SME Certification

Certification maintenance operations – operations for already certified companies that wish to continue being certified – have, however, deadlines or conditions to be performed, namely the communication of corrections or changes, estimate confirmation, or certification renewal.

Companies that were certified at a given point in time, but meanwhile saw their certification expire or be declared void, can certify again at any time.

For registration purposes, a form must be filled with the following information:

• Company identification (tax identification number, name, address, postal code, district, municipality, parish, telephone and email). The company must also define its access password.

For actual certification purposes, a form containing the following type of information must be filled and submitted:

• Company identification (name or corporate name; address or headquarters; tax identification number; social security identification number; legal form; dates of incorporation and start of activity, or recent mergers or divisions; company capital or assets; CAE).
• Information that allows classifying the entity requesting certification (identification of partners and company participations, indicating participation percentage, voting rights or eventual forms of control; identical information regarding each partner or shareholder or each company in which the applicant participates, as well as all those who maintain relevant relationships with them; characterization information that allows assessing specificities of entities with which the applicant has relationships to verify the possibility of benefiting from more favorable treatments provided by law).
• Activity information (workforce, turnover and balance sheet of the applicant, as well as all direct and indirect partner and associated entities, relative to the number of years necessary for status determination).

Certification forms are personalized, so the requested information has some variations depending on the concrete characteristics of the company requesting certification and the entities it relates to (for example, legal form, year of activity start, legal obligation to present accounts, consolidated accounts, among others).

In parallel, a form for identifying the company’s representative before the SME Certification service must be initially filled and kept updated (tax identification number of the individual entity representing the company, name, position, gender, telephone and email).

That is, if the company, in the “Estimate Confirmation” form, continues to indicate in the respective field that it has not yet proceeded with the submission of the annual accounting and tax declaration of the company or companies for which estimated data had been presented, even if it submits this form, it will continue to maintain estimated data in its process; only after submission of the annual accounting and tax declaration can the data be considered definitive data for purposes of procedures associated with SME certification.

Furthermore, if a company certified itself, for example, based on estimates relating to itself and two partner or associated companies (designated relevant relationships), and performs an “Estimate Confirmation” operation in which it only presents its definitive data, then it continues to have estimates to be confirmed in its certification process (those relating to the two companies with which it has relevant relationships). Under these circumstances, its certification will expire when the deadline for presenting definitive data of the companies in question is exceeded.

In case they have different economic years, several “Estimate Confirmation” operations will have to be performed, at different moments in time, according to the deadline dates for submitting the annual declaration of the year of each of them. For example, if the certification applicant company has a year coincident with the calendar year (therefore has July 15 as the submission deadline) and the companies with which it has relevant relationships have September 15 as their deadline, it will have a first deadline to present its definitive data (July 15 + 30 working days) and a second, later deadline (September 15 + 30 working days), to present the definitive data of companies with which it has relevant relationships. If it fails the first deadline, the certification will expire on that date, with retroactive effects to the date of the operation in which estimated data were presented; if it meets the first deadline, but does not meet the second, the certification will expire on that second date, with the same retroactivity (retroactive effects to the date of the operation in which estimated data were presented).

These communications must be made through “Estimate Confirmation” operations.

Note, however, that performing this operation will not allow it to become certified again. It will only allow it to comply with the obligation to present definitive data related to previous operations that allowed one or more certification decisions, that is, it will prevent the certification from expiring due to the absence of estimate confirmation in periods prior to the expiration meanwhile applied for another of the legally established reasons.

If a company detects that it made an error filling any field in the last operation performed, it should use the corresponding correction operation (for example, if it made an error indicating turnover in a renewal operation, it should perform a correction operation (“Data Correction (Certification Renewal)”); if it made an error filling a partner’s data in the first certification operation, it should perform a correction operation (“Data Correction (First Certification)”); but if what it wants is to inform the certification service that, for example, it recently changed the company’s headquarters or its shareholding structure compared to what had been communicated in previous operations, the operation to be performed is the “Certification Element Alteration” operation.

Note that the renewal operation can only be made after effective submission of the annual accounting and tax information declaration to the Tax Authority; if it is not submitted to the Tax Authority within the deadline, the company will not meet conditions to renew its certification.

