Reverse charge: the Google & Meta invoices you pay IVA on

Ricardo is a designer, is exempt from IVA under art. 53.º, and has never charged a single cent of IVA to a client. One day he decides to promote his portfolio: he spends €200 on Meta ads and €150 on Google Ads. Makes sense - it’s marketing.

What he doesn’t know is that, the moment he hit “pay”, he created an IVA obligation in Portugal for himself - the very thing he thought he was completely free of.

This catches a lot of people off guard. The art. 53.º exemption does not protect you when you are the one buying services from foreign suppliers. It’s a silent trap, and it’s worth understanding why before the AT (the Portuguese tax authority) reminds you of it.

The art. 53.º exemption only covers what you sell

First, what the exemption actually does. The art. 53.º exemption regime (the regime for those who invoice little and don’t charge IVA) applies to the operations you carry out in Portugal - that is, the recibos verdes (green receipts) you issue to your clients. On those, you don’t charge IVA. Full stop.

What the exemption does not cover are your purchases from suppliers outside Portugal. Here the law treats you differently: for these purchases, you’re treated as a normal taxable person, with obligations of your own.

And that’s where autoliquidação comes in.

What autoliquidação (reverse charge) is

Autoliquidação (reverse charge, or “inversion of the taxable person”) is simple to state: when you buy a service from a foreign company, the IVA is due in Portugal - and it’s you, the buyer, who has to calculate it and hand it over to the State, instead of the supplier.

Why? Because of the place-of-supply rule for B2B services (art. 6.º, n.º 6, al. a) of the CIVA): when a professional in Portugal buys a service from another professional, the service is deemed to take place in the client’s country - Portugal. So the IVA is Portuguese.

Google and Meta (invoiced from Ireland) know this. That’s why they issue your invoice without IVA, with the note “IVA - Autoliquidação” or “Reverse Charge”, and hand you the hot potato: accounting for the IVA becomes your job.

The part that hurts: when you’re exempt, the IVA is your cost

Here’s the difference that changes everything.

A professional on the normal IVA regime who buys ads from Google does two things on the same return: they charge the 23% and, right after, deduct the same 23%. Net result: zero, they actually pay nothing.

You, under art. 53.º, have no right to deduct. You self-assess the 23%, but you can’t recover it. The money leaves your pocket, in full.

In other words: that €100 Meta ad doesn’t cost you €100. It costs you €123, because you have to hand €23 of IVA to the AT that you’ll never get back.

Example 1: Ricardo and the Meta ads

Back to Ricardo. In a single month he spent €200 on Meta and €150 on Google Ads - €350 of digital advertising from suppliers in Ireland. (If the purchases fall in different months, someone exempt under art. 53.º files one return per month - they cannot be bundled into one.)

Ricardo thought the ads had cost him €350. They cost him €430.50. And if he never files the declaração periódica with this €80.50, he’s in default with the AT - with interest and a penalty piling on later.

Example 2: Sofia and Upwork (a non-EU supplier)

Sofia is a copywriter and hires backup on Upwork and pays a software subscription to a company in the US. Suppliers outside the European Union. Does the rule change?

Not for the IVA. The place-of-supply rule is the same: the service is bought by a professional in Portugal, so the IVA is due here. Sofia still self-assesses the 23% and, being exempt, still can’t deduct it.

What changes is VIES:

VIES (the VAT Information Exchange System) is an EU-only system. A US supplier has no way to validate your NIF there - nor do they need to. But the obligation to self-assess the IVA in Portugal comes from Portuguese law, not from the invoice Upwork issues you. It’s there, whether the invoice mentions “reverse charge” or not.

What you actually have to do (in order)

If you buy (or are about to buy) these services, the sequence is this:

1. Before the first purchase: file a Declaração de Alteração de Atividade (change-of-activity declaration) on the Portal das Finanças, indicating that you’ll carry out intra-EU operations. This activates your NIF in VIES.

2. When you receive the invoice (e.g. Google): check that it has your NIF, that it charged you no IVA, and that it mentions the autoliquidação. Calculate the 23% on the invoice amount.

3. Declare and pay — the deadline depends on your regime. In the standard regime, you declare (and, if entitled, deduct) the self-assessed IVA in your regular periodic return. Exempt under art. 53.º? Since you don’t file a regular periodic return, art. 27.º n.º 3 of the CIVA gives you a deadline of its own: you file the return and pay the tax by the end of the month following the one in which the tax becomes chargeable — as a rule, the month the service was provided, which for Google/Meta subscriptions coincides with the invoice month. And only for months with such purchases (a January Google service → declare and pay by the end of February). The obligation repeats for every month with these purchases — with a monthly ad subscription, that means every month. Mind one detail: the boxes are not the same for services from EU suppliers (Google, Meta) and from outside the EU (Upwork, US) - the return handles the two in different sections. If you fill it in by hand, check which applies; with FIZ, they go to the right place automatically.

One piece of good news to simplify things: the declaração recapitulativa (the recapitulative statement listing EU clients) does not concern you here. That one is only for those who sell services to EU clients - if you only buy, you don’t file it. You’re left with just the declaração periódica.

Warning: the costliest mistake is buying from Google/Meta without having activated VIES first. Without your valid NIF in VIES, the supplier treats you as a final consumer and charges you their country’s IVA (e.g. 23% in Ireland). And even then, you’re still obliged to self-assess 23% in Portugal - you pay IVA twice, and deduct neither. Register before the first invoice.

This is not the IVA you charge your clients

So you don’t get confused: you keep issuing your recibos verdes without IVA, citing the art. 53.º exemption. Nothing changes there.

If, on top of buying, you also provide services to EU companies, then other obligations kick in (that declaração recapitulativa, the client’s VAT number) - we covered that in how to ask your European client for their VAT number and in foreign client: how to invoice and what to do about IVA. And if you’re unsure about the rates themselves, see the guide to IVA rates (6%, 13%, 23%).

The autoliquidação we’ve talked about here is the buying side - and it’s the one most exempt freelancers don’t even know exists.

✅ In summary

1. The art. 53.º exemption covers what you sell, not what you buy. Buying ads from Google, Meta, or services on Upwork forces you to self-assess 23% IVA in Portugal - and, because you’re exempt, that IVA is a real cost you cannot deduct.

2. Register in VIES before your first EU purchase (Declaração de Alteração de Atividade, intra-EU operations) and file the declaração periódica de IVA - in the standard regime, in your regular return; exempt under art. 53.º, for each month with these purchases, by the end of the month after the tax becomes chargeable. For non-EU suppliers (Upwork, US) VIES doesn’t apply, but you still self-assess. The declaração recapitulativa is only for those who sell to the EU.

3. With FIZ these obligations stop catching you by surprise: the software spots the reverse-charge invoices, calculates the IVA you owe, and prepares and submits your declaração periódica de IVA on time, so you don’t end up in default over a €50 ad. See the plans.