Portugal has scrapped its non-habitual resident statute, under which foreigners pay a fixed 20% rate on their income for a 10-year period and aren’t subject to local tax rates, which range between 15% to 48%. Anyone benefitting from the program can continue doing so despite its end, but apparently that’s left people complaining that everything is different now.
Related: Portugal to end its non-habitual resident tax regime, PM Costa says
Complaining is something we do well in Portugal, regardless of where we’re originally from. But it may lead to some people going elsewhere.
“Paying a tax rate of almost 50% doesn’t make sense. If you pay that much, at least you’d expect the country to be super efficient in everything, but it is not the case in Portugal,” one tech worker who spoke to the BBC said.
The same person told BBC that “it makes sense to not have [the NHR tax exemption]. I think it did its job. Now a lot of people want to come and live here, and you don’t need a tax incentive to get them to move. People will come anyway.”
Let’s see!
