Modelo 22 and IES: the Two Returns a Portuguese Company Owes

• Modelo 22 by the last day of May. IES by 15 July. Neither moves for a weekend — the articles say so in terms.
• The IRC rate for 2026 is 19%, not the 17% printed in article 87.º. The current figure is in the transitional rule, not the article.
• Small and mid-cap companies pay 15% on the first €50,000 of taxable income from 2026, and qualifying startups 12.5%.
• The pagamento especial por conta was abolished in 2022. If your advice still mentions it, that advice is four years old.
• The three payments on account in July, September and December are for the CURRENT year, sized from last year's tax.

A Portuguese company files two annual returns, and they are not two versions of the same thing. Article 117.º of the CIRC lists them separately: the Modelo 22, which is the tax return, and the IES, which is the annual accounting and tax information declaration. Different deadlines, different content, different audiences.

This matters most to a person who arrived expecting one filing. If you are a sole trader — recibos verdes, no company — none of this applies to you; your business income goes on Anexo B or C of your personal Modelo 3. This page is about companies.

The two returns, and their dates

Both articles carry the same unusual sentence: the date applies "independentemente de esse dia ser útil ou não útil". Portugal rolls periodic deadlines off weekends and explicitly refuses to roll these. 31 May 2026 is a Sunday and the Modelo 22 is still due that day.

The IES is worth understanding as one submission with four readers. The same file satisfies the tax authority, the commercial register (the deposit of accounts), the national statistics institute and the Bank of Portugal. That is why it is bigger than the Modelo 22 and why article 121.º n.º 5 requires it to agree exactly with the bookkeeping.

If your accounting year is not the calendar year

Then neither date above applies to you. Article 120.º n.º 2 gives the Modelo 22 the last day of the fifth month after your period ends, and article 121.º n.º 3 gives the IES the fifteenth day of the seventh month after. A period ending 30 June means 30 November and 15 January.

And if the company ceases activity, both collapse onto one date: the last day of the third month after cessation, under article 120.º n.º 3, which article 121.º n.º 4 extends to the IES. If the previous period's deadline had not yet run, that return moves to the same day.

The rate, and why it is not where you would look

Open article 87.º n.º 1 and it says the IRC rate is 17%. Do not use that number for 2026. The article was rewritten by Lei n.º 64/2025 and the same law's article 3.º holds it back: 17% applies to periods beginning on or after 1 January 2028. The rate steps down to it.

This is why an undated "the IRC rate is X" is not usable. It was true for some period, and the odds are that period is not yours.

• PME and Small Mid Cap, from 2026: 15% on the first €50,000 of taxable income, with the general rate above it (art. 87.º n.º 2). Subject to the EU de minimis rules under n.º 3.
• Qualifying startups under Lei n.º 21/2023: 12.5% on that first €50,000 (art. 87.º n.º 8).
• Non-residents with no permanent establishment here: 25% (art. 87.º n.º 4), with 35% on some prize and capital income.
• Entities whose main activity is not commercial, industrial or agricultural: the same rate as n.º 1, so 19% for 2026 (art. 87.º n.º 5).

Two surcharges on top

Derrama municipal is charged by the municipality on taxable profit, up to 1.5%, and every council sets its own — some exempt smaller companies entirely. AT publishes the full table each year in an ofício-circulado; the current one for the 2025 period is n.º 20293/2026, a republication that replaced n.º 20288/2026. Check yours rather than assuming a rate.

Derrama estadual is national and only bites above €1,500,000 of taxable profit, under article 87.º-A: 3% on the slice from €1.5m to €7.5m, 5% from €7.5m to €35m, and 9% above €35m. Most companies reading this will never meet it.

Autonomous taxation: the line that surprises people

Article 88.º taxes certain expenses on their own, regardless of whether the company made a profit. A loss-making company still pays it, and n.º 14 can raise every rate in the article by ten percentage points when the period shows a tax loss in a commercial, industrial or agricultural activity. Not always: the rise does not apply in the year activity starts or the year after (n.º 15), and for 2026 Lei 73-A/2025 art. 95.º n.º 5 also switches it off where the company had taxable profit in one of the three previous periods and filed its Modelo 22 and IES for the two previous periods on time, or is in its start year or one of the two following.

The car costs are the whole running cost, not just the purchase: article 88.º n.º 5 names depreciation, rent or hire, insurance, maintenance, fuel and the taxes on owning or using it. A €46,000 company car is taxed at 32% of everything it costs, or 42% in a loss-making year where none of the exceptions above applies.

Payments on account, and the one that no longer exists

Article 104.º n.º 1 a) requires three payments on account, due in July, September and on 15 December of the year the profit belongs to. They are not a payment towards the return you just filed — they are advance tax on the year you are living in.

Article 105.º sizes them from the previous year's tax: 80% of it where turnover was €500,000 or less, 95% where it was more, divided into three equal amounts rounded up. So a company's first profitable year is followed by a second year with three payments in it, which is the cash-flow surprise most owners describe.

You may skip the third one. Article 107.º n.º 1 allows it where the payments already made equal or exceed the tax that will be due — but n.º 2 charges compensatory interest if that judgement was wrong by more than 20%.

And the pagamento especial por conta is gone. Article 106.º was revoked by Lei n.º 12/2022, de 27 de junho. Advice that still lists it as a fourth payment predates that repeal.

What Finkavo can and cannot do here

We compute both deadlines from the CIRC articles, including the off-cycle and cessation cases, once your profile gives the company's tax-period end or cessation date; without it we assume the calendar year and say so. We do not read your company's Modelo 22 or IES status from AT: both sit under the company's own NIF, so the honest answer is a link to them rather than a status we do not have. That is stated in our own coverage map rather than left to be discovered.