Companies reported a worsening of context costs in 2024, highlighting the judicial system, licensing and tax system as the main obstacles to activity, especially in industry and small and medium-sized companies, INE announced this Thursday, 4th.
According to the 4th edition of the “Context Cost Survey (IaCC)” by the National Statistics Institute (INE) – carried out between May and July 2025 based on 4,843 responses from non-financial companies in Portugal – the global indicator of companies’ context costs registered a value of 3.14 in 2024, on a continuous scale from one to five, increased from 3.09 in 2021, 3.05 in 2017 and 3.04 in 2014.
By sector of activity, “industry” presented the highest value in this indicator (3.27), while the “transport and storage, information and communication” sector registered the largest increase compared to 2021 (+0.20).
The indicator was also higher in small and medium-sized companies, as well as in companies based in the Autonomous Region of the Azores, which reached 3.22 and 3.24, respectively (+0.07 and +0.16 compared to 2021).
In 2024, among the nine domains identified as potential areas of obstacle to the activity of non-financial companies (commencement of activity, licensing, network industries, financing, judicial system, tax system, administrative burden, barriers to internationalization and human resources), the judicial system once again recorded the highest indicator (3.66), with 53.7% of companies considering the duration of legal proceedings to be a high or very high obstacle.
“Among its components, tax disputes remained the most relevant obstacle (3.78) followed by commercial disputes (3.62) and labor disputes (3.58)”, states INE.
Regarding the characteristics of the processes, the duration of legal proceedings remained the most significant obstacle (3.85), being considered a high or very high obstacle by 53.7% of companies.
In the tax system, the tax burden continued to be the aspect most mentioned by companies as an obstacle to their activity, especially in the “accommodation and catering” sector, while in the area of licensing, obtaining environmental licenses and certifications was identified as the main obstacle by companies in the “industry” sector.
According to INE, the area of human resources was, however, the one that registered the biggest increase in the indicator compared to 2021, reaching 3.24 (+0.14), an increase “associated with difficulties in hiring workers, accessing qualified technicians and accrediting skills”, whose indicators increased by 0.18, 0.15 and 0.15, respectively.
These factors were perceived as high or very high obstacles by 46.8%, 50.6% and 32.2% of companies, respectively.
In turn, network industries registered an improvement in the context cost indicator compared to 2021 (-0.04), reflecting the positive evolution in the majority of services included in this domain, with emphasis on liquid fuels (-0.17).
Electricity and land freight transport services were the only ones to present indicator values equal to or greater than three, with 3.12 and 3.00, respectively.
INE data also indicate that the provision and delivery of business and tax information was the obligation that represented the greatest weight in the average annual cost associated with complying with information obligations, with 61.2% of this cost borne directly by companies and the remainder through subcontracting to third parties (‘outsourcing’).
This was followed by costs with audits, inspections and inspections and those associated with placing informative labels and providing information to consumers and other entities, which represented 21.5% and 11.0% of the total, corresponding to increases of 1.9 percentage points and 3.5 percentage points, respectively, compared to 2021.