Children’s invoices on E-Fatura: what to know

As with yours, if you requested invoices with your children’s NIF, you have until February 25th to validate them on the E-fatura portal.

At children’s bills may be worth a relevant decrease in the amount of IRS payable or increase the reimbursement to be received.

To calculate the deductions to which the household is entitled each year, and which are deducted from the tax, the Tax Authority (AT) adds up the deductible expenses of all the elements that compose it. But for these expenses to be considered by the Tax Authorities, it is necessary that they are justified by invoices with NIF and that they are validated.

The question that many parents ask themselves is whether the invoices must have the TIN of the children to be deductible or if they can include the TIN of one of the parents. Currently, both options are possible.

The difference is that if you requested invoices with your children’s NIF, you will have to enter the E-Fatura portal with the dependent’s access password (and not yours) to validate any that may be pending. The deadline for validating invoices ends February 25th.

The obligation to put NIF on invoices, in order to be able to deduct them from the IRS, is perfectly ingrained among the Portuguese. However, one of the questions that raises the most doubts among taxpayers is which NIF to enter on their children’s invoices, so that they can be deducted.

Since 2015, following the IRS reform, invoices relating to children’s expenses do not necessarily need to have their Tax Identification Number. On the other hand, they may have the NIF of the father or mother associated with them and still be deductible for the IRS.

It should, however, be noted that when parents submit their declarations separately, the invoices issued with the TIN of each one must be equally distributed between the two. Otherwise, the expenses will not be shared and will only appear in one declaration.

The same goes for divorced parents with shared custody of the dependent. In the statement of each taxable person, only expenses justified by invoices with their own NIF or those that have been issued with the dependent’s NIF will appear.

Validate children’s invoices in E-fatura

If you indicate your children’s VAT number on invoices for expenses associated with them, it is essential to have a password to access the Finance Portal for each one of them, so that the invoices can then be checked and validated.

To request a password on behalf of the children, you must access the Finance Portal, and click on the “Register” button located at the top of the homepage. The password will later be sent by letter to the address associated with the NIF, thus allowing access to the Portal. It should be noted that the password request must be made separately for each child.

After that, just access the E-Fatura portal with the dependent’s password, check that the invoices have been communicated and validate any that may be pending. If the invoice appears as “pending”, it is only necessary to validate it, indicating the respective sector of activity (“education” or “health”, for example).

In case the invoice is not registered, it is possible to do it manually. To do so, data relating to the merchant’s VAT number, type and number of invoice, date of issue and amounts must be entered, then selecting “Save”.

Article originally published in July 2019. Last updated in January 2023.