At a glance. Law no. 26/2026 of 3 June (Lei n.º 26/2026, de 3 de junho) transposes the EU directives on administrative cooperation in tax matters into Portuguese law. It is, above all, a transparency and reporting law. It does not change IRS or IRC rates. It does not change how taxable income is calculated. Instead, it overhauls Portugal crypto tax reporting in 2026, making crypto-assets fully reportable to the tax authority. It also strengthens Pillar Two reporting for large groups and raises the penalties for non-compliance.
If you hold crypto in Portugal, or run a company that is part of a multinational group, this law affects you. It does not raise your tax rate. It raises how much information the Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira (AT – aka the Portuguese Tax and Customs Authority) receives about you, and from how many directions. In practice, that changes how you should file.
Quick read: Law 26/2026 transposes Directive (EU) 2023/2226, the OECD Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF), also known as DAC8, and Directive (EU) 2025/872 on the automatic exchange of the global minimum tax return. It amends the IRS Code, the General Regime of Tax Infringements (RGIT), Decreto-Lei n.º 61/2013, and the Global Minimum Tax Regime.
What Law 26/2026 actually is
Law 26/2026 was published in the Diário da República, 1st series, no. 107, on 3 June 2026. It is a cooperation-and-transparency instrument. Its job is to bring Portugal into line with two EU directives on the automatic exchange of tax information.
The first is Directive (EU) 2023/2226, which updates the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) with the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF). You may also know it as DAC8. The second is Directive (EU) 2025/872, which governs the mandatory exchange of the global minimum tax return under the OECD/G20 GloBE rules.
Therefore, the core message is simple. The rates stay the same. The visibility does not.
Portugal crypto tax reporting in 2026: IRS and full transparency
For individuals, the headline change sits in Article 124.º-A of the IRS Code. Law 26/2026 revises and reinforces it. It creates a mandatory reporting regime for crypto-asset service providers in respect of users who are resident in Portugal.
Until now, much of the crypto world relied on a quiet assumption: that on-chain activity was hard for the tax authority to see. That assumption is gone. The AT will now receive granular, annual information about your crypto operations, directly from the platforms you use.
In short, the “fiscal anonymity” of crypto disappears in practice. Even transfers to external wallets fall within the scope of what must be reported. If you want the position on how the gains themselves are taxed, see our guide to Portugal crypto tax in 2026.
What crypto service providers must now report
Crypto-asset service providers, including some operators that are not classic “CASPs”, must now report to the AT every year. The information they hand over is detailed.
First, they must report full user identification: name, address, tax number (NIF), and date and place of birth, among other data. Second, they must report transaction-level detail on reportable crypto-assets. That covers purchases, sales, exchanges, payments made in crypto, and transfers to external wallets, with gross amounts and fair market value.
The annual return is due by 31 May of each year, covering the previous calendar year. It must be filed electronically, in a format to be set by ministerial order (portaria).
This regime does not sit in isolation. It plugs into the wider machinery of automatic information exchange between Member States and with third jurisdictions, through the revised Decreto-Lei n.º 61/2013, the OECD’s CARF, and DAC8. As a result, information shared with the AT can flow to other tax administrations, and vice versa.
What this means for your IRS return
The practical consequence is straightforward. The probability that an omission is detected rises sharply.
If you hold or trade crypto, your declared position now needs to match a data trail that the AT already holds. That applies to capital gains. It also applies to other crypto-related income, such as staking rewards or payments received in crypto.
So the right response is not panic. It is alignment. Make sure your IRS filings reflect the same reality that your platforms are reporting. Where past years were filed loosely, review them before the data catches up. Our tax compliance and accounting team does exactly this.
IRC: Pillar Two gains teeth
For companies, Law 26/2026 does not touch the core of the IRC Code. It does not change the corporate rate or the rules for computing taxable profit. Its impact lands in two other places: the Global Minimum Tax Regime (RIMG) and the information attached to large groups.
This is the first amendment to the RIMG, Portugal’s implementation of the OECD’s Pillar Two rules. The changes align it with Directive (EU) 2025/872 on the exchange of the GloBE information return.
Article 5.º is revised to clarify group liability for the top-up tax. It sets out when intermediate or partially-owned parent entities are liable in respect of low-taxed entities, whether those entities are in Portugal or abroad. Notably, the law classifies this article as an interpretative rule. That matters for its intertemporal and retrospective application.
