Anexo A (IRS): your salary on a freelancer's tax return

Bruno works part-time at a company and does a few freelance projects at the weekend. When he opens his IRS declaration, he finds an “Anexo A” already full of numbers he never typed in: salary, tax withheld, deductions. And he panics: did the system get it right? And these fields - what do they even mean?

Good news first: Anexo A is the part that’s already done for you. The numbers come straight from what your employer reported to the AT.

But two things trip up almost everyone: what retenção na fonte (withholding) actually is - it’s not what it looks like - and the fact that you can’t reuse your salary’s automatic deduction on the freelance side. Let’s get into it.

What Anexo A is, and why it comes pre-filled

Anexo A is where Category A income goes - employment income, i.e. your salary. (Pensions, Category H, also go here, but that’s another conversation.)

Because your company already reports to the AT how much it paid you and how much it withheld, this annex comes pre-filled. You don’t write it - you confirm it.

Each line of Quadro 4A has three columns worth knowing how to read:

Each income line shows a code next to it. For the vast majority of salaries it’s code 401 (employment income, gross). That’s the one you’ll see.

Two practical notes:

• Each taxpayer has their own lines. If you’re married and your spouse is also salaried, each of you has your own lines, separated by the taxpayer column (A or B). A spouse with no income files no Anexo A at all.
• Foreign salary does not go here. If you worked for a foreign entity, that income goes in Anexo J, not A.

Warning: If the Anexo A figures don’t match your payslip, check with your employer before correcting them. You can edit the pre-filled values, but only once you’re sure which one is wrong - your payslip or what the company reported.

Withholding isn’t a deduction - it’s money you’ve already paid

Here’s mistake number one for people who only have a salary.

Many look at the withholding (retenção na fonte) and think it’s a deduction, something that lowers the income they pay tax on. It isn’t. Withholding is tax you’ve already paid over the year - every month the company takes a slice and hands it to the AT for you.

It sounds like a technical detail, but it actually explains something that confuses everyone: why a salary-only return can produce a refund or a bill.

Here’s what happens. The monthly withholding is an estimate. At year-end, the return does the real maths:

If the company withheld too much, you get the difference back; if it withheld too little, you pay. That’s all it is. (The full logic of the May refund is in this article.)

There’s also an automatic specific deduction for anyone with a salary: in 2025 it’s €4,462.15 that the state subtracts from your employment income, with nothing to prove. (If your mandatory Social Security contributions are higher than that figure, the real contribution amount counts instead.)

Salary AND recibos verdes? Two things you need to know

If you’re employed and freelance at the same time, the two incomes add up on the same return and IRS applies the brackets to the total. That’s already explained in detail in the article on working a job and freelancing at the same time - we won’t repeat it here.

What that article doesn’t cover, and what trips most people up, are these two Anexo A specifics:

1. You can’t use your salary’s deduction as an extra deduction on your freelance income.

Your salary gets the automatic €4,462.15 deduction. But that belongs to Category A. Your recibos verdes (Category B) are taxed via the coefficient - on the simplified regime, only 75% of what you invoice counts as income (see the article on the coefficient). Curiously, the same €4,462.15 figure reappears on the Category B side, but only as a minimum expense floor inside Category B’s own calculation (the art. 31.º rule), not as a second deduction you stack on top.

Watch out for a common confusion: the “option for Category A rules” that appears in Anexo B is a different thing - a rare and rarely beneficial choice, not your salary deduction being reused.

2. If you had a salary, you lose the new-activity reduction for that year.

In the first and second years of activity, the 0.75 coefficient usually has a reduction (it drops to 0.375 in year 1 and 0.5625 in year 2). But there’s a trap:

The reduction is only “for that year”, not forever - but having a salary in the same year wipes out that discount. To understand how the coefficient works in general, see the article on the coefficient.

Joint filing: one salary, one freelancer

What if you’re married, one with a salary and one freelancing? This is where the family quotient (quociente conjugal) comes in.

Marta is salaried and Diogo is a freelancer. When they file jointly, the tax is calculated as if each had earned half the total, and then multiplied by two.

This usually pays off when the incomes are unequal - but mind the misconception:

It does not mean half is exempt, nor that you pay “tax on 2.5”. The whole income is taxed. What changes is that, by halving the base, more of it falls into lower brackets - and the benefit is bigger the more different the two incomes are.

As you’ve seen, a spouse with no income files no Anexo A - they appear only on the cover sheet of the joint declaration, as Sujeito Passivo B, with no income line at all.

Warning: The costliest mistake is trying to stack the €4,462.15 salary deduction on top of your freelance income as an extra deduction - you can’t; Category B has its own rule. And don’t think half is exempt on a joint return. If you have a mixed situation (multiple incomes, IRS Jovem, NHR), don’t fill it in blind: check the calculation before you submit.

✅ In summary

1. Anexo A comes pre-filled with your salary - check the numbers against your payslip. Withholding isn’t a deduction: it’s IRS you’ve already paid month by month, which is why a salary-only return can produce a refund or a bill.

2. Salary and recibos verdes add up, but the automatic salary deduction (€4,462.15 in 2025) can’t be reused on the freelance side, and having a salary makes you lose the new-activity reduction that year. On a joint return, the tax is worked out on half the total - without half being exempt.

3. With FIZ your IRS declaration is assembled for you: the system pulls Anexo A straight from the AT portal, combines it with your recibos verdes, works out the real tax (correct brackets, lost reduction, family quotient) and you submit the declaration directly on the AT portal, with no maths by hand. See the plans.