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Translations and apostille

How to prepare foreign documents for Brazilian offices: apostille, sworn translation, spelling of names and a child's birth certificate.

For the PF, DETRAN, notaries and schools, foreign documents almost always have to come in two forms: with an apostille (certification of authenticity under the Hague Convention) and with a translation by a sworn translator (tradutor público juramentado). A mistake in a name or one extra step costs weeks, so it is best to plan the order in advance.

Checked on 8 October 2026. Prices in the posts are as of the stated date.

In short

  • An apostille on a foreign document is placed in the country that issued it. Brazil is party to the convention: Decreto 8.660/2016.
  • The translation is made by a sworn translator registered with the state's board of trade (Junta Comercial). Whether an office accepts a digital copy of the translation or only paper, and how much the translator charges per page, find out before ordering (post, 11.05.2026).
  • Names and surnames must be spelled identically in all documents: the spelling in the passport is taken as the model (post, 28.10.2022).

Sworn translation: how it works

You send the translator photos of the documents, including the apostilles. They mail you a certified translation by ordinary post; you take the original and the translation to the office. Prices as of 2022: about R$ 100–120 to translate one document, R$ 20 for the notary certification and about R$ 60 for urgent shipping (post, 28.10.2022).

Not only certificates get translated: licences, diplomas and certificates of all kinds too. A sworn translation is mandatory for exchanging a driving licence (Exchanging a licence).

A child's birth certificate in Brazil

It is issued by a notary office (cartório). In many maternity hospitals it operates inside the building, and registration is free. You need the birth notice from the hospital and the parents' certificates with an official translation. The child is given the father's or the mother's surname; in Portuguese surnames are not inflected, so be careful. A draft is printed first: check everything at once, because corrections after issue are much harder. The channel author found several mistakes in the draft and one more in the clean copy (post, 20.01.2025, post, 27.01.2023).

If you need the certificate abroad, the apostille is placed on it at the district cartório: for the author this took 5–15 minutes and about US$ 22 (post, 30.12.2024).

Spelling of names: check after the clerk

Brazilian clerks often mangle names, to the point that "your own mother would not recognise" the surname. People say that what matters is a correct CPF, but once, because of a typo in a name, a clinic almost refused a service under insurance. Correcting it through the insurer's website did not work, but a bad score in the service-quality survey did: a couple of days later a quality-department employee fixed everything (post, 03.04.2024). The rule: always read on the screen what the clerk has entered.

Old certificates and notarised copies

If a birth certificate was issued in a former Soviet republic and only its notarised copy was certified in Russia, one of the authors discusses how to legalise it. He refers to Decreto 8.660/2016 and CNJ Resolution No. 228/2016: an apostille placed on the notary's signature makes the copy legal for Brazil, and a sworn translation covers both the copy and the apostille. In his words, the PF in Rio and São Paulo usually accepts such copies (post, 07.05.2026). This is the author's opinion, not the PF's position: ask your own office before filing.

Sources

Official:

Personal experience (channels @brazil_lifehacks, @russo_no_brasil and @svoibrazil, in Russian):