Bruno delivers for Glovo and Uber Eats. He opened activity, issues green receipts and assumes that, since he invoices little, tax is a detail. There are three things almost no courier knows - and one of them can cost money every month.
First: you might not even be “self-employed”
Since 2023 the law has a presumption aimed precisely at platform work (art. 12.º-A of the Labour Code, created by Lei n.º 13/2023). If the platform sets your pay, controls how you work (in real time, by algorithm), penalises refusals, can deactivate your account or owns the equipment you use, you are presumed to be an employee - not self-employed. It’s enough that some of these features are present.
If that’s your case, the platform is presumed to be the employer - but it’s a rebuttable presumption (the platform can prove you work with real autonomy). And if there’s an intermediary between you and the platform, it’s the court that decides who the employer is (art. 12.º-A n.os 4-6). Until that’s recognised (by the labour inspectorate or a court), you carry everything as self-employed. So “self-employed” here is the platform’s label, not a settled truth.
Your code - and the coefficient that follows
You open activity with CAE 53202 (home-delivery services). Since delivery isn’t a profession “named” in the art. 151.º list, the simplified-regime coefficient is 0.35 - only 35% of what you invoice goes into your IRS (the State assumes the other 65% are your expenses).
In your first year of activity this coefficient is halved (0.175) and in the second cut by 25% (0.2625), provided you have no employment or pension income and haven’t ceased activity in the last 5 years (CIRS art. 31.º n.os 10 and 11) - so at the start even less enters your IRS. (If you reopened activity soon after closing it - under 5 years -, this reduction doesn’t apply.)
The hidden VAT: the platform’s commission
Think that, under €15,000 of turnover in Portuguese territory, you’re VAT-exempt (art. 53.º) and that’s that? Not quite.
When the platform charges you the commission, you’re buying a service from it. If whoever invoices you is a foreign company - like Glovo (Spanish) - the law makes you self-assess 23% VAT on that commission, in Portugal, even while exempt under art. 53.º (arts. 2.º and 6.º of the CIVA). Being exempt, you don’t deduct that VAT - it stays your cost. And there’s no minimum: the well-known €10,000 threshold is only for buying goods, not services. Check who invoices your commission: Uber Eats, for instance, may bill through a Portuguese entity - and then the VAT is already on the invoice.
In practice this makes you register for intra-EU operations (your NIF becomes valid in VIES) and file a periodic VAT return to pay it. It’s why some platforms require couriers to be on the normal VAT regime.
Social Security: 21.4% - and the first year cuts both ways
You pay 21.4% on 70% of what you invoice. Each month’s base is 1/3 of what you declare in the quarterly declaration.
If you open activity for the first time, there’s a 12-month contribution exemption. It sounds purely good - but in those months you build no new protection (sickness, parental leave) and no time towards a pension. Anyone doing this full-time may prefer to start contributing sooner.
Careful: keeping fuel, bike or thermal-bag receipts doesn’t lower your IRS on the simplified regime - the 0.35 coefficient already presumes expenses, and the 15% rule is almost always covered by the automatic specific deduction and your Social Security contributions (only if you earn well above that do you need documented expenses to avoid an add-on to taxable income). Deducting real costs euro-for-euro (fuel, commission, the self-assessed VAT) only happens under organised accounting - worth it when costs are genuinely high.
✅ In summary
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You might be a “false” freelancer. If the platform sets the price, controls your work by algorithm or deactivates your account, the relationship can legally be employment (Lei 13/2023).
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VAT-exempt isn’t “no VAT”. A foreign platform’s commission (like Glovo’s) makes you self-assess 23% VAT here, even below €15,000 and without being able to deduct it - plus registering in VIES and filing the periodic return.
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With FIZ you invoice the platforms with the right reason, and the VAT (including the self-assessment on the commission) and Social Security are worked out and filed for you - no surprise letter from the tax office. See the plans.
