If I were starting a company in Portugal tomorrow, here is what I would do.

I would get my NIF before anything else. Nothing moves without it, and as a non-resident it takes longer than people expect.

I would not touch the "incorporate in one day" online packages until I knew the answer to one question: who will this company pay, and how?

Salary and dividends are taxed differently, and the structure you pick on day one decides how expensive it is to take money out later.

I would open the bank account before I needed it. Portuguese banks ask where your money comes from, and they ask properly. Having source of funds documents ready turns weeks of waiting into days.

I would keep the structure boring. One company, simple ownership, no holding structure unless there is an actual reason for one.

Complexity costs money every single year, and most small companies never needed it.

And I would spend one hour with an accountant before registering anything. Not after. The most expensive mistakes I see are all decisions that were locked in at incorporation and discovered at tax time.

None of this is complicated. It is just the order almost nobody follows.

Before Portugal, I spent years inside startups, investment funds and crypto companies as General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer.

Different world, but the lesson carried over. The expensive problems are almost never the dramatic ones. They are structural. Something set up wrong at the start and discovered years later, usually at the worst possible moment.

That experience shapes how I look at Portugal now.

The questions international clients bring here are rarely just about buying a house. They are investor questions. Should the property be owned personally, through a company, or through a holding structure?

What does each option mean for tax today, and what does it mean at the point of sale? For clients relocating, how do residency and tax residency interact with the investment? And what happens to the whole structure if circumstances change in five years?

A property purchase in Portugal is an investment decision. The purchase itself is the easy part. The structure around it determines whether value is protected or quietly lost.

This is the approach at LV Law. We treat an acquisition the way a fund would treat a deal. Due diligence first, structure second, signature last.

And if a structure is unnecessary, we say so directly. Sometimes the right answer is the simple one.

Investing in Portugal comes with more legal questions than most people expect.

How do you structure a corporate investment under Portuguese law. What does it take to set up a company or launch a startup here. How does banking work for foreign founders and investors, and how will your tax position change. The information exists, but most of it is in Portuguese, and reliable legal guidance in English is hard to find.

LV Law was built for exactly this. From our base in London, we provide legal support to English speaking clients across Portuguese law, with a focus on corporate investments, company formation and startups, banking matters, and tax for investors and founders.

Operating between London and Madeira gives the firm a clear view of both sides. We work where international capital starts, and we know how the legal processes actually run on the ground in Portugal.

Starting this week, we will be publishing regular content on this page. Portuguese law explained clearly, in plain English. The legal mistakes investors make, the real timelines, and the details that matter before you sign anything.

If an investment, a company or a startup in Portugal is part of your plans, follow the page. The right legal information early on saves both money and time.

For everyday documents, a qualified electronic signature does the job. It carries the same legal value as a handwritten signature across the EU. If you have a Portuguese residence card, you may already have this through the Chave Móvel Digital and not know it.

For documents that need more weight, banks, some contracts, official processes, there is signature recognition at a Portuguese consulate. You sign in person at the consulate in your country and the signature is recognised for use in Portugal. Slower, but solid.

For property deals and anything requiring a notarial act, the real instrument is a power of attorney. You grant specific powers to someone you trust, a lawyer usually, and they sign in Portugal on your behalf. Done properly, entire property purchases happen this way, from reservation to keys, without you boarding a plane.

Two things people get wrong with powers of attorney. They make them too broad, granting general powers when one specific act was needed. And they forget them. A power of attorney does not expire on its own just because the deal closed. Grant narrow, revoke when done.

The wrong answer, which I still see: signing at home, scanning it and hoping. For anything that matters, a scan of a signature is the weakest version of every option above.

Before you sign anything important in Portugal, check whether the document needs a specific legal form.

This is the part most people miss. Under Portuguese law, some documents are valid with a simple signature, and some are worthless without the right form, no matter who signed them.

A private rental agreement can be signed between the parties directly. But a promissory contract for a property purchase generally needs notarized signature recognition to be fully enforceable. A power of attorney for real estate must be issued in qualified form. The final purchase deed has to be executed before a notary.

Same logic applies to electronic signatures. A scanned signature or typed name works for low stakes agreements but is easy to dispute. A qualified electronic signature carries the same legal value as a handwritten one across the EU.

The rule of thumb: if the document involves property, powers granted to someone else, or serious money, the form matters as much as the signature. Checking takes a professional a few minutes. Fixing an invalid document after a dispute can take years.