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Guide

Taking a Child Out of Portugal in 2026: A Practical Guide to the Autorização de Saída de Menor, When One Parent Is Enough, and the Certified Signature the Border Asks For

When a minor needs written permission to leave Portugal and when they do not, what the law requires the document to say, the one-year ceiling on its validity, who can certify the signature, and why the airline becomes the gatekeeper inside Schengen.

Taking a Child Out of Portugal in 2026: A Practical Guide to the Autorização de Saída de Menor, When One Parent Is Enough, and the Certified Signature the Border Asks For

Your daughter is flying to London with her grandmother for half-term. Your son is going on a school trip to Seville. Your seventeen-year-old wants to fly home to see friends on their own. In each case somebody, sooner or later, will ask whether you have the autorização de saída de menor do território nacional, the authorisation for a minor to leave Portuguese territory. It is a short document, it costs very little, and the rules around it are more forgiving than most people assume. They are also written in three different places, which is why almost everyone gets at least one thing wrong.

This guide sets out when the document is needed and when it is not, exactly what it must contain to be valid, how long it lasts, where to get the signature certified, and what happens at the border. Everything here comes from the rules themselves: Article 31 of Lei n.º 23/2007, Article 23 of Decreto-Lei n.º 83/2000, Article 38 of Decreto-Lei n.º 76-A/2006, the Schengen Borders Code, and the state's own service description on gov.pt.

The rule in one sentence

Article 31(4) of Lei n.º 23/2007, the law governing entry, stay, exit and removal of foreign nationals, is the operative text. Exit from Portuguese territory is refused to minors, whether Portuguese nationals or resident foreigners, who travel unaccompanied by a holder of parental responsibility and who are not carrying an authorisation granted by that holder, legally certified.

Read that again, because two words in it do most of the work. Unaccompanied means not travelling with a holder of parental responsibility, not travelling without an adult. And legally certified means the signature has been formally recognised by someone with the power to do it; a signed note is not enough.

When you do not need one

The state's service page, which the Unidade de Coordenação de Fronteiras e Estrangeiros (UCFE, the Border and Foreigners Coordination Unit) is responsible for and which was last updated on 3 September 2026, is unusually direct on this. The authorisation is only needed when the child travels with no holder of parental responsibility at all.

That produces three situations where no document is required:

  • The child travels with one parent, and both parents hold parental responsibility jointly. This is true even where the parents are unmarried, divorced, judicially separated, or where the marriage was annulled. The page adds one condition: there must be no opposition from the other parent.
  • The child travels with the only person who holds parental responsibility. The point follows from the same logic.
  • The minor is emancipated, in which case no authorisation is required, provided the emancipation can be proved.

The word "opposition" in the first bullet is doing real work, and it is not a formality. If the other parent has told the court, or told the border authorities, that they object, the position changes. Where an objection is live, the answer is a court decision, not a letter.

When you do need one

For travel to a country outside the Schengen Area, gov.pt sets out two triggers. The first is the obvious one: the child travels with no holder of parental responsibility, so with a grandparent, an aunt, a family friend, a teacher on a school trip, or alone. The second is less obvious: the child travels with a parent who does not hold parental responsibility.

That second case catches more families than people expect. A parent whose parental responsibility has been restricted or removed by a court is, for this purpose, in the same position as any other accompanying adult, and needs an authorisation from the holder.

Inside Schengen, the airline becomes the gatekeeper

Here the practical answer diverges from the legal one, and it is worth being clear about why.

Inside the Schengen Area there is no systematic border check on departure, so nobody at the airport is verifying the document on the state's behalf. gov.pt says exactly that, and then adds the sentence that matters: the airline should confirm whether you hold the authorisation, and you should check the procedure with whoever is operating the journey.

Carriers set their own rules for unaccompanied minors and for minors travelling with adults who are not their parents, and those rules are a condition of carriage rather than a border requirement. A document that satisfies Portuguese law may still not satisfy an airline's checklist, and an airline may ask for one where the law does not. Ask the carrier, in writing, well before the day.

At an external Schengen border the position is firmer. Annex VII, point 6 of Regulation (EU) 2016/399, the Schengen Borders Code, tells border guards to pay particular attention to minors. For accompanied minors they must check that the accompanying persons have parental care, especially where the child is with only one adult and there are serious grounds to suspect unlawful removal from the custody of the person legally exercising it, and to investigate further where the answers do not hang together. For unaccompanied minors, the instruction is that thorough checks on travel and supporting documents must establish that the child is not leaving against the wishes of the person with parental care. Every member state has to nominate a national contact point for consultation on minors, and guards are told to use that list whenever they are in doubt.

What the document must contain

The content requirements are not in the immigration law. They are in Article 23 of Decreto-Lei n.º 83/2000, the passport regime, which uses the older term poder paternal where the rest of the law now says responsabilidades parentais. The article requires four things:

  • It must be in writing.
  • It must be dated.
  • It must carry the legally certified signature of the person exercising parental authority.
  • It must confer powers of accompaniment on named third parties, duly identified.

The last requirement is the one most commonly botched. A letter saying "I authorise my son to travel to Brazil" does not comply. The document has to identify who is taking him. In practice that means the accompanying adult's full name and identification document number, and where a child will pass through more than one carer's hands, each of them.

How long it lasts

Two rules, both in the same article, and together they are more generous than most parents realise.

