Taking payments online

The order that nearly got lost

Inês sells home-made sweets online from her home in Lisbon. To avoid fees, she asked customers to make a bank transfer to her personal account. A new customer ordered a large box for a wedding. She was uneasy about paying into an account in a person's name, with no invoice, no payment page, nothing, and gave up.

Worse: at the end of the year, her accountant asked where the invoices were for half of the money that came in. There were none.

The fee Inês wanted to avoid cost less than the lost order and the trouble with the tax office.

Payment methods in Portugal

Portuguese customers know three things and use them without thinking:

MB WAY: paying with the phone. To receive it as a business, you do it through your bank or a payment provider.
Multibanco reference: the customer gets an entity number and a reference and pays at a cash machine or in online banking.
Card: credit or debit.

To receive these without building anything from scratch, people use providers such as Stripe, SumUp, Viva Wallet, myPOS, easypay or ifthenpay. Several accept MB WAY and Multibanco as well as cards. If you sell to customers abroad, you will also come across PayPal.

There is no "best". There is what fits your business. Ask each one: does it accept the methods my customers use? Does it connect to my website, or can I just use payment links? Which invoicing software does it work with?

What a fee is

Each time you get paid, the provider keeps a small part: a percentage of the sale and, sometimes, a fixed amount. It is the price of the sale happening safely. Reference values are on the Current state page; what matters here is the reasoning: if a small fee brings you a sale that would otherwise be lost, it is worth it.

Tip

Compare by what you actually pay on a typical sale of yours, not by the number in big letters. Take an average sale, work out what is left after all costs and compare providers on that figure.

Three ways to charge

In person: the customer pays in the shop. You need a terminal or a merchant MB WAY.
Online: payment happens on your website, at the moment of purchase.
Payment link: you send a link by WhatsApp or email and the customer pays when they like. It is the simplest way to start, because you do not need an online shop set up.

The invoice is compulsory

Every sale must have an invoice, issued by invoicing software certified by the Tax Authority (AT). The document must carry a QR code (compulsory since 2022) and the ATCUD (compulsory since 2023), and the series are reported to the AT. Taking money without an invoice is illegal, even by MB WAY or bank transfer. Every payment received gets its invoice. Your accountant is the one who tells you which software is right for you.

This is not legal advice: check with your accountant or a lawyer.

Watch out

Safety for the one charging and the one paying:

Never ask for card details by message, email or phone. The customer pays on the provider's page, never to you.
Never take money "to save the fee" without an invoice. You lose the customer's trust and fall behind with the AT.
Refund through the same method you were paid with, and not to bank details the customer sends you by message.
Keep the receipts for every payment and every refund.

Tip

3-D Secure is the code or the confirmation on the phone that the bank asks the customer for in a card payment. If a customer complains about "one more step", explain that this is what protects them. It protects you too.

A test, start to finish

The test worth doing is the whole circuit, with 1 €: you create the link, pay it yourself from your phone, issue the invoice and refund. If any step fails, you find out now, not with a customer waiting.

For the customer's personal data on invoices and payments, what the lesson on legal obligations in Portugal explains applies. And if the payment is part of a booking, the previous lesson, online bookings and appointments, shows how to link it.

Exercise

Choose one or two payment methods for your business and write in one line the criterion you used.
Open the merchant account with the chosen provider and pass the identity check.
Create a payment link for 1 € and pay it yourself, from your phone.
Issue the invoice for that 1 € in your certified invoicing software.
Refund the 1 € through the same method and keep the receipts.

How I know it worked a payment of 1 € received, with an invoice issued and the refund done, all with receipts.

If it didn't work

Is the identity check slow or was it refused? They normally ask for an ID document, your tax number and details of your activity. Check that the details match your registration and answer the provider's request. If it carries on, contact their support.
Can't find where to create a payment link? Look for a button with a name like "payment link", "charge" or "request payment". This is how it looks on 16 October 2026; if the screen is different, look for the button with the same name.
Did the invoicing software not connect to the provider? Not all of them do. You can issue the invoice by hand for each payment. Ask your accountant which certified software to use.
Does the refund not show up straight away? Some methods take days to return the money to the customer. Keep the receipt and check with the provider.