Getting married in Portugal: the process, the documents and what it costs

• One month ahead, minimum: the preliminary marriage process is opened at any civil registry (or online, for Portuguese and Brazilian citizens with a digital key) at least a month before the date
• 120 € for the process and the registration; 200 € if the ceremony is outside the registry or outside opening hours; a prenuptial agreement at the registry costs 100 € (standard regime) or 160 € (custom regime)
• Foreigners marry in Portugal with a passport or residence permit and proof that they are free to marry from their own country, apostilled or legalised and translated
• Default property regime: community of acquired property (comunhão de adquiridos); international couples can choose the law of a nationality or residence under EU Regulation 2016/1103

Marrying in Portugal is an administrative procedure with a ceremony at the end, not the reverse. The registrar (conservador) checks that both people are free and able to marry, publishes the intention so that anyone may object, and only then authorises the wedding — civil, Catholic, or civil in a religious form. This guide follows that order, with the costs from the registry’s own price list and the rules foreigners meet.

Who may marry

The Civil Code sets the absolute impediments (art. 1601.º, as amended by Lei n.º 39/2025): being under 18, notorious dementia or a guardianship decision that bars marriage, and an existing marriage not dissolved — Catholic or civil, registered or not. Relative impediments (art. 1602.º) bar close relatives in the direct line, siblings, uncle–niece and aunt–nephew, in-laws in the direct line, and a person convicted of, or on trial for, the intentional homicide of the other’s spouse. Same-sex marriage has been open in Portugal since 2010; residence in Portugal is not required to marry here.

The preliminary process, step by step

What it costs

Choosing the property regime

Without an agreement, a marriage in Portugal is under the community of acquired property (Civil Code art. 1717.º): what each spouse owned before, and what each inherits or receives as a gift, stays personal; what is earned or bought during the marriage is common. The alternatives are general community and separation of property, chosen in a prenuptial agreement (art. 1698.º), which may also set a custom regime within the limits of the law. The choice is made before the wedding and, for the standard regimes, at the registry itself for 100 €.

For couples of different nationalities or living in different countries, EU Regulation 2016/1103 adds a layer: the spouses may designate the law of the State where either is habitually resident, or of which either is a national, to govern their property regime (art. 22.º); absent a choice, the law of their first common habitual residence after the wedding applies (art. 26.º). A couple who marry in Portugal and move to France, or the reverse, should decide this in writing before the wedding — it decides what a divorce or a death divides.

Catholic and other religious weddings

A Catholic marriage is recognised by the State under the Concordat: the preliminary process at the registry is the same, the registrar issues a certificate for the parish, and the parish sends the record for transcription. A “civil marriage in religious form” is the option for other recognised religious communities: the ceremony is religious, the effects civil, again after the same preliminary process. In every case the registry file comes first.