Portugal 2026: the NHR is dead, here is what replaced it (IFICI)

The non-habitual resident regime — the NHR (RNH in Portuguese) — has been closed to new arrivals. What replaces it has a different name and a different logic: the IFICI, the tax incentive for scientific research and innovation, created by the Portuguese 2024 Budget Law (lei n.º 82/2023, of 29 December) and set out in Article 58.º-A of the Statute of Tax Benefits, the EBF.

The regime only became applicable with its implementing regulation: portaria n.º 352/2024/1 of 23 December 2024, amended by portaria n.º 52-A/2025/1 of 25 February 2025. Nearly a year therefore passed between the creation of the scheme and its actual implementation: this gap explains the uncertainty encountered by the first arrivals.

The NHR was a residence regime: essentially, it was enough to settle in the country. The IFICI is an activity regime: it does not follow the person, it follows what they do in Portugal.

Category A and B income — wages and salaries, professional income — from eligible activities is taxed at a special rate of 20%¹, provided the conditions of the regime are met. The benefit runs for 10 years² in a row; if interrupted, it can be resumed for the remaining years.

Foreign-source income is, as a general rule, exempt from IRS, with the exception of category H income — pensions. This is the difference with the NHR that has the heaviest consequences for a retiree: the foreign pension is not covered.

Income from a jurisdiction with a preferential tax regime, for its part, is taxed at the flat withholding rate of 35%³.

Access is reserved for people, Portuguese or foreign, who meet three conditions.

1. Not having been tax resident in Portugal during the previous from 5 years⁴, and becoming a Portuguese tax resident;
2. carrying on one of the professions or activities covered by Article 58.º-A of the EBF — higher education and scientific research, qualified jobs in approved entities, highly technology-intensive professions;
3. never having benefited from the non-habitual resident regime, nor from the IFICI itself.

The third condition is the one that most often closes the door: a former NHR beneficiary cannot switch to the IFICI. The two regimes can neither be combined nor follow one another.

Registration is not automatic. The application must be filed with the competent entity by 15 January of the year following the one in which the person becomes resident in Portuguese territory.

This is the most serious practical point of vigilance in the scheme: the date is a hard annual cut-off, and it falls two weeks after New Year's Eve. A move during the year that is not followed by registration within this deadline means losing the benefit, without the tax authorities even having to refuse it.

Before committing, two checks are essential: that the activity carried on genuinely falls within the scope of Article 58.º-A — the list is exhaustive and refers to approved entities — and that the original tax residency has actually been given up within the meaning of the applicable treaty.

The detailed list of eligible activities and entities is not reproduced here: it appears in the implementing portaria and has already been amended once in 2025. Any decision must start from the text in force at the date of the plan, not from a copied list.

The position of NHR beneficiaries who are already settled is not addressed in the tax authorities' answers consulted on 26 September 2026: they state only that combining the two is ruled out for the future. Rights acquired under the old regime are governed by the texts that closed it, not by the IFICI.

Finally, the interaction between the exemption of foreign income and the tax treaties signed by Portugal requires case-by-case examination. A Portuguese exemption does not, by itself, mean that the source country waives its right to tax.