You live in the US, the UK, Brazil, France or anywhere else, and you need to formally notify someone in Portugal: a tenant who has stopped paying, a landlord you are giving notice to, an insurer, a gym, a utility company. Every Portuguese source tells you the same thing, and it is correct: send a carta registada com aviso de receção. Then you search for how to do that from where you are, and the results are all about parcel couriers.
This guide fills that gap. The short version: do not post it from your own country. Have it posted inside Portugal on your behalf. Below is why, and exactly how.
Why international registered mail is the wrong tool
USPS Registered Mail, Royal Mail International Tracked and Signed, and their equivalents all exist and all technically deliver. The problem is that the document they produce is not the document Portuguese practice expects.
| Posting it yourself from abroad | CTT registered letter with AR, posted in Portugal | |
|---|---|---|
| Proof you get back | A tracking event in a foreign carrier's system, sometimes a scanned signature image, sometimes nothing | The physical aviso de receção card, signed and dated by the recipient, returned by post to the sender |
| How the other side reads it | An unfamiliar foreign document, easy to dispute, often not in Portuguese | The standard national instrument, immediately recognised by tenants, companies, lawyers and courts |
| Typical timeline | Weeks each way, plus customs handling for anything that is not plainly a letter | Handed to CTT within 2 business days, then normally 1 to 7 days for delivery |
| Failure mode | You discover the gap when you need the proof, which is the worst possible moment | If the recipient refuses or never collects, the returned envelope is itself evidence |
The point is evidentiary, not legal geography. Nothing stops you, as a non-resident, from validly serving a notice in Portugal. What stops you is arriving at a hearing with a UPS tracking printout when the other side arrives with a signed AR card.
The one requirement people miss: a Portuguese return address
Here is the mechanic that decides everything, and that almost no article explains. The aviso de receção is a physical card attached to the envelope. The recipient signs it, and CTT then posts that card back to the return address printed on the envelope.
Which means: the return address has to be in Portugal. If it were your address in Ohio or Manchester, the card would either not come back at all or would take months. That is why our service requires a Portuguese sender address with a valid XXXX-XXX postcode.
This is a smaller obstacle than it sounds. The address does not have to be where you live, and the sender named on the envelope is still you. Any of these work:
- A family member or friend in Portugal. The most common solution by far. They receive the AR card and photograph it for you.
- Your own property in Portugal, if someone collects the post there. For landlords this is often a second unit in the same building.
- Your accountant, lawyer or property manager. If you already have a contabilista for your Portuguese rental income, their office address is a natural fit.
- A virtual mailbox with a real Portuguese street address. The paid option when you have none of the above. We compared the providers in the best virtual mailbox services in Portugal.
How it works in practice
- Write the letter in Portuguese, dated and signed. If it concerns a tenancy, our Portuguese templates for rent arrears, rent increases and lease termination are lawyer reviewed and ready to adapt.
- Sign it. A scanned handwritten signature on the PDF is fine for the vast majority of cases. If you want a qualified electronic signature and hold Portuguese ID, there is the Chave Móvel Digital.
- Upload it at cartaregistada.pt as PDF, Word or a photograph, from any country. Enter the recipient's Portuguese address and your Portuguese return address.
- Pay 14.99 euros, everything included. No surcharge for ordering from outside Portugal.
- We print, envelope and hand it to CTT as a registered letter with AR, within 2 business days. You get the CTT registration number by email, which is already proof of posting.
- The signed AR card is posted back to your Portuguese return address, and CTT's tracking shows the delivery date and time online in the meantime.
Common situations, and what changes
Non-resident landlord, tenant in arrears
The most frequent case we handle. Portuguese law sets out specific notice steps before you can move to eviction, and each of them depends on being able to show the tenant was properly notified. Doing this from abroad by email is how landlords lose months. See what letter to send a tenant who is not paying rent.
You are the tenant, and you have left Portugal
Giving notice on a lease, disputing a deposit, or ending a contract with a utility or gym that keeps charging you. Same mechanic, opposite direction. Our guide on cancelling a contract in Portugal by registered letter covers the wording.
Heirs and family matters
Notifying co-heirs, a bank or a condominium administrator from abroad after a death in the family. These are cases where nobody in the family is physically in Portugal at the right moment, and where the deadlines are unforgiving.
You need it in Portuguese and you do not speak it
Send it in Portuguese anyway. A notice in English to a Portuguese recipient invites the answer "I did not understand it", and for some communications the language itself can be attacked. Our templates exist for exactly this reason.
What about a Portuguese lawyer?
If your case already involves litigation, a disputed amount that matters to you, or an eviction that has moved past the notice stage, use a lawyer or solicitador. We are a postal service, not a law firm, and we say so plainly. What we replace is the trip to a CTT counter, not legal advice. Many of our clients are in fact instructed by their Portuguese lawyer to send the notice themselves, precisely because it is cheaper than having the firm handle the posting.
Post it inside Portugal, from wherever you are
Upload your letter, give a Portuguese return address, and we hand it to CTT as a registered letter with proof of receipt. 14.99 euros, all included.
Send my letter →Frequently asked questions
Can you write the letter for me?
For the three most common tenancy cases, rent updates, rent arrears and lease termination, our Portuguese site generates the letter from lawyer reviewed templates once you enter the details. For everything else, you upload your own document and we handle the printing and posting.
Can I pay with a foreign card?
Yes. Payment runs through Stripe and accepts international cards. Only the addresses have to be Portuguese: the recipient's, and the return address for the AR card.
What if the recipient refuses to sign or never collects the letter?
CTT leaves a collection notice and holds the letter. If it is never collected, it comes back marked as such, and that returned envelope is itself meaningful evidence: it shows you sent it to the contractual address and that the recipient chose not to collect. In tenancy matters Portuguese practice generally involves sending a second registered letter some weeks later, and the sequence of both attempts is what carries weight.
Can I track it from abroad?
Yes. The registration number we email you works on the public CTT tracking page, which shows the delivery date and time. Our team also monitors the route and emails you when the letter is confirmed as delivered.
Do you send letters to Portuguese addresses only?
Yes. We post inside Portugal, to addresses in Portugal, which is what makes the AR mechanism work. If you need to send a letter from Portugal to another country, that is a CTT counter matter and not something we handle.