A Dormant Finance Committee Freezes €1.1 Billion in Investment Tax Benefits Promised to 24 Projects
The CCIFI, the committee that must sign off contractual investment tax breaks, has not met since early 2024 because seats sit unfilled — leaving at least €1.08 billion of approved projects, from Amkor to Coloplast, unable to use the incentives they were promised.
Dozens of manufacturers have been promised tax breaks to build factories in Portugal, have signed the contracts, and in several cases have already poured the concrete — yet they cannot actually use the incentives. The reason, reported by the Jornal Económico, is that the state body responsible for signing off the benefits has not met for more than two years.
The bottleneck sits at the Conselho de Coordenação dos Incentivos Fiscais ao Investimento (Investment Fiscal Incentives Coordination Council, or CCIFI), the committee created under the Código Fiscal do Investimento (Investment Tax Code) to appraise, monitor and approve contractual tax benefits for productive investment. Chaired by a representative of the Ministério das Finanças (Ministry of Finance), it also seats officials from AICEP (the trade and investment agency), IAPMEI (the competitiveness and innovation agency) and the Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira (Tax and Customs Authority). Since the start of 2024 it has been unable to function because several of those seats were never filled.
More than a billion euros in limbo
The stalled paperwork is not trivial. Since late 2024 the state has approved draft benefit agreements for at least 24 projects. Counting only those with a disclosed value — and setting aside four strategic-sector contracts cleared in January — the investment adds up to €1,075.9 million, according to documents seen by the newspaper.
Among the companies waiting are names Portugal has courted precisely because they anchor high-value industry:
- Amkor Technology Portugal — €128.9 million to expand and modernise its semiconductor-packaging plant at Vila do Conde, part of the US group's push to strengthen European chip capacity for the car industry.
- Navigator Tissue — €115 million for a new tissue-paper machine at Aveiro, adding 70,000 tonnes of annual capacity.
- Alumínios Cortizo — €100 million for an aluminium-processing complex at Chaves expected to create more than 400 jobs.
- Coloplast Manufacturing Portugal — €100 million for a catheter factory at Felgueiras, the Danish medical-device group's largest plant to date, already in operation with 800 workers.
Behind them sit further projects from Biotek (€75 million), PREH Portugal (€72 million), SRAMPORT (€57.5 million), Europastry (€49.2 million), Caima (€44.4 million), West Horse Powertrain (€42 million) and Ria Stone, of the Vista Alegre group (€40 million), plus eight more contracts worth a combined €252 million.
What the companies are missing
The incentives at stake are substantial. The tax code allows a credit against IRC (corporate income tax) worth between 10% and 25% of eligible investment, along with exemptions from IMI and IMT (municipal property and transfer taxes) and stamp duty, on contracts that can run for a decade. On a €100 million project, a credit of that size is worth €10 million to €25 million — money that improves a project's returns and its standing with lenders.
The law even sets deadlines for each stage of approval, but never anticipated the committee itself grinding to a halt. The Tribunal de Contas (Court of Auditors) flagged weaknesses at the CCIFI as far back as 2015; the current problem is more basic still. The Ministério das Finanças did not answer the newspaper's questions on when the vacant seats would be filled. Until they are, the state's flagship tool for giving investors certainty is delivering the opposite.
