Criminal record

Hi , my name is Sze from HK.

I am new to this forum.


I am going to apply resident visa to live in Portugal. One of the requirement is that I have to provide criminal record from my origin living place which is HK. I know I need to have this document translated to Portuguese but they seem don't mention if this need apostille?


Anyone could help about this would be much appreciated.

My background check was done by the FBI in the US in English and my understanding was that it could be hand delivered at your interview and accepted as long as it was in a sealed envelope from the FBI or whatever agency you would use. If the envelope was opened it would require it be screened by apostile.

Mine was fine in English, no translation required but in your case it seems to make sense you would do it straight to Portuguese...it also needed no proof of authenticity but the original certificate must be presented also

Hi Sze, I received mine from Malaysian government a year ago. It is a official original document written in English with government certified. SEF has no problem with it. However, i have some friends getting their criminal record on the online portal as they cannot fly back to the home country to do this process, their criminal record got rejected because there is no official certification on the document. Hope this helps! Let me know if you have more questions.

Hi Sze,


Some help here:


Criminal records

https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.p … 42#5212199

(Post #10)

Thanks to all.

@Szefritz


If you are married to a Portuguese citizen you don't need to present a criminal record.


And you don't need a visa.