Changing Your Name in Portugal in 2026: A Practical Guide to the Six-Word Limit, the 200 Euro Process, the One Official in Lisbon Who Decides, and the Seven Changes That Need No Permission at All

Portugal is unusually relaxed about what you may call a baby and unusually strict about changing your mind afterwards. A newborn can be given up to six words of name across two given names and four surnames. An adult who wants to alter one letter of that has to persuade a single official in Lisbon to let them, and pay 200 euros for the privilege.

That asymmetry is the whole of this subject, and it is almost entirely undocumented in English. There is a government service page for choosing a name at birth. There is no government service page for changing it later, because changing it later is not a service you request: it is a process somebody decides.

This guide sets out what the law actually says, what each route costs, which changes need permission and which do not, how marriage and divorce move surnames around, and what the free route under the gender self-determination law involves. The sources are the Código do Registo Civil (Civil Registry Code, Decreto-Lei n.º 131/95), the Código Civil (Civil Code), the Regulamento Emolumentar dos Registos e do Notariado (Registry and Notary Fee Regulation, Decreto-Lei n.º 322-A/2001) as published by the Instituto dos Registos e do Notariado (Institute of Registries and Notaries, IRN) on its own costs page, and the Ministry of Justice's service pages.

1. What a Portuguese name is allowed to be

Article 103 of the Civil Registry Code is the rulebook, and it applies at birth. The full name must consist of at most six grammatical words, simple or compound, of which only two may be given names and four may be surnames.

Within that limit:

• Given names must be Portuguese, drawn from the national onomastic stock or adapted graphically and phonetically to the Portuguese language, and they must not raise doubts about the sex of the person being registered.
• Foreign given names are admitted in their original form if the person being registered is foreign, was born abroad, or holds another nationality besides the Portuguese one.
• Foreign given names are also admitted in their original form if either parent is foreign or holds another nationality besides the Portuguese one.
• Siblings may not be given the same given name, unless one of them has died.
• Surnames are chosen from those belonging to both or one of the parents, or to whose use either parent has a right. Failing that, one of the names by which the parents are known may be chosen.
• Where filiation is not established, the declarant may choose the surnames, and if they do not, article 108 applies.

Doubts about the composition of a name are settled by a ruling issued through the Conservatória dos Registos Centrais (Central Registry Office). Because those rulings accumulate, the IRN maintains a list of words admitted and not admitted as given names, built up from decades of answers to exactly this kind of query. The government's own service page on naming a newborn points readers to it. If you are considering an unusual name, the list is where you look first.

Two consequences of article 103 catch foreign residents out. The first is that the six-word ceiling is a real ceiling: a person arriving from a naming tradition with more elements than that cannot simply transcribe them all into a Portuguese record. The second is that the exceptions for foreign given names in their original form are drafted around the person's own nationality and place of birth, and around the parents' nationality, which is precisely the situation of most binational families living here.

2. The general rule for changing a name: one official decides

Article 104 of the Civil Registry Code opens with a single sentence that governs everything else: the name fixed in the birth record may only be modified with the authorisation of the conservador dos Registos Centrais.

Note what that is not. It is not a court application. It is not a right exercised at any registry counter. It is not a form with a published decision deadline. It is a process, submitted through a civil registry office, decided by the head of the Central Registry Office in Lisbon, and the law sets out no criteria for when the answer should be yes.

The fee is 200 euros. That is item 6.4 of the fee regulation, "Processo de alteração de nome". It is one of the more expensive items on the civil registry tariff: for comparison, an heirship procedure is 150 euros and a civil registry certificate is 20 euros.

Two related services sit alongside it, and both are useful before you commit to the 200 euros:

• Consulta de nome (name consultation), 50 euros (item 9). This is the mechanism for asking whether a name is admissible before you rely on it.
• Consulta de nome involving the issue of an onomastic opinion, 75 euros (item 9.1), for the cases that need a reasoned ruling rather than a lookup.

One relief exists and it is narrow: under item 6.13, where a process is abandoned or left unfinished for reasons attributable to the party, half the fee is due. A refusal by the conservador is not abandonment, so the fee for a process that runs its course and fails is not covered by that provision.

3. The changes that do not need permission

Paragraph 2 of article 104 lists the exceptions. These are recorded as an averbamento (a marginal note) on the birth record at the request of the person concerned, without any authorisation from the Central Registry Office. If your situation is on this list, you are in a very different and much cheaper procedure.

