Portuguese Citizenship By Birth: Everything You Need to Know

Portugal grants citizenship at birth, but not to everyone born on Portuguese soil. If one parent is Portuguese, the child is Portuguese from birth wherever they’re born. If both parents are foreign, the child qualifies only when one parent has lived legally in Portugal for at least five years, and a declaration has to be made on the child’s behalf.

That five-year condition is new. It replaced a one-year requirement on 19 May 2026, and it changed the position for most foreign families raising children in Portugal.

This article covers who qualifies for Portuguese citizenship by birth, what the new law changed, how to register a birth, and what your options are if your child doesn’t meet the conditions.

Portuguese Citizenship by Birth: Key Takeaways

A child born in Portugal to at least one Portuguese parent is Portuguese from birth

Children born abroad to a Portuguese parent are also Portuguese from birth, once the birth is registered or a declaration is made

Where both parents are foreign, one of them must have resided legally in Portugal for at least five years at the time of birth, and a declaration is required

There’s an exception: if one parent was also born in Portugal and lives here, the child is Portuguese from birth with no residence period and no declaration

A child born in Portugal who would otherwise be stateless is Portuguese from birth

Portugal allows dual citizenship, so your child doesn’t have to give up another nationality

Yes, but it depends on your family’s position rather than on the place of birth alone. Portugal combines citizenship by descent with a limited form of citizenship by place of birth. A child born on Portuguese soil to foreign parents qualifies only when one parent meets a five-year legal residence condition, and the claim has to be declared.

If at least one parent is Portuguese, the child is Portuguese from birth no matter where in the world they’re born. Where the birth takes place abroad, you make that status effective by registering the birth with the Portuguese civil registry or at a consulate, or by declaring that the child wants to be Portuguese. The nationality is treated as having existed since birth.

Being born in Portugal isn’t enough on its own. A child born here to foreign parents is Portuguese from birth only if one parent had been legally resident in Portugal for at least five years when the child was born, and only once someone declares the claim.

Before 19 May 2026, that residence period was one year. The change came in with Lei Orgânica n.º 1/2026 and applies to declarations made from that date.

One exception sits outside the residence rule. If one of the parents was also born in Portugal and lives here at the time of the birth, the child is Portuguese from birth regardless of how long that parent has been here and regardless of what permit they hold.

This matters for second-generation families where the parents grew up in Portugal but never took Portuguese nationality themselves.

Portuguese citizenship is also granted to a child born in Portugal who would otherwise have no nationality at all.

People who don’t qualify at birth can still apply later. Grandchildren of Portuguese citizens can claim nationality if they declare it and can show genuine ties to the Portuguese community.

Great-grandchildren now have a route too, through naturalization after five years of legal residence. Neither happens automatically at birth.

Portuguese citizenship by birth is attributed in defined situations set out in Article 1 of the Nationality Law. It isn’t discretionary.

If your circumstances meet the legal conditions at the time of the birth, the nationality follows, and later residence or integration doesn’t change that. What varies is whether a declaration is needed and what evidence the registry will ask for.

The evidence you’ll need follows the route. For a child of a Portuguese parent, the registry works from the parent’s Portuguese civil registration and identification.

For the five-year route, you’re proving the parents’ legal residence as it stood on the date of birth, using residence documents and identification. For the second-generation exception, you’re proving the parents’ own births in Portugal and their current residence here, which is a different, usually simpler, evidentiary question.

Decisions sit with the Instituto dos Registos e do Notariado. In practice, that means a civil registry office, the Conservatória dos Registos Centrais in Lisbon, or the Portuguese consulate covering where you live if the birth happened abroad.

None of these offices exercises discretion over attribution. They assess whether the legal conditions were met and whether your evidence establishes them.

If the conditions weren’t met on the date of birth, that answer doesn’t change later. What changes is which other route becomes available, and for a child growing up in Portugal that’s usually naturalization as a minor.

Citizenship by birth vs. citizenship by descent: What’s the difference?

Citizenship by birth and Portuguese citizenship by descent may sound similar, but the law treats them as distinct.

Citizenship by birth covers anyone the law recognizes as Portuguese from the moment they’re born, whether that’s through a Portuguese parent or through birth in Portugal under the conditions above.

Citizenship by descent describes claims running through the family line to people born outside Portugal. Children born abroad to a Portuguese parent are Portuguese from birth, but the status needs registering or declaring before the authorities will act on it.

Grandchildren sit differently. They aren’t Portuguese from birth. They can claim nationality by declaring it and showing genuine ties to the Portuguese community, which is a test the registry applies to the individual.

Great-grandchildren have no claim by birth either, and their route is naturalization after five years of legal residence.

Registering the birth is how a child’s Portuguese nationality gets recorded and acted on. A birth in Portugal has to be registered as soon as possible at the maternity unit or hospital where it happened.

If that doesn’t happen there, you have 20 days from the birth to register it.

Either parent can register the birth online if the parents are married. If they aren’t married, one parent submits the registration and the other confirms it by email.

You can also register in person, and several other people are entitled to declare a birth, including someone holding written authorization from a parent, the nearest relative with knowledge of the birth, and the director, administrator, or an employee of the health unit.

Online registration needs a Chave Móvel Digital or a Citizen Card. Many foreign parents have neither, in which case the birth is registered in person. You can do that at:

• Any Nascer Cidadão counter, located in maternity clinics and hospitals
• Any civil registry office
• The consular post for where you live, if you’re abroad

If a child is entitled to Portuguese nationality at birth, the registration goes through the Portuguese civil registry, either at a registry office in Portugal or at a Portuguese consulate if the birth happened outside the country. The official birth certificate is the main document.

