Reviewed by Carlos Vargas, Texas Licensed Funeral Director (TFSC #119648) ·
A Houston address, but a Washington file
The Texas Secretary of State entry for Portugal lists exactly one thing in this state: an honorary consul in Houston, at 721 Buckingham Drive, with an address and no telephone number. That is useful to know and not where the case goes.
The post whose jurisdiction covers Texas is the consular section of the embassy in Washington, at 2012 Massachusetts Avenue NW. Its own services page sets out the district plainly, and it is enormous: the District of Columbia together with twenty-five states, Texas and Oklahoma and Louisiana among them, running from Florida up to North Dakota. Families sometimes assume New York instead, because it is a consulate general rather than a consular section. New York's own jurisdiction page rules itself out: New York, Connecticut and Michigan, plus Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands. Texas is not on it. We name offices and addresses here, never the officers who hold them.
The permit travels with the coffin, the whole way
The service has a name, trasladação, and the consular section publishes its own requirements rather than pointing elsewhere. Two of them decide whether a family gets this right.
The first is an age limit. The death certificate has to be an original full transcript issued less than one year before. The second is a rule about custody rather than paperwork: the original transit and transport authorisation for the casket or for the urn and ashes must accompany the mortal remains for the whole journey. It is not filed and forgotten at the outset, and it is not a copy in somebody's carry-on. Alongside those come an original cremation certificate where cremation happened, an original embalming certificate where embalming happened, and a certificate from the funeral agency or crematorium that the coffin or urn contains no contraband. The page states that incomplete applications are returned, which in a repatriation is a week nobody has.
| Document | What the source says |
|---|---|
| Death certificate | Original full transcript, issued less than one year before |
| Transit authorisation | Original, for casket or urn and ashes, accompanying the remains the whole journey |
| Cremation certificate | Original, where cremation took place |
| Embalming certificate | Original, where embalming took place |
| Non-contraband certificate | From the funeral agency or crematorium |
A price list, and one line on it says free
Portugal is one of the few countries in these guides that publishes what its consular acts cost in dollars, on a document a family can open before deciding anything. The Washington consular section's table of the most used consular fees is dated effective 1 August 2025 and prints the consular exchange rate it used, one euro to 1.1650 dollars.
Two lines on it matter here. The alvará de trasladação, the transfer permit itself, is item 69 of the consular fee code at fifty euros, which the table converts to 58.25 dollars. And the registration of the death, registo óbito, is marked GRATIS. Free. A family that has been quoted a figure for registering a death with the Portuguese authorities is being quoted for something else, and should ask what. One caveat travels with those numbers. The document calls itself a table of the most commonly used acts, it is the Washington post's own dollar-converted version, and each Portuguese consular post issues its own. It is the right table for a Dallas case and not necessarily for any other.
Registering the death is not a choice
The foreign ministry's community services portal states the position in one sentence: for Portuguese nationals a death is a legally compulsory registrable fact, whether it happens in Portugal or abroad. There is no version of this where the family decides it is not worth the trouble because the burial is in Texas.
How it is done depends on what exists. Where the local record can be carried across, the Texas death certificate is transcribed into the Portuguese register. Where transcription is not possible, the consular post inscribes the death directly, working from the local death registration certificate, or from the deceased person's identity document together with a medical certificate of death drawn up as local law requires. For the Texas document to travel it needs an apostille from the Secretary of State, the ordinary route between two Apostille Convention countries.
Two treaties, and we only finished reading one
On the apostille the record is complete. The HCCH status table shows Portugal signing on 20 August 1965, ratifying on 6 December 1968 and the Convention entering into force for Portugal on 4 February 1969, with the United States acceding much later, on 24 December 1980, in force from 15 October 1981. Portugal's competent authorities are the Attorney General of the Republic and regional Attorneys General, with separate assistant Attorneys General for the autonomous regions of Madeira and the Azores.
On the older instrument we can also be exact. Germany holds the depositary list for the 1937 Berlin agreement on the international transport of bodies, and its table as at 20 June 2023 shows Portugal acceding on 20 April 1970 with entry into force on 18 August 1970. Portugal is inside the 1973 Strasbourg agreement on the transfer of corpses too. The Council of Europe signature table records Portugal signing on 6 October 1978, ratifying on 7 July 1980, and the agreement entering into force for Portugal on 8 August 1980. Two gaps are stated rather than filled. The decree governing the entry of remains into Portugal exists only as a scanned gazette image, so no burial deadline or entry rule is quoted here. And although Madeira and the Azores have their own apostille authorities, no source we opened describes a different repatriation procedure for those regions, so none is assumed.
Questions families ask about a return to Portugal
- Which office handles a Dallas case?
- The consular section of the embassy in Washington, at 2012 Massachusetts Avenue NW. Its district covers Texas. The New York consulate general publishes a jurisdiction that does not include Texas, and Houston has an honorary consul listed by address only.
- What does it cost?
- The Washington fee table effective 1 August 2025 puts the transfer permit at fifty euros, converted to 58.25 dollars at a consular rate of 1.1650. Registering the death itself is marked free.
- How old can the death certificate be?
- Less than one year. It must be an original full transcript, and the transit authorisation has to travel with the remains for the entire journey.
Sources checked and case confirmation
Sources checked September 21 and 22, 2026 on the Texas Secretary of State index, the Portuguese consular section in Washington including its published fee table, the New York consulate general jurisdiction page, the foreign ministry community portal, the HCCH status table and authority list, and the German depositary status list for the 1937 agreement. Portugal’s position under the 1973 Strasbourg agreement was read on 22 September 2026 from the Council of Europe signature table for ETS No. 080. The decree on entry of remains into Portugal is an unreadable scanned gazette image, so no burial deadline is stated. No Azores or Madeira specific procedure is assumed, and no carrier policy is cited because none was located. Confirm the document list and the fee with the consular section for the individual case. Contact Vargas-London with the district in Portugal and where your relative is now, without sending medical or identity documents through the inquiry form.
