Legal services in Portugal: lawyers, documents and registrations for residents

What the office does, and who signs

Portuguese law reserves certain acts to registered professionals: representation before AIMA and the courts, the drafting of property deeds and company contracts, legal opinions — to advogados (Ordem dos Advogados); registrations, powers of attorney and many administrative filings — also to solicitadores. Access Portugal’s role is to qualify your case, gather the file and coordinate the professional who signs; the client always knows which lawyer holds the mandate.

• 10,20 € per apostille at the Procuradoria-Geral da República
• 120 € marriage process and registration at the civil registry
• 360 € company incorporated in one session at Empresa na Hora
• 0 € for the NIF and the NISS themselves — the cost is representation

Documents from abroad: the three questions

Every file we run for a foreign client turns on the same three questions about foreign documents:

1. Is it legalised? Public documents from the 120-odd countries party to the Hague Convention of 1961 need an apostille from the issuing country; others need consular legalisation. Portuguese documents going abroad are apostilled by the Procuradoria-Geral da República or a regional prosecutor’s office for 10,20 €.
2. Is it translated? Portuguese registries accept documents in English, French and Spanish without translation for nationality files (IRN); Finanças and most other services require a Portuguese translation certified by a notary, a lawyer, a solicitador or a chamber of commerce — there is no separate “sworn translator” register in Portugal.
3. Is it recent? Criminal record certificates older than three to six months and civil certificates older than six months are routinely refused. Order them last.

Powers of attorney

Most of what we do for clients abroad runs on a procuração. A power of attorney given to a lawyer or solicitador needs no notarised signature for NIF requests and nationality filings; deeds and company acts need a public instrument or a notarised signature, which a Portuguese consulate or a foreign notary (with apostille) can provide. We send the text in Portuguese and English and say which form each act requires.

The “Portugal vs” series

Clients from Norway, Luxembourg, Australia and other countries ask the same questions about how Portuguese law compares with theirs — courts, contracts, family law, inheritance, company formation. The comparison pages under this section answer them with the Portuguese rules and the treaties that link the two countries; they are updated as each is rewritten with verified sources.

Questions