Registos e Notariado (Registries and Notaries) Strike Wraps Saturday After 93.41% Friday Adhesion — Citizen-Card, NIF and Casamento Counters Closed Across 14 Districts as STRN Lodges MP Complaint Over IRN Adhesion Disclosures

Portugal's week-long registos (registries) and notariado (notary) sector strike closes today, Saturday 13 June 2026, after Friday's stoppage drew an average national adhesion of 93.41% according to the Sindicato dos Trabalhadores dos Registos e do Notariado (Union of Registry and Notary Workers) — STRN. The reading lifted the dispute past the 52% the Ministério da Justiça (Ministry of Justice) reported on the strike's opening day and turned the back half of the week into the most disruptive stretch.

The walkout, which began Monday 8 June, closed most conservatórias do registo civil, predial, comercial e automóvel (civil, land, commercial and automobile registries) across 14 mainland districts: Aveiro, Beja, Castelo Branco, Coimbra, Évora, Faro, Guarda, Leiria, Lisboa, Portalegre, Porto, Santarém, Setúbal and Vila Real. Notary cabinets followed the same calendar.

What stayed open

Decreed serviços mínimos (minimum services) covered only the most time-bound counters — emergency civil marriages and death-bed testamentos (wills), plus priority cartão de cidadão (citizen card) and passaporte issuance for documented urgencies. Everything else queued: routine ID renewals, predial searches, vehicle transfers, certidões (certificates), notarised powers of attorney, and the daily flow of property deeds.

STRN built its action on 11 demands. The headline ones: a "recrutamento-choque" (recruitment shock) to plug the shortage of conservadores and oficiais de registo, and enforcement of the Provedoria da Justiça (Ombudsman) recommendation to eliminate salary asymmetries between IRN technical careers and equivalent civil-service tracks. In parallel, STRN has signalled a queixa ao Ministério Público (criminal complaint to the Public Prosecutor) against the Instituto dos Registos e do Notariado (IRN) over what it calls "comportamentos ilegais e intimidatórios" — specifically the daily release of named-office adhesion data to media, which the union argues breaches workers' RGPD protections.

Why the backlog matters

A six-day stoppage at this scale does not end when the picket lifts. Each cartório carries a deeds calendar set weeks ahead; missed slots cascade through buyers, sellers, banks and AIMA (Agência para a Integração, Migrações e Asilo — Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum) downstream. The Lisbon-Porto axis where most notaries shut is also where foreign-buyer escrituras (deeds) clear, where lenders sign mortgage drawdowns, and where AIMA-track applicants register addresses tied to residency files. The slippage compounds an AIMA pipeline already under strain — the agency this week confirmed it is chasing reagrupamento familiar (family reunification) applicants who paid only half the fee.

What This Means for Expats

• Citizen card and passport renewals: Anything booked at a Loja de Cidadão or conservatória between 8 and 13 June needs rebooking via the IRN portal. Prioritise renewals with expiry inside the next 90 days.
• Property transactions: Escritura sign-offs missed this week shift the closing chain. Buyers with mortgage offers should ask conveyancers for written confirmation that rate locks and CPCV (promissory contract) deadlines accommodate the slippage — most banks extend on documented force majeure, but only on request.
• NIF and fiscal representation: Non-EU residents needing a NIF or a representante fiscal (tax representative) update via a conservatória face the same delay; Portal das Finanças online flows continue where they apply.
• Marriages and certidões: Civil ceremonies in affected districts this weekend proceed only under the minimum-service carve-out. Certidões de nascimento (birth), casamento (marriage) and óbito (death) requested in person may take two to three additional weeks.
• D7, D8 and family-reunification files: Applicants on the D8 nomad-visa track or any AIMA-issued residency requiring a registry certificate should pull documents from the IRN online portal where possible; in-person counters will carry a backlog window through end of June.

The Ministério da Justiça is expected to issue a Monday return-to-work statement and a counter-availability dashboard. Whether STRN escalates depends on whether the IRN moves on the recruitment commitment in writing — the union has flagged a second-stoppage window in July as the negotiating lever. For residents, the practical window is the next 14 days: book online slots now, and treat any in-person visit as a same-week probability, not a same-day certainty.