Marta has just opened her activity as a physiotherapist. Someone in the group tells her: “lucky you, health services don’t carry IVA.” It’s true - but there’s a second half to that sentence nobody mentions, and it will cost her money the day she buys her first treatment couch.
The IVA exemption in article 9.º of the VAT Code (CIVA) is not the same thing as the small-business exemption (the art. 53.º one, the €15,000 one). It’s an exemption tied to the activity you carry out - and it comes with a trap.
Who article 9.º exempts
Article 9.º exempts a set of public-interest activities from IVA. For freelancers, the three that come up most are these:
If your activity fits here, you don’t charge IVA to your clients or patients. Careful with an important detail: this is not “IVA at 0%” - it’s an exempt operation. On the invoice you select “Isento” (not zero-rate), with the note “Isento ao abrigo do artigo 9.º do CIVA” (code M07 in e-fatura). Simple. The problem is what comes next.
The trap: it’s an “incomplete” exemption
There are two kinds of IVA exemption, and the difference is real money.
- Complete exemption (zero-rated): you don’t charge IVA on sales and you keep the right to deduct the IVA on your purchases. Exports (art. 14.º) are one example.
- Incomplete (or simple) exemption: you don’t charge IVA on sales, but you also can’t deduct the IVA you paid on your purchases.
The art. 9.º exemption is the incomplete one. Under art. 20.º n.º 1, you can only deduct IVA on purchases used for taxed operations - and yours are exempt. The result: the IVA you pay on equipment, rent or software becomes a cost of yours that you never get back.
A professional who charged IVA to clients would get those €230 back. Marta doesn’t. So anyone under art. 9.º has to build the IVA on their purchases into the price of their services.
Article 9.º or article 53.º? Don’t mix them up
They look like the same thing (“I don’t charge IVA”), but they’re different exemptions, for different reasons.
- It's by activity (health, teaching, training)
- No turnover limit
- You never deduct IVA on purchases
- It's by low income (up to €15,000/year)
- You lose it if you cross the threshold
- You also don't deduct while you're exempt
Watch a common mistake: Rui is a trainer on recibos verdes who assumes “training is exempt”. But the art. 9.º exemption (n.º 10) belongs to the DGERT-certified training body, not the individual trainer - holding the CCP (pedagogical competence certificate) is a personal qualification, not a certification of the activity. So Rui, alone with his CCP, charges 23% IVA. (School-subject tutoring, on the other hand, is exempt under art. 9.º.) And if you combine an exempt activity with a taxed one, you have to separate the two and apply partial deduction (the so-called pro rata).
Warning: the costliest mistake is thinking “I’m exempt, so the IVA on my purchases comes back to me.” It doesn’t. Under the art. 9.º exemption, the IVA on equipment, rent and software is money you don’t recover - build it into your price. And if you combine an exempt activity with one that charges IVA, don’t add it all up blindly: there’s pro rata deduction, and it’s worth checking the calculation before you submit.
✅ In summary
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Art. 9.º exempts public-interest activities - health (doctors, physiotherapists…), teaching and tutoring. Mind vocational training: it’s only exempt when delivered by a DGERT-certified body - a solo trainer with a CCP charges 23%.
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But it’s an incomplete exemption: you don’t deduct the IVA on your purchases (art. 20.º n.º 1), so that IVA is a cost of yours. It’s different from the art. 53.º exemption, which is by low income up to €15,000 - and different again from picking the right rate when you do charge IVA (see the 6%, 13% and 23% rates).
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With FIZ you invoice without IVA using the correct exemption reason and handle the rest of your tax life - receipts, IRS, Social Security - in one place, without memorising code articles. See the plans.
