsets, decent corporate tax rates and loyal employees within EU.

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People are great, location is phenomenal, costs are low, visiting is great. Not super smooth but a solid B to B+ in terms of ease.

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I am also in the process of doing the company route. I have just hired my 10th employee and I’m about to apply.

An interested though in the legal route you took to apply pressure to get your GV. Is suing a common practice for this? It had never crossed my mind!