Now you can open a company in Portugal in 30 minutes

After the creation of the government platform ‘Portugal IN’, which aims to attract British investment to the Portuguese territory, the government of António Costa decided to extend the project to all foreigners who are interested in establishing themselves in Portugal.

With the help of ‘Portugal IN’ and the Ministries of Justice, Finance, Economy and Administrative Modernization, the ‘Company IN’ branch was created, which is located in the National Register of Legal Persons in Lisbon and Porto, where any foreigner who wants to set up a company in the country can now do so in just 30 minutes.

In a conversation with Bernardo Trindade, president of ‘Portugal IN’, it was explained to us that any company that goes to the “Company IN” branch “will be assigned a Tax Identification Number (TIN), and where it will have bilingual draft contracts to help in the process of incorporation of the company. It’s a very fast procedure”.

However, the president wanted to point out that this is not a new procedure, but an idea that began to make its first steps fourteen years ago.

“In 2005, we had the platform ‘Empresa na hora’, which was created for residents and was a success. More than 20,000 companies joined this project. The problem was non-residents. They had a problem that was the absence of the tax identification number. However, there was a need to sit at the table with the Institute of Registration and Notary (IRN), Startup Portugal and the tax authority to try to include non-residents in this platform”, he explained.

Also present at the Web Summit, specifically at the Startup Portugal stand, the ‘Company IN’ branch has been in high demand from international investors.

“Since the beginning of the Web Summit, we have had very positive feedback from foreign investors. In two days, we had 70 people interested in this procedure. This is why we are present at this event because the Web Summit is an ecosystem where companies from all over the world converge”, he said.