• Changes founded on the establishment of filiation, on adoption, on the review or revocation of an adoption, or on a marriage that took place after the record was drawn up.
• Changes resulting from the rectification of a register.
• Changes consisting of the simple insertion or removal of linking particles between the words that make up the name, or the addition of surnames where the record shows only the given name.
• Changes resulting from renouncing surnames adopted by reason of marriage, and, in general, from the loss of the right to the name.
• Changes resulting from the exercise of the rights under article 1876 of the Civil Code.
• Changes consisting merely of adopting the name originally wanted, where the birth record was drawn up while an onomastic consultation about its admissibility was still pending. Here there is a deadline: the request must be made within six months of notification of the ruling on admissibility.
• Changes to the given name resulting from a change of the sex mention.

Where the request is made verbally, it must be reduced to writing in a formal record. Where somebody loses the right to a name, the marginal note is made by the registry on its own initiative.

The third item on that list is worth reading twice. Inserting or removing a "de", "da", "dos" or "e" between the words of your name does not require the 200 euro process. Neither does adding surnames if the birth record carries only a given name.

4. Marriage, divorce and widowhood: the surname rules

Portuguese law does not automatically change anyone's name on marriage. Article 1677 of the Civil Code is explicit: each spouse keeps their own surnames, but may add up to two of the other's. Anyone who has kept surnames from a previous spouse may not use that faculty again.

What happens afterwards is set out in three short articles:

• Widowhood and remarriage (article 1677-A). A spouse who added the other's surnames keeps them on being widowed, and keeps them even after a second marriage, provided they declare that before the new marriage is celebrated. Procedurally, that declaration is made before the conservador, in the record of the marriage process.
• Divorce and judicial separation (article 1677-B). On judicial separation of persons and property, each spouse keeps the other's surnames they had adopted. On divorce, they may keep them only if the former spouse consents or the court authorises it, having regard to the reasons given. Consent may be given by authentic or authenticated document, by a record drawn up in court, or by declaration before the civil registry official. The request for judicial authorisation may be made inside the divorce proceedings or in a separate process, even after the divorce has been decreed.
• Judicial deprivation of the use of the name (article 1677-C). After a death, a judicial separation or a divorce, the spouse who has kept the other's surnames may be deprived by a court of the right to use them where that use seriously harms the moral interests of the other spouse or of their family. In separation or divorce cases the application is made by the other spouse or former spouse; in widowhood, by the deceased spouse's descendants, ascendants and siblings.

Two of these carry their own fees, both at 75 euros: the procedure for depriving someone of the right to use the other spouse's surnames (item 6.5), and the procedure authorising use of a former spouse's surnames after divorce (item 6.6). Note that giving up surnames acquired by marriage costs nothing under article 104, because renunciation is on the list of changes that need no authorisation.

If you are working through a separation, our guide to getting divorced in Portugal covers the mutual-consent track at the conservatória and the contested path through the family court, both of which are the natural place to settle the surname question at the same time.

5. The free route: changing the sex mention and the given name

Portugal's gender self-determination law, Lei n.º 38/2018, created a separate procedure that sits outside the authorisation regime entirely. Article 104(2)(g) of the Civil Registry Code exempts it expressly, and article 69(1)(o) provides for it to be noted on the birth record.

The Ministry of Justice's own service page sets out how it runs:

• It is free. Changing the sex mention and the given name in the civil register carries no charge.
• Any civil registry office will take it. The request is made in writing, using the available form, and must state the new given name.
• Who may apply. Portuguese nationals of full age; those aged 16 and 17 through their legal representatives; and adults under the maior acompanhado (accompanied adult) regime, unless a court has declared that the person may not make the change.
• The extra step at 16 and 17. A medical report is required, and its scope is narrowly drawn: it must attest only to the minor's capacity to decide and their informed will, and must make no reference to gender identity diagnoses. It may be issued by any doctor or psychologist registered with the Ordem dos Médicos or the Ordem dos Psicólogos. The minor must also express free and informed consent to the change in the presence of a conservador.
• Thirty days for the Citizen Card. You have up to 30 days after the registration to update the Cartão de Cidadão.
• Family records. Adult children may request the update of their own birth records; for minor children, both parents must request it. The record of a spouse is only annotated with that spouse's consent, given by declaration before the registry official or by authentic or authenticated document.
• From abroad. The request can be filed at the consulate for your area of residence, which sends the documents to a civil registry office in Portugal for decision.

6. What happens once the change goes through

A change of name is entered as a marginal note on the birth record: article 69(1)(n) of the Civil Registry Code for name changes generally, and 69(1)(o) for a change of sex and the consequent change of given name. Article 104(8) provides that name changes noted on birth records are communicated to the identification service under terms fixed by order of the president of the IRN.

