Portugal is in the same time zone as London, uses the same currency as Paris and Berlin, and sits inside the same single market as both.
None of that sounds like a decision, which is the point. Working with a creator here is an ordinary European engagement rather than an offshore arrangement, and most of what goes wrong comes from brands treating it as the second thing.
It is not offshoring, and cost is the wrong first question
If your reason for looking at Portugal is that it is cheaper, you will optimise on price and get exactly what that selects for: the person with the least work, rather than the person best suited to the brief.
What you are actually buying
A deep pool of people who film in daylight most of the year, who work in English as a matter of course, and who are inside the same regulatory and payment perimeter as the rest of the Union. The administrative side is ordinary rather than exotic, which is worth more than a lower fee the first time something needs fixing.
Price the job the way you would in your own market and select on fit. If the result costs less, that is a consequence and not a strategy.
A Portuguese creator is not a cheaper Spanish one
This is the mistake that produces the most disappointing results, and it is understandable. The countries are adjacent, both are in the Union, and from a spreadsheet in another country they look interchangeable.
They are not. Language, references, humour and what reads as ordinary all differ, and a Spanish audience hears a Portuguese person speaking Spanish as someone fluent and from elsewhere.
When Portugal is the right answer
When your market is Portugal. When you specifically want European Portuguese, which is not the same as the Portuguese spoken in Brazil, a difference big enough that we treat it as its own subject. And when you need a place and a face that reads as southern European without being tied to one particular nationality, which is a real case and one you should state openly in the brief rather than leave the creator to guess.
When it is not
When your market is Spain, France or Italy, hire there. When your audience is Brazilian, hire in Brazil. When the video depends on a local reference the creator would have to research rather than recognise, you are asking someone to perform familiarity, and audiences hear that.
| What you need | Hire in Portugal when | Hire elsewhere when |
|---|---|---|
| Reach Portuguese consumers | Always, this is the home case | Never, a foreign accent removes the whole advantage |
| Reach Brazilian consumers | Only for a European Portuguese specific reason | Almost always, the two are not interchangeable |
| Reach Spanish consumers | Only if the person genuinely lives the market | Normally, cast in Spain |
| Southern European look, no fixed nationality | Yes, and say so in the brief | If nationality must be identifiable |
| A location you cannot get at home | Yes, coast, light and old towns are the asset | If the location is incidental to the message |
| Lower cost with the same brief | This is not a reason, it is a side effect | Whenever price is doing the selecting |
The last row is the one worth reading twice. Every other line in this table is a reason. That one is a description of how the wrong hire happens.
Briefing a place you have never been
This is where distance actually costs you something, and it is fixable.
Do not name the locations
If you have not been, you will name the postcard. Asking for the famous tiled street or the famous viewpoint gets you a video that looks like everyone else's, filmed in the one place tourists queue for.
Describe the feeling and the function instead: somewhere quiet where you can hear her speak, an ordinary kitchen, a street that looks lived in rather than restored. Then let the person who lives there choose. They know which places are empty on a Tuesday morning and which ones charge for filming.
Do not ask for typical anything
A brief that asks for a typically Portuguese setting produces a cliché, because the only way to be typical on purpose is to perform the version outsiders recognise.
Ask instead for what the video must make the viewer believe, and give the claims you cannot make. Those two constraints produce something specific. An instruction to be typical produces a postcard with a product in front of it.
What your finance team will ask
If you are a business in another European Union country, the invoice you receive from a Portuguese independent will usually carry a legal mention instead of tax, because the tax is accounted for at your end rather than charged at theirs.
The invoice will look different, and that is normal
Somebody in accounts payable who has not seen one before may flag it, and the delay that follows is the most common friction in this whole arrangement. It is avoidable with one message: tell your finance colleagues before the first invoice arrives what to expect and confirm your own registration details are correct, because the creator will need them.
If you are outside the Union, the invoice looks different again. In both cases the creator is doing something ordinary, and the only thing that turns it into a problem is arriving unannounced in an inbox that was not expecting it.
How the working relationship differs
Less than you would expect, with two things worth knowing.
The first is that August is genuinely quiet, and so is the fortnight around the turn of the year. Not unavailable, quiet, in the sense that a shoot booked for mid August with four people involved will find at least one of them away. Plan around it rather than discovering it.
The second is that the working language will often be English, and that is a convenience rather than a solution. The brief in English is fine. The video in English, for a Portuguese audience, is not, and a creator who agrees to it because you asked has just given you a worse result politely. Say which language the output is in, separately from the language you are talking in.
Keep reading
- Invoicing Foreign Clients as a UGC Creator in Portugal
- UGC for Portuguese E-commerce Brands
- UGC for Tourism and Hospitality in Portugal
- The UGC Market in Portugal
- The complete UGC guide for Portugal
Frequently asked questions
Is it cheaper to work with creators in Portugal?
Often, and that should not be the reason. Selecting on price selects for availability rather than suitability. Price the brief as you would at home and choose on fit.
Can a Portuguese creator make content for Brazil?
Only when there is a specific reason to want European Portuguese. The two variants are different enough that audiences notice immediately, and we treat that difference as its own subject.
Why does the invoice have no tax on it?
For services to a business in another European Union country, the tax is usually accounted for by the client rather than charged by the supplier, with a legal mention on the invoice. Tell your finance team before the first one arrives.
What language should the brief be in?
English is fine for the brief. Decide the language of the finished video separately and state it, because a creator will otherwise assume the two are the same and deliver in the language you wrote in.