Portugal
Ecommerce website development for Portuguese businesses
Ecommerce development for Portuguese businesses is built around a domestic payment network that has no real equivalent elsewhere. Multibanco references let a customer pay at an ATM or in banking software days after ordering, and MB WAY handles the instant end. We build remotely from Rajkot and hold no Portuguese office.
How do you work with Portuguese clients?
We hold no Portuguese office.
Work runs from our studio in Rajkot on a shared board you can open at any time, with decisions written down the day they are made and scope changes priced in writing before they are built. What is specific to Portugal is that the domestic payment network changes the order lifecycle rather than just the checkout. A Multibanco reference is generated at the order and paid later, which means an order can sit unpaid for days and then settle without anybody touching it. That has consequences a store has to be built for: stock either held or not held during the wait, a reference that expires, an order state that is neither abandoned nor paid, and reconciliation that arrives asynchronously. Treating it as a card payment that happens to be slow produces oversold stock and orders nobody chased. MB WAY covers the instant end from a phone. Both belong in the first phase. Invoicing is in euro. Contracts are governed by the laws of India, stated plainly in our terms and worth raising with your adviser before signing.
What we build
Four services, delivered the same way wherever you are: Shopify stores, WooCommerce stores, the interface design that decides whether either converts, and the automation that removes manual work from running them.
- Shopify in Europe
Shopify Development
Shopify development is the work of building a store on Shopify that does what your business needs rather than what a theme allows.
- WooCommerce in Europe
WooCommerce Development
WooCommerce development is the work of building a store on WordPress and WooCommerce, where you host the software and own the database outright.
- UI/UX in Europe
UI/UX Design
Ecommerce UI/UX design is the work of deciding how a store looks and how customers move through it, from landing page to completed order.
- AI in Europe
AI Automation
AI automation for ecommerce means using language models and workflow tools to remove repetitive work from running a store.
Which platforms dominate in Portugal?
Our observation, not sourced data
What we see in the Portuguese market, stated as our observation rather than as data we can source: WooCommerce is common among smaller merchants, Shopify is growing among newer brands, and the payment gateway choice is frequently made before the platform because the domestic network integration matters more than the storefront. The pattern worth naming is that certified invoicing software is a normal part of the stack here, which makes the store a source of order data rather than the system of record for invoices.
What does a Portuguese store actually have to handle?
Every layer below is something a store selling in Portugal has to get right, and most of them are decided before a line of code is written. Thresholds and rates are deliberately not quoted here — they change, and the primary sources are linked further down.
| Layer | What Portuguese stores usually need |
|---|---|
| Currency | Euro, with prices shown inclusive of VAT to consumers |
| Payment methods | Multibanco references and MB WAY, alongside cards and PayPal |
| Order lifecycle | A reference can be paid days after ordering, so orders sit in an unpaid state |
| Invoicing | Certified invoicing software is the norm rather than a store plugin |
| Shipping carriers | CTT, DPD, GLS, Nacex; pickup points are widely used |
| Geography | Madeira and the Azores need their own delivery and tax handling |
| Data protection | GDPR, supervised by the CNPD |
| Consumer rights | A fourteen-day withdrawal right on most distance sales |
Cities we cover in Portugal
Each city page describes what commerce actually looks like there rather than repeating this one. If your city is not listed, the service is identical — we simply have not written a page worth publishing about it yet.
A Portuguese store meets the two standard EU regimes alongside a domestic invoicing practice that shapes the build. Data protection runs through GDPR, supervised by the Comissao Nacional de Proteccao de Dados. Consumer law gives a fourteen-day withdrawal right on most distance sales, stated before purchase rather than only in a policy page. The domestic addition is invoicing: certified software is the normal route, which means the store should hand clean order data to it rather than attempting to issue compliant invoices itself. Deferred payment interacts with all of this — an order paid by reference three days after it was placed has a different invoice date from one paid instantly, and the withdrawal period runs from delivery rather than from either. We build so those states are explicit. Which obligations apply to your business is a question for your accountant, and nothing here is tax or legal advice.
Nothing on this page is legal or tax advice.
Where Portuguese businesses sell next
These are the markets clients in Portugal most often ask about once the first store is trading. Each has its own payment habits, carriers and regulator, and a store built for one does not automatically work in the next. Every other market we cover is listed underneath.
Britain and Ireland
North America
Western Europe
Portuguese questions we are asked
5 questions specific to working with us from Portugal, including the one most agencies avoid: whether anybody at this studio is actually in the country.
Do you have a Portuguese office?
No. We work from Rajkot, India, and say so rather than implying a Lisbon address. You get a named contact who stays with the account, a shared board you can open at any time, and answers within one business day. Where a project genuinely needs somebody in the room, we are the wrong choice.
Should we hold stock while a Multibanco reference is unpaid?
That is a commercial decision with real consequences either way. Holding it protects the customer and risks stock sitting idle; not holding it risks selling the same unit twice. Most merchants hold for a defined window and release automatically, which is a rule worth setting deliberately rather than by default.
Can the store issue our invoices?
We would not build it that way. Certified invoicing software is the normal route here, so the sensible architecture is a store that produces complete order data and hands it over. Making a storefront plugin into the invoicing system of record is how these projects acquire problems that are expensive to unwind.
Is MB WAY different from a card payment?
Yes. It authorises from a phone against a number rather than card details, and it settles immediately, which makes it the natural choice for mobile traffic. References suit customers who prefer to pay later or without a card. Most Portuguese stores offer both because they serve different buyers.
What about Madeira and the Azores?
They need their own delivery rules and their own tax treatment rather than being folded into a mainland rate. A single national shipping figure is wrong for the islands in a way customers there notice immediately. Your accountant can confirm the tax position; the delivery zones are straightforward to build.
Get in touch
Building or replatforming a store in Portugal?
Tell us what you are building and we will come back within one business day.
- Invoiced in
- EUR
- City pages
- 8
- Office in Portugal
- None