“Both Social Security and Caixa Geral de Aposentações will implement the new tables in August,” confirmed an official source from the Ministry of Labor, Solidarity, and Social Security (MTSS), when asked about when the two entities will reflect the new rates.
Unlike last summer, when Social Security and CGA failed to apply the new tables immediately after the announcement of the new withholdings, the two entities anticipate being able to pay the upcoming pensions according to the new withholdings.
In 2024, the tax was also lowered mid-year, and when the government released the new tables at the end of August, with new values to be applied in September, Social Security and CGA had already processed the pensions for the following month. Therefore, they only applied the new rates in October, making adjustments for the September pensions. This time, the forecast is different.
According to the government decree published on Tuesday on the Portal das Finanças, companies and other paying entities of salaries and pensions must apply the new tables from the beginning (from August), but if they cannot do so immediately, they may correct the values later, by the end of the year.
The decree by the Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs, Cláudia Reis Duarte, includes tables for two distinct periods.
One set applies in August and September, with exceptionally lower rates, to compensate for the withholdings made between January and July, when it was not yet possible to consider the reduction of the IRS rates from the 1st to the 8th bracket approved by parliament this month.
The second set of tables pertains to the months of October, November, and December, reflecting the final version of the IRS. In these three months of the year, the rates are higher than those for August and September but lower than the current ones.
The provision allowing for the correction of withholdings (in case paying entities do not apply them immediately) only pertains to the values for August and September.
In the decree, the Secretary of State anticipates that “in situations where withholdings on income from dependent work and pensions paid or made available between August 1st and September 30th, 2025, have not been carried out according to the tables provided in section 2 [of the decree], the entity obligated to withhold may correct the withholdings in the following months, up to and including December 2025.”
In statements to Lusa regarding the new tables, Cláudia Reis Duarte had already stated the expectation that pensioners could see this reduction reflected as early as August.
In September, in addition to the usual pension, pensioners receiving up to 1,567.5 euros gross monthly will receive an extraordinary supplement, which varies according to the pension amount and can be 100, 150, or 200 euros.
This supplement will not be subject to withholding tax, as the government decided to exclude it from the monthly levy.
The decree-law that created the supplement, published in the Diário da República on July 18, explicitly states that the amount “is not subject to withholding tax on individual income.” Simultaneously, it is ensured that “it is not subject to seizure” and “does not count for the calculation of the amount of the solidarity supplement for the elderly.”
