The safeguard is enshrined in the government decree setting out the new withholding tax tables, published today on the Finance Portal.
The assurance pertains to the withholding rates for August and September, which are significantly lower than those from January to July. This is to compensate taxpayers for the amounts withheld in the first seven months of the year based on a different IRS version than the one applicable to 2025 income after the parliament reduced IRS rates from the 1st to the 8th bracket.
The theoretical possibility of correcting the withholding amounts for August and September applies both to entities that pay salaries (such as companies, public services, or social solidarity institutions) and to pension-paying entities (such as Social Security and the Caixa Geral de Aposentações).
The document, signed by the Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs, Cláudia Reis Duarte, states that “in situations where withholdings at source on employment income and pensions paid or made available between August 1 and September 30, 2025, have not been carried out according to the tables provided in paragraph 2 [of the decree], the entity responsible for withholding can make adjustments to the withholdings to be carried out in the following months, up to and including December 2025.”
Despite this, the government expects that by announcing the tables now, paying entities will still be able to apply the new tables in August, including Social Security and the Caixa Geral de Aposentações.
Questioned by Lusa on the matter, the Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs recalls that last year, the tables were made known closer to the time of processing incomes. Nonetheless, “the majority of economic agents managed to adapt their systems,” hence the expectation for 2025 “is that they will manage” in time.
“Nevertheless, if any economic agent, employer, or payer encounters difficulties and cannot implement it in August, they can make the adjustment in the following months until the end of the year, as was the case with last year’s tables,” she states to Lusa.
In 2024, the IRS also dropped mid-year, with the new withholding tables being released on August 26 to be applied in September. As Social Security had already processed pensions at that time, it only applied the new rates in October, making the necessary correction.
This year, however, the government expects pensioners to receive the correct amounts right from the start.
“The expectation is that pensioners will see this reduction reflected already in August,” the Secretary of State affirms.