Note that the renewal operation can only be made after effective submission of the annual accounting and tax information declaration to the Tax Authority; if it is not submitted to the Tax Authority within the deadline, the company will not meet conditions to renew its certification.

Note that the renewal operation can only be made after effective submission of the annual accounting and tax information declaration to the Tax Authority; if it is not submitted to the Tax Authority within the deadline, the company will not meet conditions to renew its certification.

This situation can occur in cases where:

• the company certified itself when it started activity – the company certifies itself in year N, having as reference year the first complete year (N+1), so, with no mandatory communication change before that date, only in N+3 will it have to proceed with renewing its certification (in N+1 it has no obligation to perform this or any other certification maintenance operation; in N+2 it only has to perform an “Estimate Confirmation” operation);
• the company certified itself after being involved in a division or merger process as an incorporating entity (the situation is exactly the same as described above);
• the company certified itself in N based on estimated data from N, so, in N+1, after submitting the accounting and tax declaration relating to year N, it will only have to perform an “Estimate Confirmation” operation (that is, it has an obligation to perform a certification maintenance operation – estimate confirmation – but does not have to perform a “Certification Renewal” operation, because it is already certified based on data from the last completed year);
• the company certified itself in N based on estimated data from N-1, so, in that same year N, after submitting the accounting and tax declaration relating to year N-1, it will have to perform an “Estimate Confirmation” operation (that is, despite having already performed an operation in N, it has an obligation to perform a certification maintenance operation – estimate confirmation – but does not have to perform a “Certification Renewal” operation, because it is already certified based on data from the last completed year).

On each company’s electronic platform, in the “Alerts” area, the legal deadlines for renewal and estimate confirmation of the company in question are indicated, in case any of these operations has to be performed. Through consultation of this area, the company can confirm if it has to perform any of these operations or eventually, in certain cases, if it has to perform both. In addition to this, each company will receive renewal or confirmation alert emails whenever the obligation is applicable. These emails are sent with a minimum advance of 10 working days relative to the final deadline for submitting the operations in question.

That is, a company that certified itself in N with definitive data from N-1 of the certification applicant company and with estimated data from N of a company with which it has a relevant relationship, both with years coincident with the calendar year, will have to, until the maximum deadline of 30 working days after July 15 of N+1, perform the “Estimate Confirmation” operation to present definitive data from N relating to the company with relevant relationship with the certification applicant company and perform the renewal operation to communicate definitive data from year N relating to the certification applicant company. If it does not present definitive data from N of the company with relevant relationship with the certification applicant through the “Estimate Confirmation” operation, and only performs the certification renewal, presenting definitive data from N of the applicant, the decision relating to this operation will be taken entirely based on data relating to year N, but this data is definitive for the applicant, but remains estimated regarding the company with which it has a relevant relationship. That is, after the deadline for performing the “Estimate Confirmation” operation, the certification will expire, due to the expiration of operations performed based, even if partially, on estimated data (in the example, certification made in N and renewal made in N+1).

Note that legal deadlines override this administrative deadline. That is, if, for example, a company is 10 days away from the deadline to perform certification renewal (legal deadline), it will have to submit the form within that deadline, and not within the 60-day period (administrative deadline).

There is also another administrative deadline, which also overrides the previous one, and which relates to the change of calendar year, being applicable only to “Late Certification Renewal” operations. “Late Certification Renewal” operations initiated in a given calendar year must be completed (form submitted) by the end of that same year. If they are not, they will be automatically cancelled by the computer application, with loss of data entered up to that moment.

To clarify this possible doubt, the complete text of the expired operation alert expressly states, in the last paragraph: “This deadline may be shorter if you have as deadline to proceed with renewal or estimate confirmation a date earlier than this. In that case, this operation will have to be completed by that date.”

So if, for example, a company is 10 days away from the deadline to perform certification renewal (legal deadline) when it starts filling the renewal form, it will have to submit the form within that deadline, and not within the 60-day period (administrative deadline).

The only exception to this happens in cases where the company is already incorporated but has not yet started activity when it is certifying itself, in which case the first certification will not have immediate effect with submission, but rather future effect, namely on the date of future start of activity.

Note that an operation “in progress” is never awaiting any type of decision by IAPMEI; it depends only on the submission action by the company.

