How is net salary calculated in Portugal?

What is net salary?

The gross salary is the figure stated in your contract. The net salary is what actually reaches your account each month, after two mandatory deductions for employees: Social Security and IRS (income tax).

The idea is simple:

Net salary = gross salary − Social Security − IRS

What changes from person to person is the size of each deduction. Social Security is a fixed percentage; IRS depends on how much you earn. Let’s take them in turn.

How much is deducted for Social Security?

The employee Social Security contribution is a flat 11% of the gross salary¹. It is deducted every month and applies to all remuneration, including the holiday and Christmas subsídios.

The employer contributes a further 23.75% separately, but that amount does not come out of your salary; it is a cost to the company. For your net pay, what counts is the 11%.

On a gross salary of €1,500, Social Security takes €165 a month (11% of €1,500).

How does IRS come in?

IRS is subtler, for two reasons.

First: IRS is not charged on the gross salary, but on the taxable income, the income after the employment specific deduction. In 2026 that deduction is 8.54 × IAS = €4,587.09 (or your total Social Security contributions, if higher)². The 2026 IAS is set at €537.13⁴.

Second: IRS is an annual, progressive tax. The 2026 brackets (Art. 68.º) apply to the taxable income: each slice of income is taxed at its own rate, and only the part that reaches a higher bracket pays the higher rate³. The most reliable way to estimate the IRS on a salary is therefore to do the sum by the year and divide at the end, exactly the reconciliation your IRS return performs. The withholding tables you see on your payslip are merely a monthly advance of that figure, corrected later on the return.

Worked example: a €1,500 salary

Take a gross salary of €1,500 a month, paid 14 times (with the subsídios). That is €21,000 a year.

1. Social Security: 11% of €21,000 = €2,310 a year (€165/mo).
2. Taxable income: €21,000 − €4,587.09 (specific deduction) = €16,412.91.
3. IRS: applying the 2026 brackets to €16,412.91, the tax is about €2,520 for the year (€180/mo).
4. Net: 21,000 − 2,310 − 2,520 = €16,170 a year, i.e. about €1,155 a month.

The total burden (Social Security + IRS) is close to 23% of gross. Run the figures for your own salary on the net salary calculator.

What about minimum-wage earners?

Here there is an important protection: the minimum-existence floor (mínimo de existência). The law ensures the lowest incomes pay no IRS (or very little), so that no one is left with a net below a minimum. In practice, earners near the minimum wage pay little or no IRS.

Social Security (11%), however, always applies, even at the minimum wage. So for low salaries the net is almost the gross minus the 11%.

Note: the net salary calculator does not model the minimum-existence floor, so for salaries near the minimum it shows more IRS than is really due, your true net will be higher.

What is €X gross in net pay? (2026 table)

This is the question most people are actually asking. The table below has the sum already done for the most searched-for salaries, using the 2026 IRS brackets and the 11% Social Security contribution, for a salary paid 14 times (with the holiday and Christmas subsídios), individual taxation, mainland Portugal.

Notice what the table shows: from €1,000 to €4,000 the gross quadruples, but the net rises to only a little more than triple. That is IRS progressivity: the total burden climbs from about 20% to about 36% of gross.

And at the minimum wage? In 2026 the national minimum wage is €920⁵. Social Security always takes its 11% (€101.20), but the minimum-existence floor cancels the IRS in practice, so the net lands near €818.80 a month. Run your own figure on the net salary calculator, or, if you know the net and want the gross, use the gross salary calculator.

Why your payslip does not match this calculation

The IRS figure on your monthly payslip is not the final tax: it is retenção na fonte (withholding), an advance computed from monthly tables that depend on marital status, the number of income holders and dependants. The real tax is the annual settlement, the one we did above, and that is what your IRS return works out the following year. The gap between what was withheld across the year and what was actually due is exactly what produces your refund (or the amount to pay).

So there are two useful sums, not one: to know what comes off this month, with marital status and dependants, see what IRS withholding is and use the withholding calculator; to know what you keep over the year, use the annual calculation on this page.

What can still raise your net pay

Many people take home more than these sums suggest, for three reasons the base estimate leaves out:

• Meal allowance. It is paid separately and, within the legal limits, carries no IRS and no Social Security: in 2026, €6.15 a day in cash and €10.46 a day on a meal card or voucher⁶. It therefore reaches your account almost in full. See the meal allowance calculator.
• IRS Jovem. It exempts a percentage of employment income for workers up to 35, across their first ten years of work. Because it moves IRS and not Social Security, it can be worth over a hundred euros a month: see what IRS Jovem is.
• Duodécimos. Taking the holiday and Christmas subsídios spread across the 12 months does not change the yearly total, only how it arrives: see what duodécimos are.

Gross, net and what is not included

To estimate the net precisely, some factors move the IRS and depend on your situation: dependants, joint taxation (couples), deductions to tax (health, education, invoices) and schemes such as IRS Jovem. All tend to reduce IRS, so your real net may be a little higher than a simple individual estimate.

To understand the tax in detail (brackets, average and marginal rate, joint taxation), see how IRS is calculated and use the IRS calculator.