Sofia is a designer and works through Upwork and Fiverr. She’s paid in dollars, the platform takes a commission, and she declares… what lands in her account? That’s where two costly mistakes begin.
You declare the gross, not the net
Sofia invoices €1,000 on a project, Upwork takes 10% (€100), and she receives €900. The mistake is to declare €900. What counts as your income is the full contract value - €1,000 - because the commission is a service you buy from the platform, not a discount on your invoicing.
Declaring only the net is under-reporting income - for IRS, for VAT and for Social Security. And, as you’ll see, on the simplified regime you’re taxed on a percentage of the gross anyway.
Your code and the coefficient: 0.75
Unlike a courier or a driver, a designer, developer or translator is on the art. 151.º professions list (designer 1336, developer 1332, translator 1334, consultant 1320). That fixes the simplified-regime coefficient at 0.75 - 75% of what you invoice goes into your IRS. You can’t pick 0.35: for a listed profession, it really is 0.75.
VAT has two sides
Side 1 - the platform’s commission. Upwork, Fiverr and Malt are foreign companies. When they charge you the commission, you must self-assess 23% VAT on it in Portugal, even when exempt under art. 53.º - and, being exempt, without deducting it. It’s the invisible cost almost no one accounts for.
Side 2 - your invoice to the client. Upwork acts as an intermediary: your customer is the end client, not the platform. So VAT depends on who they are (check case by case - on Fiverr or Malt the contractual customer may be the platform itself):
The art. 53.º twist: reverse-charge work doesn’t count towards €15,000
Since 1 July 2025, the €15,000 threshold counts only operations in national territory. The services you invoice to foreign businesses under reverse charge (M40) don’t count towards it - you can invoice well over €15,000 to foreign businesses and still be exempt on the Portuguese side. (Note: sales to EU private individuals are located in Portugal and do count towards the limit.) Careful: you still owe the VAT on the commission (Side 1).
Social Security - and it’s Anexo B, not Anexo J
You pay 21.4% on 70% of what you invoice (each month’s base = 1/3 of the quarter). And platform income is Category B, on Anexo B: you work from Portugal, so it’s income here - it doesn’t go on Anexo J just because the client or platform is foreign.
Careful: the costliest mistake isn’t the tax - it’s declaring the net. The Upwork/Fiverr commission doesn’t reduce your invoicing; it counts separately (and brings the reverse-charge VAT with it). Always declare the gross contract value.
✅ In summary
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Declare the gross, not the net. The platform commission is a service you buy, not a discount. And the coefficient is 0.75 (designer/developer/translator are on the art. 151.º list).
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VAT has two sides: you self-assess 23% on the commission (even exempt, no deduction); and on the invoice to the end client (on Upwork; on Fiverr/Malt check whether the client is the platform) you apply M40 (EU business), 23%/M10 (EU individual) or M40/M44 (business/individual outside the EU). Foreign work under M40 doesn’t count towards €15,000.
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With FIZ you invoice each client with the right reason, the commission self-assessment and Social Security are handled for you, and you always declare the gross without slipping. See the plans.