A company with a pending operation should await contact from IAPMEI services, for verification purposes. Although this contact is usually made in a very short time, if it urgently needs the operation in question to produce effects, it can always contact IAPMEI services by phone or email to signal this urgency.

Note that when starting the operation, a window is shown with information about the maximum admissible deadline for submission, and a new alert is automatically generated on the companies’ certification platform to remind of this deadline and the consequences of non-compliance (loss of data entered up to that moment). In addition, an alert email is issued 10 working days before the end of the deadline, reminding of the same.

And it has two ways to immediately obtain a new password.

Using the registration email for authentication. In this case, for authentication purposes, the company’s NIF and the email used in its registration must be indicated. With the indication of this data, followed by the “Send” action, a new password will be automatically generated, which will also be automatically sent to the electronic address in question. Simultaneously, a message is generated that the password was sent.

Using Tax Authority credentials. In this case, the company defines its new password. The company indicates the new password, according to the complexity rules indicated in the form, namely, the new password must have between 9 and 20 characters, and must contain at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter and one digit and, optionally, can contain any other special characters, except space. It selects “Confirm after Tax Authority validation”, which makes automatic forwarding to the authentication area of the Tax Authority website. It uses the company’s authentication credentials at the Tax Authority and selects “I authorize”, when requested that the NIF and company name be provided to IAPMEI. This authorization allows IAPMEI to authenticate the origin of the request, and validate the change of registration password at IAPMEI, for purposes of accessing SME Certification. It is emphasized that this procedure does not change the company’s credentials at AT, only the registration password at IAPMEI.

It is an internal process within the competence of the person or body competent to bind the company, who can delegate to another (mandated person), internal or external, powers to represent it in this act (e.g.: through a valid declaration).

The identification form of the company’s representative before the SME certification service must be initially filled and kept updated. The email indicated in this form will be the recipient of all electronic communications issued by the service (e.g.: deadline alerts, communications within investigation procedures).

Note that alerts from the electronic service reminding of the approach of final annual deadlines for renewal or estimate confirmation, for example, are always issued to the email in the representative’s file, which means that maintaining outdated emails prevents companies from benefiting from this component of the alert service.

This email is also the only one used for communications within investigation procedures, so its non-updating can lead to non-compliance situations that determine certification nullity (absence of response from the interested party to document requests, additional information or questions posed by the certifying entity).

Note that alerts from the electronic service reminding of the approach of final annual deadlines for renewal or estimate confirmation, for example, are also issued to the email in the registration, which means that maintaining outdated emails prevents companies from benefiting from this component of the alert service.

This email is also mandatorily used as authentication in the “Forgot password” functionality, so its outdating conditions or can even prevent autonomous access to the electronic certification service.

In the very specific case of wanting to change, in that registration file, the password that is active at the moment, then the new password should be entered in the “New Password” field, repeating it in the “Repeat Password” field, for validation purposes. For security reasons, one will also have to enter the password to be changed in the “Current Password” field to effect the change to the new password.

In the concrete case of the intended correction relating to the company’s region – registration of a Mainland company incorrectly made in the Madeira Autonomous Region companies registration area or registration of an Azores Autonomous Region company incorrectly made in the Mainland registration area, for example –, then, as this is an error in the registration itself, and not simply an error in a registration file field, access to the registration area should be made, not through the SME Certification platform, but through the IAPMEI Client Console (accessible through the IAPMEI website (www.iapmei.pt) > Home Page > IAPMEI+ Incentives Console). After entering the NIF and access password (password common to the IAPMEI+ Incentives Console and the electronic certification service), one should access the “Update Registration” area, which is available at the top right of the page, and correct the field(s) relating to the region. To save corrections, and for security/user authentication reasons, the access password must be entered in the respective field – “Current Password”.

Note that this region correction will not have direct effects at the level of the certification process itself. So, if any certification operation has already been completed before the region correction, it will continue to be associated with the incorrect region. Under these circumstances, if only the first certification has been done, it will suffice to perform the corresponding correction operation to correct the process. If other operations have already been performed after the first certification, the company should contact IAPMEI and request this adjustment.

