A new requirement from the taxman already has seen 165,000 landlords sign up for an online system which enables the State to track who is renting what to whom – and also check that the correct income is entered in the landlords' tax returns.
On the other side of the coin, long-term renters can be assured that they are properly registered with their rental contract available for inspection on the Finanças web portal as well receiving official receipt confirmation issued by email whenever a rental payment is registered by the landlord.
Tenants can only report rental related expenses to the taxman if they have been issued with the new electronic receipts proving rental payments.
The aim is to pressurise unwilling landlords to declare their rental incomes and many will be forced to adhere to the new rules.
Some that have been letting their properties and not declaring the income may be in trouble, especially if the tenant has been registering payments on his tax return and the landlord has not.
Landlords under 65-years-old and with a monthly income above €70 are required to issue these new electronic receipts through the Finanças web portal. Those over 65-years-old only have to make an annual declaration of rental income, also electronically.
For those renting properties on a long term basis, landlords that are complying should by now have issued electronic receipts for each month of this financial year and the tax office confirmed today that 1.7 million receipts have been issued so far.
It is not sufficient for landlords to have issued paper receipts for payments recieved from tenants this year as "the obligation remains even if paper receipts have been issued for these months."
There remain those who are not complying as registrations to date under the new regime show that only 43% of landlords so far have complied. Many will claim to have 'stopped renting their properties' but others now are subject to scrutiny and fines.
The bigger picture is easy for the government to assess as the 2011 Census showed that 700,000 people lived in rented accommodation in Portugal.
Paulo Núncio, the Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs, said the picture was "very positive" and he expects a strong uptake in the next few days even though landlords have just missed the registration deadline. Fines for landlords ignoring the new rules are between €150 and €3,750 so Núncio will receive additional income from those who choose not to join his new scheme.
As for those renting their properties for cash, this involves collusion by the renter and the avoidance of new gas, phone, water or electricity supply contracts which the taxman says are being logged to sniff out illegal rentals.
Portugal’s Homeowners’ Association led by António Frias Marques, said the new rule assumes that everyone has easy and regular access to a computer on which to register their monthly rental income but “this certainly is not the case in a substantial part of the country, especially in villages and remote places where Internet access is not available.”
Menezes Leitão, president of the Lisbon Owners Association, said that "there are many landlords who are not familiar with the use of information technology and have asked the association for help," but Leitão expects that most tenants will meet the new requirements during the current month.
If you are a long term renter in Portugal and have not had a series of emailed receipts for 2015 to date, your landlord either is late, or is cheating the taxman.