A certificate issued outside Portugal has to be legalized, with an Apostille or through the Portuguese consulate depending on the country, and translated into Portuguese where required. The authorities will also check the parents’ identification and civil status records.

Missing the deadline doesn’t forfeit the nationality. A child’s legal representatives can regularize the position while the child is still a minor.

For someone born abroad to a Portuguese parent whose birth was never registered, registration is still possible later, provided the parent was Portuguese at the time of the birth. In those cases, the nationality is treated as having existed from birth.

Different rules apply if the child wasn’t entitled to nationality at birth. Adults claiming through ancestry, including grandchildren of Portuguese citizens, go through a formal application and meet the requirements in force when they apply. That’s a separate process from nationality attributed at birth.

Required documents

To register a birth, online or in person, you need to:

• Provide proof of birth, in the form of a document issued by the hospital where the child was born
• State the full names of the parents and grandparents
• Give the details of the birth and the child, including the name, which can run to no more than six words in total, of which two can be given names and four surnames
• Specify the maternity clinic or hospital where the child was born
• Attach a photo of the baby and proof of birth, if you’re registering online and want to apply for the Citizen Card at the same time
• Provide the details about the birth and the household required by Statistics Portugal, for births in Portugal

Citizen Cards for Portuguese nationals

Every Portuguese citizen has to hold a Citizen Card, whether they live in Portugal or abroad. The obligation starts 20 days after the birth is registered. You can apply for the card during the birth registration itself, and at that point it’s free of charge.

The card carries a Civil Identification Number, and issuing it also assigns the child:

• National health service user number (Utente)
• Tax Identification Number (NIF)
• Social Security Identification Number (NISS)

If the child meets the requirements of being under the age of 18, was born in Portugal, is the child of foreigners and the mother or father has resided (or are residents) in Portugal for the last 5 years, an application for Portugal’s citizenship by birth can be made.

Note that the process and requirements are different from Portugal citizenship by descent.

Three conditions have to be met together at the moment you apply:

• The child has to be a minor
• Born in Portuguese territory to foreign parents. One parent has to have been legally resident in Portugal for at least five years by the date of the application.
• And the child has to be enrolled in and regularly attending compulsory schooling, where that applies to their age.

Another condition applies once the child turns 16, which is the age of criminal responsibility in Portugal. From that point, the child must also show sufficient knowledge of the Portuguese language and culture, history, and national symbols, have no final conviction carrying more than three years’ actual imprisonment, and not be subject to United Nations or European Union restrictive measures.

If you have a representative or a Portugal immigration lawyer, the application can be done online. If you don’t, there are several places where you can do this yourself, including:

• The Civil Registry Conservatory
• At certain Nationality Counters, such as the one at the Central Archive in Porto
• Central Registry Conservatory in Lisbon
• National Support Center for Migrant Integration in Lisbon and Porto

There are several documents you’ll need for Portugal’s citizenship-by-birth application. These include a birth certificate and a clean criminal record if the applicant is 17 years or younger.

The most crucial document needed is a letter addressed to the Minister of Justice, written in Portuguese, stating:

• The reason for the Citizenship by Birth application
• Your full name, date of birth and gender
• Your nationality
• Your parents’ names
• Your profession
• Your address
• the country(s) where you have lived after the age of 16
• the number, date, and entity that issued your title or residence permit, passport, or equivalent identification document.

The application is addressed to the Minister of Justice and written in Portuguese.

It sets out the grounds for the application along with the applicant’s full name, date of birth, and gender, their nationality, their parents’ names, their occupation, their address, the countries they’ve lived in since turning 16, and the number, date, and issuing authority of their residence permit, passport, or equivalent identification document.

Portugal allows dual citizenship. Acquiring Portuguese nationality doesn’t require you to renounce the nationality you already hold, and Portugal doesn’t need a bilateral agreement with your country for that to be true.

Whether you keep your original nationality depends on your own country’s law, not on Portugal’s.

For a child who’s Portuguese from birth, this means the Portuguese nationality sits alongside whatever they inherit from their parents. Nothing has to be given up, and no choice has to be made at 18. You can read more in our Portugal Dual Citizenship application guide.

For adults acquiring Portuguese nationality later, the qualifying route determines the requirements. Naturalization by residence now takes seven years of legal residence for nationals of Portuguese-speaking countries and EU member states, or ten years for everyone else.

Claims through Portuguese ancestry run through descent instead, with no residence requirement for children and grandchildren of Portuguese nationals.

Marriage is a separate route rather than a shortcut through the residence requirement. If you’ve been married to a Portuguese national for more than three years, you can acquire nationality by declaration during the marriage.

The same three-year period applies to a de facto partnership, though that route additionally requires a court decision recognizing the partnership.

After 10 years as a legal resident (7 years for EU and CPLP citizens), a Portugal Golden Visa holder can apply for Portuguese citizenship.

This entitlement extends to children and requires proof of a Portuguese connection and a birth certificate when applying for citizenship.

For a child born in Portugal while the parents hold the permit, the position can be better. If one parent had already been legally resident for five years when the child was born, the child is Portuguese from birth once the claim is declared, without waiting for the parents’ own naturalization to come through.

A family five years into a Golden Visa who then has a child in Portugal is in a materially different position from one that arrived last year.

What changed on 19 May 2026

The residence requirement for naturalization rose from five years to ten for nationals of countries outside the EU and the Portuguese-speaking world. For EU and CPLP nationals, it stayed at seven years. The change came through Lei Orgânica n.º 1/2026, promulgated on 3 May 2026 and in force from 19 May.

Applications already pending on 19 May 2026 continue under the previous version of the law. The new periods apply to applications submitted from that date onward.