Procedures to Obtain the Portuguese Citizenship

Source: europabrasil.com.br

The Portuguese Nationality Act, on its Title I, lists the procedures through which someone can obtain the Portuguese citizenship, which are:

• The Attribution of Citizenship (Chapter I);
• The Acquisition of Citizenship (Chapter II).

The attribution of citizenship is the procedure that those persons who are entitled to the original citizenship must follow in order to obtain the Portuguese citizenship.

It is in this procedure that we see the “transmission” of citizenship from parents to children and it is the easiest and most straightforward way to obtain the Portuguese citizenship.

The acquisition of citizenship is the procedure that the persons who are entitled to the derivative citizenship must follow to obtain the citizenship.

The Nationality Act subdivides the acquisition of citizenship into:

1. Acquisition of citizenship through effect of will: this is the procedure that must be followed to obtain the citizenship for spouses and civil partners of Portuguese citizens and for underage children of Portuguese citizens that have obtained the Portuguese citizenship through acquisition of citizenship;
2. Acquisition of citizenship through adoption: this is the procedure that must be followed by the underage adopted children of Portuguese citizens;
3. Acquisition of citizenship through naturalisation: this is the due procedure for grandchildren, great grandchildren, children of foreign parents born in Portugal, foreign citizens that live in Portugal for over 6 years.

Besides these two procedures, there is also the late registration of birth, regulated by the Portuguese Civil Registration Code, which is suitable for the cases in which the birth of the child was not registered within one year of his/her birth.

This is the procedure that must be followed by those who were born in Goa, the former African Colonies, Macau and East Timor, because these people are all Portuguese but, because the territories they were born are no longer part of Portugal, their births were not registered in the Portuguese Civil Register Office.

Summing up and still speaking roughly, we have three procedures through each the applicants can obtain the Portuguese citizenship.

Larissa Bona