For this purpose, it should access its registration area, and this access should be made, not through the SME Certification platform, but through the IAPMEI Client Console (accessible through the IAPMEI website (www.iapmei.pt) > Home Page > IAPMEI+ Incentives Console). After entering the NIF and access password (password common to the IAPMEI+ Incentives Console and the electronic certification service), it should access the “Update Registration” area, which is available at the top right of the page, and correct the field(s) relating to the region. To save corrections, and for security/user authentication reasons, the access password must be entered in the respective field – “Current Password”.

After this procedure, if it is a certified company, it should access the SME Certification platform and fill and submit the “Certification Element Alteration” form that is available in the “Available Certification Operations” menu, selecting the reason of “company identification elements” (and eventually others also applicable, in case, together with the headquarters change, alterations of another nature have occurred in the company) and changing the corresponding fields in the respective certification form.

If it is a company with expired or void certification, then it should, after changing the registration, fill and submit the form available in the “Available Certification Operations” menu (which may be, depending on the company’s concrete situation, the “Certification Update” form or the “Late Certification Renewal” form).

With express authorization from the certification applicant company, provided through the electronic certification service, any entity outside the above scope can also consult its SME certification, exclusively for purposes of verifying its situation regarding certification (certified company or company with expired, void or suspended certification) and its status.

Within this registration, it creates an access password to the electronic service, which allows it to access the simple consultation entity platform, through which it can consult certification processes. This consultation is only possible, however, with express authorization from the company(ies) whose certification process will be consulted.

After registering, to consult another company’s certification process, the company should access SME Certification > Consultation Entities > Simple Consultation > Access to your online consultation area and enter its NIF and password. Already in its SME Certification consultation entity platform, it should use the “Consult” option to indicate the NIF of the company whose certification process it wants to consult. If the company in question has not granted its express authorization, on its own electronic certification service platform, to consultation of its process by the company, or if it once granted this authorization, but meanwhile has revoked it, the consultation is denied.

It should be noted that this consultation modality serves exclusively for purposes of verifying the consulted company’s situation regarding certification (certified company or company with expired, void or suspended certification) and its status.

In addition to not having to authorize these entities, companies with SME certification are exempt from having to prove their SME status to each of them individually.

It should be noted that the consideration of data from several years is only applicable where there are entities with a history (no recent start of activity or recent involvement in demerger or merger processes) and comparable entities, i.e., where the set of entities underlying the determination of status at each point in time (the set of partner and associated companies) is identical to that of the previous measurement moment.

It should be noted that the use of data from two or more years for the purpose of determining status is only applicable when dealing with entities with a history (i.e., without a recent start of activity or without recent involvement in demerger or merger processes) and comparable entities, i.e., where the set of entities underlying the determination of status at each moment is identical to that of the previous measurement moment.

An exception to this rule applies to companies that, among the entities with which they have relevant relationships, have recent companies or companies involved in recent merger or demerger processes. In such cases, autonomous activity data are considered.

It should also be noted that, since the concept of AWU – annual work units – used for certification purposes to measure staff numbers is not the same as the one used for tax declarations – even though the final result may coincide in some cases – the number of AWUs/staff must always be reported individually by each company, even if accounts are consolidated.

Nevertheless, certification requests from these companies will be refused if they are not accompanied by information identifying who holds more than 50% of the capital and voting rights of the applicant company and of the companies with which it has direct or indirect relevant relationships.

It should also be noted that the indication of dispersed share capital in certification forms is only admissible when such capital does not omit relationships that may be or give rise, directly or indirectly, to relevant relationships of the applicant company, as defined in the annex to Decree-Law No. 372/2007 of 6 November, as amended by Decree-Law No. 13/2020 of 7 April.

For example, a company that was classified as a microenterprise based on its staffing and financial data (together with those of companies with which it has relevant relationships, if any) and that, for the first time, has a complete financial year placing it within the thresholds of a small enterprise will, according to paragraph 2 of article 4 of the annex to Decree-Law No. 372/2007 of 6 November, as amended by Decree-Law No. 13/2020 of 7 April (applicable when dealing with comparable entities, i.e., when the set of entities used to determine status at each point in time is identical to that of the previous measurement moment), retain its microenterprise status. However, under paragraph 8 of article 6 of the same decree-law, it may opt to benefit from early recognition as a small enterprise.

The same would occur if, for example, a company with medium-sized enterprise status had, for the first time, a complete financial year placing it within the thresholds of a small enterprise. In this example, its assessed status would remain that of a medium-sized enterprise, but it could choose to anticipate its status to small enterprise at the time of reporting the staffing and financial data of the last complete year via the certification form.

