New Job, Lost Exemption: Tax Authority Says IMT Jovem Buyers Who Move for a New Employment Contract Within Six Years Owe the Tax

Young buyers who bought their first home free of property transfer tax under IMT Jovem can lose that exemption if they take a job with a new employer and move away within six years, according to the Tax Authority (Autoridade Tributária, AT). Jornal de Negócios reported on 8 November that the AT reads the law's job-move exception narrowly, so a buyer in that position would have to pay the IMT they were spared at purchase, even if they rent the home out.

The AT's published binding rulings (informações vinculativas, written answers to a taxpayer's question about their own case) show where the line falls.

Who qualifies

Under Article 9 of the IMT Code, as rewritten by Decreto-Lei n.º 48-A/2024 with effect from 1 August 2024, the exemption covers a first purchase of a home for the buyer's own permanent residence (habitação própria e permanente) by someone aged 35 or under on the date of the sale, who is not claimed as a dependant for IRS that year. Anyone who owned a residential property at the time, or at any point in the three years before, is excluded.

In 2026 the home is fully exempt up to 330,539 euros. Between that figure and 660,982 euros, IMT is charged at 8 percent on the part above 330,539 euros, under Article 17. The same decree-law gives matching relief on stamp duty (imposto do selo), capped at the duty due on the first 330,539 euros.

The six-year rule and its exceptions

Article 11(8) of the IMT Code withdraws the exemption if, within six years of the purchase, the home is put to a different use from the one the relief was granted for; if the buyer has not moved in within six months; or if the buyer becomes someone's IRS dependant during the six years. The stamp duty relief lapses in the same cases.

Three situations are protected: selling the home; a change in the household through marriage, a civil union, divorce or a new dependant; and a change of workplace to more than 100 km from the home. In the last two cases the property must stay used only as housing.

What the AT has ruled

In ruling 29666, signed off on 5 June 2026, a buyer of a Lisbon flat had worked as a freelancer when she bought it. About six months after that work ended, she signed a fixed-term employment contract with a company in Ovar. The AT said the exception covers only a worker relocated under an employment contract that already existed when the home was bought. A new contract sets a workplace for the first time; it does not change one. Her move was therefore a "different use" and the benefit lapsed.

By contrast, ruling 28979 (September 2025) kept the exemption for a buyer sent by her existing Portuguese employer to Barcelona from January 2025 to June 2026, who kept using the flat on monthly visits home.

What it means for you

• If you are weighing a distant new job within six years of buying, assume the AT may claim the IMT back.
• A transfer or secondment by your current employer is the case the exception was written for. Keep the contract, the transfer letter and proof that the home stays residential.
• If your case is unclear, ask the AT for your own binding ruling through the Portal das Finanças before you move, as the buyers in these rulings did.

For background, we looked recently at how IMT revenue has grown over a decade and at the state-guaranteed loans for under-35 buyers.