Brazilian Portuguese Translation | Prism Language Solutions

Prism Language Solutions translates Brazilian documents into English and English material into Brazilian Portuguese for use in the United States. The volume here is real: cartorio certidoes with their marginal annotations, divorce judgments, criminal record certificates, diplomas with the historico escolar, and the identity and tax numbers that go with them, each delivered complete with a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy. Short certificates are usually back within 24 hours.

Last reviewed September 12, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Language Solutions

About 725,000 Brazilian-born people lived in the United States in 2024, and they are not spread evenly. Roughly a quarter are in Florida and about one in six in Massachusetts, with greater Boston, New York and Miami holding a third of the total between them. For a school district in Framingham or a hospital system in Broward County this is not a rare language on the list.

This page is about Brazil specifically. The general Portuguese translation page covers the language across Brazil, Portugal, Angola and Cabo Verde. What follows is the Brazilian document set in detail, because a Brazilian file behaves differently and the differences are where translations go wrong.

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Brazilian Birth Certificate Translation and the 32-Digit Matricula

Civil records are issued by a Cartorio de Registro Civil das Pessoas Naturais, a private office holding a public delegation, in the municipality where the event was registered rather than where the person now lives. Since 1 January 2010 every new certificate carries a matricula: 32 digits in a national format that encode the cartorio and its acervo, the year, the book type, the book, the folha, the termo and two check digits. Book A is births, book B marriages, book C deaths.

Why that matters to a translator. The matricula is not decoration and not a case number; it is the address of the entry in the register, and it lets an officer confirm that two documents describe the same registration. We reproduce it digit for digit, translate the labels around it, and render the seals and issuing office as printed. Certificates from before 2010 carry the older livro, folha and termo references instead, which is normal and worth a line in the note so nobody reads the absence as a defect.

Brazilian Name Order and Averbacoes on a Certified Translation

Brazilian naming runs the opposite way to Spanish: the mother's family name usually comes first and the father's last, so the final surname is the one a US form treats as the family name. Add the particles, de, da, dos, e, which belong to the name and get dropped or capitalized at random by American databases, and one person can appear four ways across a file.

Marriage, divorce and name changes are recorded as averbacoes written into the margin of the original register entry rather than on a new document, so a recently issued birth certificate can carry a note added twenty years later. We translate every marginal annotation in full with its date, spell each name to the passport, and print the source spelling as it stands. Clean names and empty margins are what draws a Request for Evidence.

Why a Brazilian Traducao Juramentada Is Not a USCIS Translation

This is the single most common wasted expense in Brazilian filings. A tradutor publico e interprete publico, registered through a state Junta Comercial, produces a traducao juramentada: a sworn translation that is an official instrument inside Brazil. Lei 14.195 of 2021 repealed the 1943 decree that had governed the profession, and those translators now work across the whole country rather than only in their state of registration.

None of that is what USCIS asks for, which is a complete English translation accompanied by the translator's own signed statement of competence and accuracy under 8 CFR 103.2(b)(3). A Brazilian sworn translation, laid out in Portuguese with Brazilian legal formulas, does not carry that statement. If you have already paid for one, send it anyway: sometimes it can be certified as it stands, and we will say which.

Brazilian Divorce and Court Record Translation for US Filings

Brazilian divorce takes two forms that look nothing alike on paper. A contested divorce produces a judicial sentence from a vara de familia with a transito em julgado certificate confirming the judgment is final; an uncontested divorce between adults with no minor children can be done at a cartorio by public deed. Both are then averbado against the marriage record, and it is that annotation, not the judgment, that a US agency often needs.

Attorneys also send criminal record certificates from the Policia Federal or a state secretariat, powers of attorney and court exhibits. A Brazilian institution with no English twin keeps its name with a note explaining it rather than being swapped for an American near-equivalent. Where authentication is wanted, the Apostille Convention has been in force for Brazil since 14 August 2016 and the apostille is obtained there, so get it first and have it translated with the document. See legal translation, apostille translation and divorce decree translation.

Brazilian Portuguese Diploma and Historico Escolar Translation

Brazilian academic records come in pairs. The diploma states the degree; the historico escolar behind it lists every discipline, its carga horaria in hours and a grade usually on a zero to ten scale. Evaluators want both with the hours intact, because the hours are how a Brazilian bacharelado is compared to a US bachelor's degree.

We translate the course titles and the grading legend as printed, add a note explaining the scale, and do not convert Brazilian grades into a US GPA. That decision belongs to the evaluator. See diploma translation and academic transcript translation.

English into Brazilian Portuguese Translation for Schools

Districts and health systems in Massachusetts, Florida and New Jersey commission the other direction: enrollment and special education notices, consent forms, discharge instructions and benefits letters. The variety question is not cosmetic here. Material written for Lisbon reads as foreign to a Brazilian parent, from the second-person pronouns down to the everyday nouns, and readers notice immediately.

We write into Brazilian Portuguese using the spelling in force in Brazil, keep sentences short for anything that has to be acted on, and ask who the readers are first. Where a family is Cape Verdean or Angolan rather than Brazilian, the answer may be a different language altogether. See medical translation and education.

Brazilian Portuguese Translation Cost and Turnaround

Portuguese has a deep translator pool in the United States, so Brazilian work sits at the lower end of every range: certified certificates from around $24.95 per page as a US market guide, running text from about $0.10 per source word. A one or two page certidao is normally delivered within 24 hours of a confirmed quote, and judgments and historicos take two to five business days. Interpreting is a separate service, on the Portuguese interpreter page, where the Brazilian and European distinction matters more than it does in writing. Figures are on the pricing page.

Ready to start? Send the document or the booking details through the quote form, call +1 (833) 282 8883, or email info@prismlinguistics.com. You get a fixed written price within 60 minutes during business hours.

Questions we get asked

I already paid for a traducao juramentada in Brazil. Do I need it translated again?

Send it to us before assuming either way. USCIS wants a complete English translation with the translator's signed certification of competence and accuracy, and a Brazilian sworn translation is a different instrument prepared for Brazilian use. We look at what you have and say plainly whether it works or whether the certidao needs translating again.

What are the 32 digits printed on my Brazilian certificate?

That is the matricula, the national registration number used on certificates issued since 2010. It identifies the cartorio, the year, the type of book, the book, page and entry number, and ends in two check digits. We copy it exactly, because it is how a receiving office links the document to the register entry.

My mother's surname comes before my father's. Will that confuse USCIS?

It can, which is why we keep the order exactly as the certificate prints it and flag any difference against the passport rather than reordering. Brazilian naming puts the paternal surname last, the reverse of the Spanish convention, and the particles de, da and dos belong to the name even when a US form strips them.

Does a Brazilian divorce need the judgment translated, or the marriage certificate?

Often both, and the annotated marriage record is usually the piece that settles it. A Brazilian divorce is recorded as an averbacao against the marriage register, so a current copy of the certidao de casamento shows the divorce in the margin.

Brazilian Portuguese Translation Services