Whenever a company can benefit from early status recognition, the certification form informs it of this fact, and the company must choose, before submitting the form, between maintaining the status determined under the “general rule” (paragraph 2 of article 4 of the annex to Decree-Law No. 372/2007, as amended) or using the “early status” (paragraph 8 of article 6 of the same decree-law).

It should be noted that, where the applicant company has recently started activity or has recently been involved in merger or demerger processes, or where the set of current relevant relationships differs from that of the previous period, early status recognition is never applicable (because there is no historical data in the first case, and the data are not comparable in the second). In these situations, the status assigned to the company necessarily corresponds to its size in that year.

This means they must complete a certification form with the definitive staffing and financial data for the current year (including definitive data from companies with which they have relevant relationships, if any), and such data must confirm compliance with those thresholds. Failure to meet either of these obligations will result in the loss of early status. In such cases, the company will be assigned, retroactively, the status determined under the “general rule”.

This means they must complete a certification form with the definitive staffing and financial data for the current year (including definitive data from companies with which they have relevant relationships, if any). If this form – which, in the absence of other mandatory changes in the meantime, will be the renewal form, but may also be the amendment or confirmation of estimates form in certain cases – is not completed and submitted by the deadline for reporting the definitive data for the current year, this requirement will not have been met.

On that same date, two decisions will be issued in the relevant certification process: the certification will expire, and the company’s early status will be retroactively revoked from the date it first benefited from it until the date the certification expired.

In the specific case where the loss of early status means that the company did not in fact meet the conditions to be considered an SME, the decisions will be: the certification expires; the early status is retroactively revoked from the date it first took effect until the date of certification expiry; the operation with expired status will also expire because the company no longer meets the conditions to be considered an SME on that date; and finally, the certification itself will be retroactively cancelled to the date of the expired operation.

However, there may be room for correcting this decision within 30 working days.

A certified company that performs a new operation resulting in it no longer meeting SME criteria may and should submit the corresponding certification form, as this submission will generate the interruption of the “Certification” status. As a result, an operation report will be issued stating that the company no longer qualifies as an SME. In such cases, no certificate will be issued, since the company does not meet SME criteria.

Only in the first year of the decree that created electronic SME certification was certification applicable solely to companies operating in an area under the Ministry of Economy. After that period, it became applicable to any interested company.

It should be noted, however, that regardless of the area of activity, only companies that meet SME thresholds can actually obtain SME certification.

It should be noted, however, that only companies that meet SME thresholds can actually obtain SME certification.

However, certification requests will be refused if they are not accompanied by information identifying who holds more than 50% of the capital and voting rights of the foreign company(ies) in question. The indication of dispersed share capital is only admissible if it does not omit relationships that may, directly or indirectly, constitute relevant relationships of the applicant company under the annex to Decree-Law No. 372/2007, as amended.

However, certification requests will be refused if they are not accompanied by information identifying who holds more than 50% of the capital and voting rights of the holding company(ies) in question. The indication of dispersed share capital is only admissible if it does not omit relationships that may, directly or indirectly, constitute relevant relationships of the applicant company under the annex to Decree-Law No. 372/2007, as amended.

The electronic certification service is prepared to make extraordinary updates automatically without changing the field. Therefore, in years when the IES deadline is extended, the certification forms will show the normal date in the deadline field, but will apply the extended date (plus 30 working days) for renewal or confirmation of estimates purposes. The actual date applied in each year is visible in the “Alerts” area of each company’s electronic certification platform.

• Applying for public tenders that require SME status;
• Accessing EU or Portuguese funding/grant programs limited to SMEs;
• Benefiting from reduced guarantee requirements in financing programs designed for SMEs.

• Grants and Incentives – eligibility for EU and Portuguese funding programs reserved for SMEs.
• Special Credit Lines and Financing – state-backed credit lines with reduced interest rates (often via Banco de Fomento) and lower collateral requirements thanks to public guarantees.
• Public Procurement Advantages – SME status may be a requirement or provide preferential scoring in tender evaluations.
• Business Support Services – access to IAPMEI consultancy, training, mentoring, internationalisation support, and networking opportunities at SME-focused events.