First, the authorisation can be used an unlimited number of times within the validity period the document states, and that period cannot exceed one year. Second, if the document does not state a period, it is valid for six months from its date.

So a single certified authorisation naming a grandparent, written with a twelve-month validity, covers every trip that grandparent takes the child on within the year. There is no need to produce a fresh one for each journey. What you cannot do is write "valid indefinitely": the one-year ceiling is in the law, and anything longer is simply capped.

Getting the signature certified

"Legally certified" has a precise meaning, and the list of people who can do it is wider than the notary's office. Article 38 of Decreto-Lei n.º 76-A/2006 allows chambers of commerce and industry recognised under Decreto-Lei n.º 244/92, conservadores and registry officers, lawyers (advogados) and solicitadores to make simple signature recognitions and recognitions with special mentions, in person or by similarity, alongside the notaries who hold the power under the notarial law.

Three consequences follow, and they are all useful:

  • The act has the same probative force as if it had been done by a notary. Article 38(2) says so in terms. A recognition by your lawyer is not a second-class version.
  • The fee is capped. Under Article 38(5), what chambers of commerce, lawyers and solicitadores may charge for these services cannot exceed the notarial fee schedule.
  • It has to be registered. Article 38(3) requires chambers of commerce, lawyers and solicitadores to record the act in a central computer system for it to be validly performed. That is the system that lets a border officer or a foreign authority confirm the recognition is genuine, so do not accept a recognition performed off the books.

Ask for a recognition presencial, in person, rather than por semelhança (by comparison with a specimen signature). Both are provided for, but the in-person form is the one that records that the signatory appeared and signed.

If the document will be shown to authorities outside the EU, ask whether it also needs an apostille. That is a separate step with its own procedure, covered in our guide to apostille and consular legalisation.

When a court has banned the child from leaving

There is a separate regime for exit bans, and parents in contested separations should know it exists. Article 31-A of Lei n.º 23/2007 provides that exit from national territory is refused to anyone judicially barred from travelling or leaving the country, with the court's decision sent urgently to the UCFE so that an exit-interdiction alert can be created in the national precautionary-measures system, and, where the court so orders, to the national SIRENE bureau for entry in the Schengen Information System under Article 32 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1862.

The categories of minor covered include children at concrete and manifest risk of imminent abduction by a parent, a relative or a guardian, children in flight or missing while subject to protection proceedings, and children at risk of being taken out of the country and becoming victims of human trafficking, forced marriage or female genital mutilation.

Two details matter. In exceptional, urgent cases where a judge cannot be reached in time, criminal police or health authorities can issue the alert themselves, subject to judicial validation within 48 hours for most categories. And under Article 31-A(5), an exit ban on a minor ordered in parental-responsibilities or child-protection proceedings stays in force until that judicial decision is changed or the child turns 18. It does not quietly lapse.

A checklist before the trip

  • Establish who holds parental responsibility, on paper. If a court has regulated it, the sentença or the certified agreement is the document that says so.
  • Decide whether the journey needs an authorisation at all, using the three no-document situations above.
  • If it does, draft it in writing, dated, naming every accompanying adult with their identification number, and state a validity period of up to one year.
  • Have the signature certified in person by a notary, a conservatória, a lawyer, a solicitador or a recognised chamber of commerce, and keep the receipt.
  • Check the airline's own rules for the child's age and travelling arrangement, in writing.
  • Send the accompanying adult with the original, the child's citizen card or passport, and a copy of the parental-responsibility decision if there is one.
  • Keep a scan. If the original goes missing mid-trip, a copy plus the registration of the recognition is a far better starting point than nothing.

What this means for you

Separated or divorced parents sharing parental responsibility. Neither of you needs the other's authorisation to take your own child abroad, as long as the other does not object. That is the legal position; it is not an invitation to skip telling them. If your relationship is such that an objection is plausible, get the authorisation anyway. It costs a fraction of a missed flight.

Grandparents taking grandchildren away. This is the classic case, and you need the document. One authorisation, valid for a year, naming the grandparent, covers repeat trips. Have it drawn up once and keep it with the passports.

Schools and youth organisations. The requirement that third parties be "duly identified" means the named teacher or group leader, not the institution in the abstract. Where staff change between the form going out and the coach leaving, the form needs to change with them.

Foreign families resident in Portugal. Article 31(4) covers resident foreign minors on exactly the same terms as Portuguese ones. If your child lives here, the Portuguese rule applies on the way out, whatever the country of the passport. Some destination countries then add requirements of their own on arrival, so check the receiving side as well as this one.

Teenagers travelling alone. Until the eighteenth birthday, or proven emancipation, the authorisation requirement applies. For a solo flight, the document has to identify who is receiving the child at the other end if anyone is, and the airline's unaccompanied-minor service is a separate booking with its own age thresholds and fees.

Anyone in a custody dispute. If you fear a child may be taken out of the country, the route is the court, which can order the exit ban described above and have it entered both in the national system and in the Schengen Information System. An informal note to an airline achieves nothing.

One last piece of context for the day itself. Portugal's border desks have been short-staffed enough that the government recently offered its border officers a monthly supplement to keep them at the passport control positions. Checks on minors are precisely the sort that get slower when a desk is thin. Allow the time, and carry the paper.

Sources

This guide is written from official Portuguese and EU sources.

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