During some official procedures in Portugal, you may be required to present a birth certificate . For example, if you were born in Portugal but are a citizen of another country, and you wish to request nationality or a tax number (NIF) , you will need to present your birth certificate . So let's explore together where to get your Portuguese birth certificate, how to get it, and finally what reasons might lead you to need it.

A birth certificate is a document attesting to the birth of a person and is often used in certain administrative procedures requiring proof of a person's identity and existence . On a Portuguese birth certificate, you will find the following information :

• Page number ;
• Registration number ;
• Type of birth certificate ;
• Book number ;
• Identification number of the national register ;
• Civil status information (name, surname, etc...) ;

Previously, it was only possible to request for a birth certificate by physically traveling to Portugal, and therefore you had to be physically present in Portugal to obtain it. Nowadays, it is possible to request for a Portuguese birth certificate entirely online , using companies that do the application for you. In this way, you will get your birth certificate by email , in PDF format, without even needing to be present in Portugal .

To authenticate a birth certificate, you can check, for example, that it contains all the information that should be in a Portuguese birth certificate . However, this verification is not necessarily sufficient to authenticate the certificate , so to be completely sure of its authenticity, you will have to make an application yourself with the information contained in the birth certificate that you want to authenticate. It is possible to request with a name other than the one requesting the certificate , and this application can be done entirely online.