English Documents accepted by SEF or translation needed

Residencies & citizenships
,
1

Hi
If you don’t mind, pleas
Does SEF accept documents in English ? Like birth certificate or needs translation?

2
3

So, translations need to be apostilled as well. I learned that at my SEF appt today. I had my FBI report apostilled a notarized translation, but any translation of documents in English, French, or Spanish need to be apostilled and SEF won’t accept them otherwise. My lawyers have an apostilled translation in Porto that they’re sending over today or tomorrow, and assured me that this wouldn’t mess up my app because I had an older apostilled translation from a previous fbi report as a placeholder.

4

Technically, this is not allowed by SEF.
You are supposed to have a translation certified by one of the following: Portuguese Notary; Portuguese Consulate in the country where the document was passed; Consulate of that country in Portugal. In order to achieve that, these entities need to ‘recognize’ the translator and ‘certify’ their translation as ‘true’.
No apostille is involved in this process.

I am guessing the scenario you descbibe is as follows:

  1. Translation to Portuguese is done in the country of original documents or in the ‘home’ country of GV applicant.
  2. Translation is then notarized in that country (not in Portugal).
  3. Apostille is placed onto that notarized translation
  4. Apostille further needs to be translated into Portuguese (I guess by the PT GV lawyer)

There are couple of issues with this variant:

  • not strictly compliant with SEF requirements
  • more steps involved hence may be longer and more expensive
5

Yeah, I was confused about that. Maybe she meant their version of a notary? I had my translation done via a service I thought was based in the US and paid for a notary with it (although the translation had some issues in the beginning). Either way, what I had done was not correct and they’re taking care of it.

Also, this was today at SEF so no idea. I guess this is why they didn’t request for me to get things translated in the first place (I just over prepare)

6

Where can I get my document Apostilled in Portugal? Do you guys have any info?

7
2 Likes
8

According to this website, I dont think they apostille Indian Embassy documents here in Portugal.

9

I think you need to read up on what Apostille is and how it works.

Apostille is issued in the country of the document for the use in another country (provided both countries are signatories to the Hague convention).
Obviously you would not be able to apostille a foreign document in Portugal.

1 Like