Article 45.º strengthens the obligations around the GloBE Information Return. It sets out who may file on behalf of the group in Portugal: a designated local entity, the ultimate parent, or a designated filing entity. It also defines when Portuguese entities are exempt because the return is filed centrally in another jurisdiction under a qualifying agreement. Importantly, the return model now aligns expressly with the OECD’s GloBE model and Annex VII of Directive (EU) 2025/872.
In parallel, Decreto-Lei n.º 61/2013 is amended. It builds a detailed framework for the automatic exchange of top-up tax information between jurisdictions.
The practical effect for in-scope multinational groups is real. Reporting and international-disclosure obligations intensify. There is added pressure for consistency between three things: the consolidated accounts, the IRC return in Portugal, and the GloBE Information Return. Even without changing the IRC Code, the minimum-tax regime continues to push the effective tax rate toward 15% in low-tax jurisdictions inside the group perimeter.
More data, more NIF, more cross-border matching
The transparency theme runs through the rest of the law. It reinforces the obligation to report the NIF in several automatic-exchange contexts. That includes country-by-country reporting (CbCR) under Article 121.º-A of the IRC Code. For periods beginning on or after 1 January 2028, the NIF must be included, wherever possible, in the information reported under that article. This makes automatic matching far easier for the AT and for other administrations.
The same logic applies to cross-border arrangements under the DAC6 regime (Law 26/2020). The law adjusts the definition of “client” and the interaction with professional secrecy. The goal is better-quality reported information, not new substantive tax.
Penalties: the cost of getting it wrong
As with IRS, the RGIT is updated. It now provides for significant fines. These apply to failure to report, omissions, inaccuracies, or breaches of due-diligence procedures by financial institutions, platform operators, and now crypto-asset service providers.
For the crypto reporting obligation, fines reach up to €22,500 for failure or delay in the communication owed by intermediaries. The message is consistent across both taxes: the system is built on data, and the penalties protect the data.
What you should do now
For individuals, review your crypto position. Make sure your IRS declarations match what your platforms will report. If earlier years were under-declared, address them proactively, rather than waiting for an automatic exchange to surface the gap.
For groups within the Pillar Two perimeter, map your filing responsibilities now. Confirm who files the GloBE Information Return. Check whether a central filing in another jurisdiction exempts your Portuguese entities. Then reconcile your consolidated accounts with your IRC and GloBE positions.
In both cases, the law rewards alignment and punishes drift.
How MCS can help
MCS is a corporate services and accounting based in Funchal, Madeira. We help individual crypto holders bring their IRS declarations into line with the new transparency standard. We work in English and Portuguese, and we deal with the AT every day.
FAQ
What is Law 26/2026 in Portugal? Law no. 26/2026 of 3 June transposes EU Directives 2023/2226 (DAC8/CARF) and 2025/872 (GloBE information exchange). It is a transparency and reporting law that amends the IRS Code, the RGIT, Decreto-Lei n.º 61/2013, and the Global Minimum Tax Regime. It does not change IRS or IRC rates.
Does Portugal now tax crypto more heavily under Law 26/2026? No. The law does not raise crypto tax rates or change how gains are calculated. It requires crypto-asset service providers to report user and transaction data to the tax authority every year, which makes undeclared income far easier to detect.
What must crypto platforms report to the Portuguese tax authority? Full user identification (name, address, NIF, date and place of birth) and transaction detail, including purchases, sales, exchanges, crypto payments, and transfers to external wallets, with gross amounts and fair market value. The annual return is due by 31 May for the previous calendar year.
How does Law 26/2026 affect Pillar Two and large groups? It makes the first amendment to the Global Minimum Tax Regime, clarifying group liability for the top-up tax and reinforcing the GloBE Information Return obligations, in line with Directive (EU) 2025/872. Groups must keep consolidated accounts, the IRC return, and the GloBE return consistent.
What are the penalties for failing to report under Law 26/2026? The RGIT now sets fines of up to €22,500 for failure or delay in the reporting owed by intermediaries, including crypto-asset service providers, plus penalties for omissions, inaccuracies, and due-diligence failures.
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
