Portuguese Translation Services

Q: What is an averbacao and does it have to be translated?

An averbação is a note added to the margin of a Brazilian register entry recording a later event: a marriage, a divorce, a recognized paternity, a name change. It has to be translated, in full. It is often the single fact the receiving office is checking, and a translation that leaves the margins out looks incomplete next to the original.

Q: Should I send the certidao or the Certidao de Inteiro Teor?

The unabridged Certidão de Inteiro Teor where you can get it, because it reproduces the whole register entry including later changes. The State Department reciprocity schedule for Brazil accepts both formats, so a standard certificate is not wrong; it simply shows less.

Prism Language Solutions translates Portuguese documents into English and English documents into Portuguese for use in the United States. Most of the work is Brazilian: civil records from a cartório, identity and tax documents, school records, judgments and contracts, each delivered as a full English translation with a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy. Records from Portugal, Angola and Cabo Verde follow their own formats and we handle all of them. A one-page certificate is normally ready within 24 hours.

Last reviewed September 11, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Language Solutions

Brazilian paperwork is not filed by the state. It is held by a cartório, a private registry office holding a public delegation, and each one prints its records a little differently from the next. There is no single national template, so a translator who has only seen São Paulo records will be slowed by a certificate from Ceará.

The margins carry the law. A Brazilian civil record records later events as averbações, notes written into the margin of the original entry: a marriage, a divorce, a recognized paternity, a change of name. They are handwritten as often as printed, and often the exact fact the receiving office is looking for. Treat them as decoration and you have deleted a divorce from the evidence. Every margin note gets translated, and where one is illegible we say so.

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Certified Portuguese Translation for USCIS

Immigration filings are the bulk of our Portuguese work, usually built on Brazilian civil records issued by the Cartório de Registro Civil das Pessoas Naturais of the municipality where the event was registered. The State Department reciprocity page for Brazil draws a line at 21 November 2017: records issued from that date are the unabridged Certidão de Inteiro Teor, earlier ones the older certidão format, and both are acceptable. The unabridged version reproduces the register entry with every subsequent change, which is why we ask for it when a name or a marital status is in question.

The issuing cartório and its state appear as printed, the matrícula number and the livro and folha references are translated rather than dropped, and the embossed or inked seal is rendered. Format is covered on the certified translation page and the form-by-form set on the USCIS translation page.

Birth, marriage and death certificates from any Brazilian cartório
Divorce judgments and the averbação recording them
Police clearance certificates from the Polícia Federal and state police
Identity documents: RG, CNH and passports
Bank statements, tax returns and employment letters

Brazilian Portuguese Identity and CPF Document Translation

Brazilian identity numbers confuse US recipients, and the confusion is worth heading off in the translation. The CPF is the individual taxpayer registry kept by the Receita Federal, a permanent number issued to Brazilians and to foreigners with interests in Brazil, and it appears on almost everything. It is not a national identity card and it is not the equivalent of a Social Security number, although it gets described as both. The RG is a state-issued identity card, so two Brazilians can hold RG numbers from different states that look nothing alike.

We translate the labels and leave the numbers untouched, with a short note on what each registry is for. An officer or a bank reading the file should not have to guess whether two different numbers belong to two different people.

Portuguese Apostille and Cartorio Document Translation

Brazil has been in the Hague Apostille Convention since 2016, and the arrangement is unusual: the Conselho Nacional de Justiça supervises the system while the apostilles themselves are issued by authorized cartórios, electronically, with a QR code that lets the recipient verify the certificate. In practice that means the same office that issued your certificate can apostille it, which is faster than most countries manage.

That certificate gets translated with the record, QR notation included. Order matters: apostille first, then translate, because an apostille added afterwards leaves the translation incomplete. See apostille translation, and legal translation where a Brazilian judgment is heading for a US court.

Portuguese, Angolan and Cape Verdean Civil Record Translation

Records from Portugal come from a Conservatória do Registo Civil, often on the multilingual international form, and even that leaves Portuguese-only entries and stamps to translate. Angolan birth certificates are obtained from the Conservatória do Registo Civil where the birth was registered or through the Serviço Integrado de Atendimento ao Cidadão, with at least one conservatória in every province and seven in Luanda. Cabo Verde issues computerized certificates carrying an inked or raised seal on the reverse, which is the side people forget to scan.

One caution on Cabo Verde. Many Cape Verdean families speak Cabo Verdean Creole at home, a separate language rather than a dialect of Portuguese. Their documents are Portuguese; their consent form, school letter or interview usually should not be. Ask the family before you order either one.

Brazilian and European Portuguese Translation for US Organizations

Translating into Portuguese for a US audience is nearly always Brazilian Portuguese, because the population here is overwhelmingly Brazilian. It matters more than accent: spelling, pronoun use, verb forms and everyday vocabulary all differ from European Portuguese, and a Lisbon text reads as foreign to a Brazilian parent in Framingham or Pompano Beach. Hospital consent forms, discharge instructions, school notices and HR material are the usual work, and we keep the sentences short because the readers are not reading for pleasure.

If your audience is Portuguese, Angolan or Cape Verdean rather than Brazilian, say so at the quote stage and we assign a European Portuguese linguist instead. Retrofitting one variety into the other afterwards is slower than doing it right, and the result usually still reads as a translation.

Portuguese Translation Cost and Turnaround

Portuguese has a good translator pool in the US, so it prices low: certified pages from around $24.95 as a market guide, running text from about $0.10 per source word. Legibility is what moves a quote. A recent computer-printed Certidão de Inteiro Teor is quick work; a 1968 handwritten register entry with three margin notes in different hands is not, and we price that honestly at the start. Single certificates usually go out inside 24 hours, judgments and academic records in two to five business days. Ranges are on the pricing page.

Portuguese Interpreters for Court and Hospital Appointments

Spoken Portuguese is where the Brazilian and European split really bites, and where Portuguese gets confused with Spanish by people who should know better. A Brazilian patient handed a Spanish interpreter will follow most of a conversation and lose the part that matters. For a hearing, a deposition, a clinic visit or a USCIS interview, see Portuguese interpreters, which covers variety matching and court certification, or the medical interpreting 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

What is an averbacao and does it have to be translated?

An averbação is a note added to the margin of a Brazilian register entry recording a later event: a marriage, a divorce, a recognized paternity, a name change. It has to be translated, in full. It is often the single fact the receiving office is checking, and a translation that leaves the margins out looks incomplete next to the original.

Should I send the certidao or the Certidao de Inteiro Teor?

The unabridged Certidão de Inteiro Teor where you can get it, because it reproduces the whole register entry including later changes. The State Department reciprocity schedule for Brazil accepts both formats, so a standard certificate is not wrong; it simply shows less.

Is Brazilian Portuguese different enough to matter for a translation?

For translating out of Portuguese into English, no. For translating into Portuguese, yes. Spelling, vocabulary and verb forms differ from European Portuguese, and material written for Lisbon reads as foreign to a Brazilian reader. Tell us where the audience is and we assign accordingly.

My Brazilian documents already have an apostille. Do you translate that too?

Yes. An apostille belongs to the record it is attached to, so it is translated along with the certificate, including the issuing cartório and the verification code. Apostille first, then translate, so nothing arrives untranslated at the far end.