The revenue obtained by the Portuguese State from tax collection in 2024 corresponded to 35.1% of the wealth produced in the country that year, with a decline in the weight of taxes in GDP for the second consecutive year, indicates the OECD.
In the Revenue Statistics 2025 report, published this Tuesday, 9th, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) calculates that the amount of taxes collected by Portugal, measured as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), decreased by 0.2 percentage points from 2023 to 2024, going from 35.3% to 35.1%.
The trend is identical to what occurred from 2022 to 2023, in which there was a decrease of 0.6 percentage points, with the value of total tax revenue going from 35.9% to 35.3%.
In the opposite direction, there had previously been an increase in the weight of taxes in the national GDP, with the ratio rising from 35.1% in 2021 to 35.9% in 2022.
OECD statistics include definitive data on public revenues for 2023 and provisional data for 2024, a year in which, says the organization, “many OECD countries adopted measures aimed at increasing revenues in response to short- and long-term pressures on public expenditure.”
The decline observed in Portugal in 2024 was contrary to the trend observed in all OECD countries with available data, where “the average tax/GDP ratio of OECD countries increased by 0.3 percentage points”, from 33.7% in 2023 to 34.1% in 2024.
“This is the first year that the tax/GDP ratio has increased since 2021, raising the average ratio of the 38 countries studied in this report to the highest level ever”, says the organization.
For the purposes of this report, contributions paid to Social Security by companies and workers are also considered in tax amounts.
In OECD countries, the weight of taxes in GDP varied between 18.3% in Mexico and 45.2% in Denmark in 2024.
Provisional data points to an increase in the weight of taxes in GDP in relation to 2023 “in 22 of the 36 countries for which preliminary data are available”, with a decrease in 13 countries and one country with unchanged values.
“The largest increase in 2024 was observed in Latvia, whose ratio of taxes to GDP increased by 2.4 percentage points due to the increase in revenues as a percentage of GDP from personal income tax (IRS), Social Security contributions and corporate income tax (IRC). The second largest increase occurred in Slovenia, where tax revenues increased by 1.9 percentage points as a result of the increase in Social Security contributions”, indicates the OECD.
In the opposite direction, the biggest drop from 2023 to 2024 occurred in Colombia, by 2.2 percentage points, due to a drop in IRC revenues. South Korea and Norway also recorded declines of more than one percentage point