That communication is not the end of the work, it is the beginning of it. The birth record is the source document; everything else has to be chased. In practice that means, in roughly this order:

1. A fresh certidão de nascimento (birth certificate), 20 euros for a registry certificate under item 7.1.1, which is the document every other body will ask to see.
2. The Cartão de Cidadão, which carries the name onto the tax, social security, health and voter registration systems it aggregates. The old paper Bilhete de Identidade is no longer an option here: an EU security deadline retired it as a travel document, leaving the Citizen Card and the passport.
3. The passport, the driving licence at the IMT, and the Documento Único Automóvel for any vehicle registered in your name.
4. The predial registry for any property, and the Autoridade Tributária and Segurança Social records if they do not update automatically from the Citizen Card.
5. Banks, insurers, your employer, your professional order if you belong to one, utilities, and the school or university records of anyone in the household whose documents reference you.
6. If you are a foreign national with a residence title, AIMA.

Where a document in your old name has to be produced abroad, or a foreign document in a new name has to be produced here, the authentication chain is separate again. Our guides to apostille and consular legalisation and to certified translations cover both directions.

7. If you are a foreign national living in Portugal

This is the point most often misunderstood, and it saves people a great deal of wasted effort.

Portuguese civil registry law governs Portuguese civil registry records. Your name, if you are not Portuguese, is not in a Portuguese birth record. Article 31 of the Civil Code sets out that a person's personal law is the law of their nationality, and personal status, which includes the right to a name, follows it.

The practical consequence is that a French, Brazilian, British, Indian or Ukrainian citizen resident in Portugal does not change their name at a Portuguese conservatória. They change it under the law of their own country, usually through their consulate or their home authorities, and then bring the resulting document to Portugal to have their Portuguese-side records updated: the residence title at AIMA, the NIF at the tax authority, the social security number, the driving licence if it has been exchanged, and any property registration. That document will normally need translation and either an apostille or consular legalisation.

Article 72 of the Civil Code, meanwhile, gives everyone in Portugal the right to use their name, complete or abbreviated, and to oppose its unlawful use by another for identification or other purposes. That protection does not depend on your nationality.

8. If you have just become Portuguese

Acquiring Portuguese nationality does not give you a free hand to redesign your name, and it does not force you to Portugalise it either.

The moment that matters is the transcription of your foreign birth record into the Portuguese registry, because that is when the name enters Portuguese civil registry law. Article 103(2)(b) is written for exactly this situation: foreign given names are admitted in their original form where the person being registered is foreign, was born abroad, or holds another nationality besides the Portuguese one. A naturalised citizen born abroad meets that description, and a dual national meets it permanently.

Once the Portuguese record exists, any later change to it falls back under article 104 and needs the authorisation of the conservador dos Registos Centrais, at 200 euros. If there is something about the transcribed name you know you want to adjust, the cheap moment to raise it is before the record is drawn up, through the 50 euro name consultation, not afterwards.

The naturalisation route itself has moved considerably this year. Our guide to becoming a Portuguese citizen by naturalisation covers the article 6 path, and the residency requirement changed when the President signed the new nationality law into force, doubling the wait for non-EU residents to ten years and moving CPLP and EU citizens to seven.

9. What it costs, in one place

• Processo de alteração de nome (general name change process): 200 euros
• Consulta de nome (name consultation): 50 euros
• Consulta de nome with an onomastic opinion: 75 euros
• Procedure authorising use of a former spouse's surnames after divorce: 75 euros
• Procedure to deprive a spouse of the right to use the other's surnames: 75 euros
• Change of the sex mention and given name under Lei n.º 38/2018: free
• Changes falling under article 104(2), including renouncing marriage surnames and adjusting linking particles: no authorisation fee, recorded as a marginal note on request
• Certidão de registo (registry certificate): 20 euros
• Abandoning or failing to complete a process for reasons attributable to you: half the fee

10. What the law does not give you

Three honest gaps are worth stating, because none of them is written down anywhere obvious.

There is no published list of good reasons. Article 104 says the conservador dos Registos Centrais must authorise the change. It does not say what makes a change authorisable. The body of practice sits in rulings, and the only part of it published systematically is the list of admitted and refused given names.

There is no statutory deadline. The code sets no time limit for the decision, and the IRN publishes none for this process. The six-month deadline in article 104(5) runs the other way: it binds you, not the registry, and only in the narrow case of a record drawn up during a pending onomastic consultation.

There is no refund for a refusal. The half-fee relief in item 6.13 covers abandonment and non-completion for reasons attributable to the party. A process that is properly submitted, properly considered and turned down is not that.

Which is the argument for the sequence this guide has been building towards. Before spending 200 euros on a process with no published criteria, no deadline and no refund, check whether what you want is already on the article 104(2) list of changes that need no permission at all, and if it is not, spend 50 euros on the consultation first. That order is the difference between one fee and two.

For the neighbouring procedures, see our guides to registering a birth in Portugal, which is where the six-word rule first bites, to notaries in Portugal for the authenticated documents several of these steps require, and to requesting a criminal record certificate, which is the document most likely to come back in your old name after everything else has been updated.