What you need to sell online in Portugal: the full list before you open

Building the store is the visible part and, oddly, the easy one. What stalls most projects is everything else: the paperwork, the payments, the invoicing, and the rules the law requires on the site.

The good news is that the list is finite, well known, and can be worked through in a few weeks. This article walks it in full, in the order you should tackle it, so you can open knowing nothing was left behind.

Before the store: the business

Activity registered with the tax authority. You need your activity opened, with the code covering online retail. If you already trade, just confirm your existing activity code covers online selling.

VAT regime decided. It determines whether you charge VAT within your prices and how you declare it. If you later sell to other European Union countries there are further rules worth understanding beforehand rather than afterwards.

Certified invoicing software. In Portugal an invoice must be issued even for sales to private consumers, and it must be issued right after payment. Choose the software before building the store, because the connection between the two is part of the project.

Payments

This is the step that takes the most calendar time and the one people leave until last.

To accept MB WAY and Multibanco references you need a contract with a payment provider. The most used in Portugal are ifthenpay, Easypay and Eupago, all Portuguese, alongside Stripe for international cards.

The process is always the same: register, submit company documentation, and wait for activation, which usually takes two to five working days. Handle this early, because without live payments you cannot open.

It is worth offering more than one method. Card for impulse purchases, MB WAY for most Portuguese customers, and Multibanco reference for those who prefer to pay later or do not use the app.

What the law requires on the site

This section generates the most fines, and all of it can be sorted in an afternoon.

Full company identification, visible on the site: name, address, tax number and commercial registration, plus email and phone where they exist.

Electronic Complaints Book, with a visible link, typically in the footer, to the national platform. Complaints received must be answered within fifteen working days under Decree-Law 156/2005.

Alternative Dispute Resolution body competent for your region, listed with name, address and website, under Law 144/2015. Referencing the European online dispute resolution platform is also advisable.

General terms of sale, including the fourteen-day right of withdrawal, which lets a customer cancel without justification or penalty.

Privacy policy compliant with the GDPR, and a cookie banner where refusing is as accessible as accepting.

Prices including VAT and shipping costs visible before the person starts the ordering process, not only at the final step. Costs that appear as a surprise at checkout are, besides being poor experience, unlawful.

Accepted payment methods and delivery areas communicated before the order.

The Portuguese enforcement authority inspects online stores on exactly these points, and fines can reach tens of thousands of euros. As always with legal matters, confirm your specific situation with your own advisers.

Operations, where businesses actually stumble

With the store legal and taking payments, what remains is the part nobody photographs.

Stock and real timelines. Promising dispatch in twenty-four hours and taking five is the fastest way to destroy a new store's reputation.

Shipping. A carrier contract, costs by weight band, and a decision on the order value above which you cover postage. Compare at least two before signing.

Returns. You need a process, not just a policy. Who receives, who inspects, how quickly the money goes back.

Packaging. It costs more than people expect and it shapes how the product is perceived.

Customer support. Define where you reply and within what time. Worth recalling that speed of response is among the factors that most influences conversion.

If you sell outside Portugal

Many businesses start selling only domestically and receive their first order from Spain or France in week two. Worth knowing before it happens.

For sales to private consumers in other European Union countries there is an annual threshold above which the customer's country VAT applies rather than the Portuguese rate. Below it, the national regime continues. Above it, a one-stop scheme lets you declare everything in Portugal rather than registering in each country.

It is not complicated, but it is the kind of thing that costs money to discover late. Speak to your accountant before enabling international shipping, and configure the store accordingly.

Also check real shipping costs abroad, which tend to surprise, and decide whether selling there is worth it or whether concentrating on the domestic market for the first year is wiser.

How long it actually takes

People underestimate the calendar because they count only the time to build the store.

The payment provider contract takes two to five working days to activate, and only starts once you submit the company documentation. Product photography and copy are usually the largest delay of all, especially with a big catalogue and nobody assigned to the task. Legal texts and terms of sale require decisions only the owner can make, such as return windows and delivery areas.

A small store with a reduced catalogue and content ready opens in a few weeks. A store with hundreds of products still to photograph and describe takes months, and the delay is rarely technical.

The most effective way to shorten this is to open with fewer products. Twenty well presented products sell more than three hundred poorly described ones, and let you start learning from real customers far sooner.

Where to start, in order

  1. Confirm activity, code and VAT regime
  2. Choose and contract invoicing software
  3. Start the payment provider process, because it takes days
  4. Settle carrier, shipping costs and timelines
  5. Build the store and the legal texts in parallel
  6. Connect store, payments and invoicing, and test with real orders
  7. Open with a small catalogue and expand afterwards

Step six deserves insisting on. Place at least three real end-to-end orders, with real payment, before announcing anything. That is where the problems no simulated test reveals show up.

How Digito helps

We handle this whole path, and our advantage is knowing the Portuguese part of it.

We build the store, integrate MB WAY, Multibanco and card, connect it to invoicing software so the invoice issues itself after each payment, and put the legal texts and links where they belong.

We also help decide what waits for phase two. Almost every store that opens with everything it dreamed of opens too late and with too little money left to promote itself.

If you are preparing to sell online and want to know what is missing in your case, let's go through the list together.

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