About SalarioBox

SalarioBox is a free calculator and guide for employees and freelancers who need a plain-language picture of Portuguese take-home pay. It is published by Ricardo Rodrigues, in Portugal. He also publishes PercentBox, a separate site of percentage calculators. There is no company, no office address and no professional licence behind this site, and none is claimed. He is not a certified accountant (TOC), a lawyer, or a stand-in for the Tax Authority or Social Security.

The site exists because the official answer is split across the IRS Code, a withholding despacho, the contributory code and the Labour Code, and most people meet that stack for the first time on a payslip or a green receipt. English pages live on portugalnetpay.com. Portuguese pages live on calculasalario.pt. They are one project. The language switch sends you to the other domain so each language has one address.

How the numbers are made

The annual IRS scale in the guides and in the calculator is article 68 of the IRS Code as amended by Lei n.º 73-A/2025, the State Budget for 2026, in the consolidated text on Portal das Finanças. There are nine mainland bands, from 12.5 percent to 48 percent, including a 44.6 percent band between €46,566 and €86,634. The parcela a abater used in the code is the amount that keeps the tax continuous at each threshold, rounded to the cent. It is a calculation aid. The statute's own column of average rates is rounded to three decimals, so a cent of difference is possible.

Employee social security in the tool is 11 percent. Employer social security, shown as a cost and not deducted from you, is 23.75 percent. Freelancer social security is 21.4 percent of relevant income (70 percent of services, 20 percent of sales), capped at 12 times the 2026 IAS of €537.13, which is €6,445.56. The 25.2 percent option is only the exclusive commercial or industrial ENI case. Simplified-regime IRS uses the article 31 coefficients 0.75, 0.35 and 0.15. Withholding on an invoice is treated as an advance, not as extra tax.

Sources and the last review

The guides were written and checked against official and professional texts on 2026-09-29. The list includes Portal das Finanças (article 68 and article 78-A), Lei n.º 73-A/2025, Despacho n.º 233-A/2026, Portaria n.º 51-B/2026/1 on the public-sector meal allowance of €6.15, the Tax Authority's January 2026 newsletter for the IAS and the specific deduction, the Labour Code, and the August 2026 practical guide of the Ordem dos Contabilistas Certificados on independent workers. Each guide ends with the links that support it. Where a 2026 preparatory date was reported differently by secondary sites, the guide says so instead of picking a winner.

If a figure on a payslip and a figure on this site disagree, the payslip and the statute win. Corrections and questions go to hello@percentbox.com. Please include the page address and the number you think is wrong. A reply is not a tax opinion.