Madeira Island, Portugal, is affirming itself as a tech hub for European and American entrepreneurs. The main reasons? Low taxation, good weather, fast internet connections (above European and American mainland averages) and a steady supply of high-skilled workforce in the IT sector.
Taxation is one of the main reasons that hinder economic growth of a startup and finding the correct jurisdiction for your rising business can be troublesome. That is why Portugal has come up with a taxation business that is startup-friendly.
Madeira Island, is located 1h 30min by plane from Lisbon, as offers a 5% corporate rate on all income derived from profit with non-Portuguese companies, full exemption from withholding tax on dividend remittances from the Madeira, among other tax benefits.
The MIBC is a tax benefit scheme granted under the Portuguese Tax Benefits Statute and duly approved by the European Commission.
Since the MIBC is governed by Portuguese and European Law, it offers the required legal certainty to its investors. All companies duly licensed to operate within the MIBC comply with all legal requirements to operate in Portugal, and therefore in the EU.
Given the above, all e-commerce directives have been duly transposed into Portuguese law, including those relating to electronic billing, digital signatures and data protection.
Such facts make it clear that, in addition to being a completely transparent tax incentive, the MIBC also allows a for an effective tax saving that can be used in the internationalization of the licensed company.
In addition to all the above-mentioned benefits, companies that are duly licensed in the MIBC may cumulatively apply for European funding and other financial instruments available to companies based in the Autonomous Region of Madeira.
Apart from the above, employees of startup companies and other technological companies might also be entitled to a 20% flat rate on their salary for a period of 10-years and a 0% tax rate on the foreign income they earn. These incentives not only allow you easily bring your team to live in on the world’s most beautiful islands but also to attract the best of the best worldwide.
Startups looking into expand their international business, have access to a skilled workforce (namely IT engineers), good and speedy internet connections should be looking into locating their business in Madeira Island, Portugal.
Madeira enjoys the existence of a modern dedicated building designed to host telecommunications and data equipment, such as Data Centres and Internet Service Providers, among others. The Data Centre offers: uninterrupted power supply; An intrusion and a fire detection systems; A specialised air conditioning system; Computerised access control system; redundant telecommunications network; and technical support by dedicated personnel.
Madeira is also a hub for several international optical submarine cables, operated by the Submarine Cable Station also hosted in the Data Centre. Such allows inter-connectivity with national and international SDH networks and providing significant advantages in terms of quality, cost, bandwidth and scalability.
The Internet Gateway provided by Marconi Internet Direct (MID), offers international Internet access with no kind of contention and using diversity in the access to international backbones. The IP platform has its international connectivity distributed by: 3 PoPs (London, Amsterdam and Paris); Peering connections with hundreds of major international ISPs; and IP transits to Europe and the USA.
Apart from the above mentioned unique characteristics, the Regional Government is keen in supporting tech companies in moving to Madeira, mainly through its Start Up Madeira and the Brava Valley project, where incubation facilities are available to startups looking for island life and low taxation.
We know that bureaucracy and costs can slow down your vision and hinder your will to relocate to another jurisdiction, but we at MCS believe that Madeira Island, Portugal, holds the key to its growth.
Miguel Pinto-Correia holds a Master Degree in International Economics and European Studies from ISEG – Lisbon School of Economics & Management and a Bachelor Degree in Economics from Nova School of Business and Economics. He is a permanent member of the Order of the Economists (Ordem dos Economistas)… Read more
