Your accountant asks for your Portal das Finanças password to handle your affairs. It looks like the simplest thing: you text the password over and it’s sorted.
But in fact you’ve just given them full access - to everything, including changing your address, your bank details or your contact email. And if you switch accountants tomorrow, they still have the password. There’s a right way to do this, and it doesn’t go through sharing the main password.
Why sharing the main password is a risk
The main Portal das Finanças password is the key to everything. Whoever has it can see and change everything of yours at the AT, with no limits, and still be “you” as far as the system is concerned.
Sharing it is like giving someone your house key to water the plants and finding that key also opens the safe. That’s precisely why the Portal has two ways to give someone limited access - without handing over the master key.
Option 1: create an authorised user (sub-user)
Inside your account, you can create an authorised user with their own password and only the operations you choose. It’s ideal for an employee or for invoicing software that needs to communicate documents.
The path: on the Portal das Finanças, go to Gestão de Utilizadores, click Criar um novo utilizador, set a name and a password for that person, and choose the authorised operations (for example, only “comunicar faturas” or view-only).
At any time you can change the permissions, change that user’s password or suspend them. Your main password never leaves your hands.
Option 2: authorise a third party by NIF
If the one who needs access is your accountant or lawyer, the right tool is Gestão de Autorizações de Acessos. Here you grant permissions to a third party identified by their own NIF - they log in with their account, not yours, and can only do what you authorised (consult information, file certain declarations, etc.).
The authorisations aren’t forever: you consult, change or revoke them whenever you want. Switching accountants? You revoke the old one’s access in a click, without having to change your password.
André’s case
André, a consultant in Coimbra, was about to email his tax office password to his new accountant.
Instead, he went to Gestão de Autorizações de Acessos and gave access by NIF, only for the declarations the accountant handles. André still logs in with his own password; the accountant does their work with their own account. The day the relationship ends, André revokes the access and nobody touches anything.
Marta’s case
Marta shared her main password with an accountant two years ago and never changed it. When she switched professionals, she realised the old one still had access to everything.
She had to change the password in a hurry and review her details. Had she used a NIF authorisation, one click would have cut the access.
Careful: review now and then who has access to your account and with what permissions, in Gestão de Utilizadores and Gestão de Autorizações de Acessos. Old access left open is a common slip - and one of the easiest to fix.
Where FIZ comes in
Much of what you’d give third parties access to do - issue invoices, file VAT and Social Security - FIZ does for you automatically, with certified invoicing and quarterly returns filed without intervention. You need to share less, and what you share stays limited to the essentials.
In summary
- Never share your main Portal das Finanças password - it gives full access, including changing your details.
- For an employee or software, create an authorised user with their own password and limited operations. For the accountant, use Gestão de Autorizações de Acessos, by their NIF. (Step-by-step guide in the Help Center.)
- Permissions are revocable at any time - review periodically who has access and cut what no longer makes sense.
