For a citizenship application on the grandchild path, you need your grandparent's birth record (assento) from Portugal. This document comes from Portugal, not Brazil. Without it, the chain of relationship is incomplete and the IRN cannot confirm that the grandparent was Portuguese by origin.
The good news is that you can order this record from Brazil, without a representative in Portugal. How you do it depends on where the record is kept.
Civil Online: the first option
Civil Online (civilonline.mj.pt) is the IRN's portal for ordering civil registry certificates. Anyone can order a certificate for another person, including their own grandparent. You do not need a Portuguese Citizen Card or to live in Portugal.
To order without signing in, you fill in the form with: - the grandparent's full name - an approximate date of birth - the grandparent's parents' names, if you know them - the place of birth (or at least the district)
The registry office usually issues the certificate within 1 to 5 working days. The access code arrives by email. The certificate costs €10. If the office finds the record, you are done.
When Civil Online does not find the record
Civil Online searches the records digitized by the registry offices. If your grandparent was born many decades ago and the record was moved to the district's archive, Civil Online will say it found nothing. In that case, you take the other route.
The District Archives hold older civil records and, for 19th-century births, the baptism records kept by the parishes. Digital access is through the DGLAB's CRAV platform. There you open a certificate request with the district, municipality, parish and your grandparent's details.
The cost on CRAV depends on the format and delivery. The digital version is around €15. The paper version sent by post is between €22 and €25. The digital certificate usually arrives in about 5 working days. For paper sent by post to Brazil, allow 3 to 4 weeks.
What information to have ready
For either route, the more details you have, the easier the search: - the grandparent's full name, as it appears in old family documents - the date of birth, even if approximate - the place of birth, the municipality or at least the district in Portugal - the grandparent's parents' names, if you know them
If your grandparent's surname is spelled differently in the family's Brazilian documents, use the spelling closest to the Portuguese one. Small accent differences usually do not stop the search.
Certificate format
The certificate the IRN examines in a nationality application has to be the complete narrative version (inteiro teor). When ordering on Civil Online or CRAV, choose the full-text or complete narrative option. Check irn.justica.gov.pt before paying, as requirements can change.
Carlos, from Porto Alegre, needed the birth record of his grandfather, born in Barcelos in 1933. He went to Civil Online, filled in the form with his grandfather's name and his great-grandparents' details, and paid €10. Two days later, the code arrived by email with the full-text certificate. The chain of descent was complete.
If Carlos's grandfather had been born in 1895, the route would have been different. He would have gone to CRAV, chosen the district of Braga and ordered the baptism record from that time.
Linha Reta drafts the declaration of intent and the complete list of documents for your case. You get the records in Brazil and in Portugal, apostille the Brazilian ones, and file the package with the IRN.