In Brazil, when a person goes to the registry office to request the registration of an event (birth, civil marriage or religious marriage with civil effects, death, etc.), the officer records the location where the request was made, which will be registered in the original notarial book.

After this registration it is possible to request the relative certificate, which can be issued in three formats:

• simple ceritificate;
• long form certificate;
• reprographic copy.

The most used type of certificate for Italian citizenship processes is the long form certificate. Reprographic copies are normally required for Portuguese citizenship processes.

It is worth mentioning that the printed certificate is required for the citizenship process and digital certificates (available on the Internet) are currently not accepted.

1. SIMPLE CERTIFICATE

Simple certificate, also known as short certificate, is the standard format for issuing documents. If another format is not expressly requested, the notary will issue the simple certificate.

It contains the main information, such as:

• date of the event (birth, marriage or death) in full;
• date in numeric format (day, month and year);
• time and place of the event;
• affiliation;
• general remarks
• in case of births:
• the name of the child’s grandparents;
• whether there is a twin;
• date and number of the live birth declaration;

This certificate is the most common one and it is issued when a registration is made at the notary. Most people are unaware of the existence of other formats.

It is not advisable to use this format to apply for Italian citizenship, because most public offices do not accept these documents and it is very likely that the foreign public office will request a new issue with the full content.

Here is an example of a simple certificate:

2. LONG FORM CERTIFICATE

The long form certificate  contains the complete transcript of what has been recorded in the registry office, i.e. it contains all information that has been recorded in the original book, including signatures, naturalizations, notes, corrections, etc.

At the registry offices in Brazil it is known as “certidão em inteiro teor digitada”

Except in the cases provided for by law (see point 4), the notary cannot refuse to release him, as it is provided by Law no. 6.015 / 1973.

“Art. 19. The certificate will be written in full, summarily or in a report, as required, and duly authenticated by the official or his legal substitutes and may not be delayed for more than 5 (five) days. (Wording given by Law no. . 6.216 / 1974)

1º The certificate, in its entirety, can be produced by machine or by reprography.

(…)

Art. 20. In case of refusal or delay in issuing the certificate, the interested party can lodge a complaint with the competent authority, which will apply the appropriate disciplinary sanction

To verify the delay, the official, as soon as he receives a petition, will separately provide a duly certified delivery note … “.

The certificate in its entirety begins with a sentence similar to this: “upon request of an interested person, by reviewing X’s books he found in them the register which is transcribed below, extracting this certificate in full: …”

This is the most recommended type of certificate for Italian citizenship processes.

Here is an example of a long form certificate:



3. REPROGRAPHIC COPY

The reprographic copy is a faithful copy of the book in which the event (birth, marriage or death) was recorded.

This is the type of certificate most used in the Portuguese citizenship process.

However, it is not recommended for Italian citizenship processes.

The reason behind this is that the reprographic copy of the book is generally difficult to read and it can cause confusion when translating the document. Due to the difficulty of reading these documents, many sworn translators leave in blank some parts of the translation because the spelling of the original document is not always clear. This could influence the interpretation of the Italian public office that will receive the documents for the analysis.

The following is a certificate template with a reprographic copy:

4. SPECIAL CASES

Usually the certificates with fully typed content or in reprographic copy can be issued at the request of an interested party. However, in some cases, the notary may refuse to issue the request without judicial authorization.

The most common cases are:

• adoptions;
• children born of a non-marital union and legitimized after the marriage of the parents;
• name change granted for well-founded coercion or threat deriving from collaboration with the investigation of a crime
• document containing information on conception following an extramarital affair, the marital status of the parents and the nature of the affiliation.

IMPORTANT:

To start the citizenship process, we recommend that you first have all the long form documentation released on which we will carry out the complete analysis so that the corrections can be requested all together.

Often it happens that those interested in citizenship request corrections on the basis of simple documents or before our analysis and, when the certificate is issued in full, they discover that there are other errors that should have been corrected.

In these cases, unfortunately, it is necessary to request the rectification again and reissue the certificate.

To avoid any problem, the issuance of all long form certificates and subsequent professional analysis is necessary.

Only after a complete analysis of the documentation, if no corrections are necessary, the interested party can translate the documents and authenticate them with apostille.

Cavalcanti de Albuquerque remains at your disposal for any further information and assistance.