The €6,445.56 rule, startup capital and incubation costs are not the same financial requirement
Founders regularly mix personal subsistence, company funding and incubator fees into one number. Portugal’s Startup Visa does not. This article separates the three before a founder builds a budget.
The most useful number in a 2026 Startup Visa budget is €6,445.56. The most common mistake is believing that it tells you how much capital your startup needs.
It does not.
IAPMEI’s current Startup Visa page publishes the 2026 personal-resource reference as 12 × IAS. The IAS for 2026 is €537.13, producing €6,445.56 per entrepreneur. IAPMEI’s FAQ says this is a subsistence amount for twelve months and must be proved individually by bank statement when a project has more than one founder.
Startup Visa has a personal-money test. It does not have one universal “minimum startup investment” number.
Portugal Startup Visa financial requirements: Wallet 1 — the founder’s personal subsistence
| 2026 reference | Who proves it? | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| 12 × €537.13 = €6,445.56 | Each entrepreneur individually | Personal subsistence in Portugal for 12 months. |
| Two founders = €12,891.12 in total project-side personal resources | Still two individual proofs | It does not become one shared founder bank balance by default. |
| Five founders = €32,227.80 in aggregate | Five individual proofs | Maximum team size is addressed separately in Article 14. |
The official 2026 IAS amount comes from Portaria n.º 480-A/2025/1, which sets IAS at €537.13 from 1 January 2026. IAPMEI itself reproduces the 12× calculation on its current Startup Visa page.
This is the founder’s personal financial floor for programme submission. It is not the company’s runway.
Wallet 2 — money the business needs to become real
A software startup with two founders, no salaries for six months and a prototype already built may require relatively little initial cash. A hardware company with certification, manufacturing and pilot installations may need substantially more.
Startup Visa does not replace that commercial reality with one statutory capital figure.
IAPMEI evaluates whether the project has credible innovation, scalability, market potential, management capability, qualified-employment potential and the capacity to reach the programme’s economic threshold over time. Article 9 already owns the €325,000 five-year potential test; it should not be misread here as cash you must deposit before applying.
A founder budget should therefore answer a different question: what must the company spend before it can generate evidence that the business works?
Wallet 3 — incubation itself
The Startup Visa framework requires a certified incubator, and the programme’s FAQ states that the entrepreneur must agree incubation conditions and associated amounts directly with the incubator.
There is no single IAPMEI tariff for incubator services. Depending on the incubator, the package can involve workspace, mentoring, programme management, legal/business support and other services.
That cost belongs in the startup plan, but it is not the 12×IAS personal subsistence requirement.
A founder budget I would actually build
| Bucket | Question | Example line items |
|---|---|---|
| Personal runway | Can each founder live in Portugal while the project is being built? | Housing, food, transport, personal insurance, family costs. |
| Business runway | Can the company reach the next proof point? | Product build, cloud, hardware, legal/IP, pilots, sales, certification. |
| Incubation | What does the selected incubator charge and provide? | Physical space, mentoring, programme fees, specialist services. |
| Immigration/admin | What costs arise around the move and residence process? | Visa, document legalisation/translation, travel, AIMA fees. |
| Contingency | What if revenue or visa timing slips? | Extra 3–6 months runway rather than zero-buffer forecasts. |
Why €6,445.56 should not be your target bank balance
A legal minimum and a sensible founder runway are different things.
If a founder arrives with exactly the minimum personal amount and immediately pays housing deposits, travel and relocation costs, the practical runway may be thin. Conversely, showing more money does not make a weak project innovative.
The cleanest approach is to meet the personal rule clearly and then build a separate, honest business financing story.
If there are several founders
The IAPMEI FAQ is unusually clear: the 12×IAS condition must be proved individually by bank statement if there is more than one entrepreneur. A project with three founders therefore should not rely on one founder showing all the money while the others show none, unless IAPMEI publishes or confirms a different treatment for the specific case.
This separation also makes sense economically. Personal survival risk and company financing risk are not the same risk.
Investor money, founder savings and company capital
An investor commitment can strengthen the business story, but it should not be casually substituted for the founder’s individual subsistence evidence unless the programme expressly accepts the structure presented.
Likewise, money already injected into a company may not be freely available for an individual’s living expenses. Keep corporate cash and personal cash conceptually separate even if both ultimately come from the founders.
A simple 2026 budgeting model
Calculate €6,445.56 personal subsistence for each Startup Visa entrepreneur.
Add realistic personal relocation costs above that floor: deposits, first rent, travel and setup. That relocation budget should also reflect the separate question of Portugal Startup Visa physical presence.
Estimate company runway to the next commercial milestone, not to an arbitrary visa number.
Obtain the actual incubator fee proposal before finalising the cash plan.
Add visa/document/residence administrative costs.
Add contingency for delays; a zero-buffer startup budget is not made safer by a compliant bank statement.
The most financially credible Startup Visa application is not the one that puts every euro into one spreadsheet column called “investment”. It shows that the founders can support themselves and that the company has a plausible path to finance the work it claims it will do. For where each financial item enters the formal workflow, use Portugal Startup Visa process IAPMEI incubator AIMA.
Sources and further reading
IAPMEI — StartUP Visa 2026 (Portuguese) — Publishes the 2026 reference: 12 × €537.13 = €6,445.56.
Diário da República — Portaria n.º 480-A/2025/1 — Official IAS value for 2026: €537.13.
IAPMEI — StartUP Visa FAQ — Explains 12×IAS as personal subsistence and individual proof for each entrepreneur; incubator charges are agreed with the incubator.
IAPMEI — StartUP Visa programme criteria — Innovation/economic-potential criteria; separates project potential from personal subsistence.
