Portugal Relocation
French EURL manager: preparing a business project in Portugal
You operate a French EURL and are considering an activity in Portugal. Prepare decisions about the existing company, your management role and the new contracts you intend to enter into.
Let’s discuss your project
A few details to understand your business and the next step.
Bertrand Jayol receives your enquiry for an initial assessment. Referral to the partner is considered with your agreement. Privacy
Collect the EURL’s actual parameters
Gather the articles, shareholder identity, your exact role, tax choices already applied and evidence of remuneration or other payments. Add company debts, receivables, contracts and operating resources. This avoids treating every EURL as the same case. State whether you want to continue the existing activity, launch a separate offer or simply change where you live. These are different projects requiring different questions and supporting information before a structure can be assessed.
Prepare links with a Portuguese activity
List customers whose contracts would remain with the EURL and new contracts that need discussion. Identify assets or services that another structure might use; those require their own review. Your personal residence must also be assessed against French criteria and the applicable treaty. Do not replace this preparation with an isolated comparison of tax rates. Decisions about the EURL should use its actual circumstances, with no assumption that it must automatically close.
Prepare the Portuguese formation file
If the project leads to a new company, assemble shareholder identification, proposed ownership, management roles, the actual activity and intended address. Portugal’s online incorporation service requires shareholders to have a Portuguese NIF, among other conditions. Documents and signing options depend on the file, so check them before committing a date to customers. For a commercial company, also organise accounting and the start of activity with a contabilista certificado. Keep evidence of decisions available to the people preparing those steps.
Build a practical timeline
Set out the known dates and the dates that remain conditional: any relocation, contract expiry or renewal, intended formation and the first service delivery. For every action, record the responsible person, the document needed and the condition that allows the next step to proceed. Ask each adviser to specify their scope. The formation request becomes more useful when the business purpose, existing activity and timing constraints are described together, with cross-border questions raised at the start and ownership of each follow-up clearly assigned.
- Sample contracts and invoices without unnecessary customer data.
- Residence, working location and customer countries recorded separately.
- The main question to resolve before the first invoice is issued.
Portugal
Before you incorporate
Registering as self-employed and incorporating a company are different routes. The choice depends on how your business actually operates. A Portuguese company alone does not determine your tax residence or the treatment of every source of income.
Information to gather
- Your country of residence and where you actually work.
- A description of the services or products you sell.
- Whether your customers are businesses or individuals, and their countries.
- Any shareholders, existing business structure and your planned timing.
Sources and references
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