Cross-border enforcement

Enforcing a United States judgment in Portugal

There is no treaty between the United States and Portugal for recognising civil judgments. Portugal applies the Hague 2019 Convention since 1 September 2023 through EU accession, but the US signed it in 2022 and never ratified it, so the convention does not operate between the two countries. A US judgment reaches Portugal only through the domestic revisão e confirmação procedure at the Tribunal da Relação. Arbitral awards travel a different, more reliable route.

Applicable regime

Portugal has been bound by the Hague Judgments Convention 2019 since 1 September 2023, through the European Union's accession of 29 August 2022 [N003][N153][N001]. The convention applies only where, at the moment proceedings began in the state of origin, the convention was already in force between that state and the state where recognition is sought [N012]. The United States signed the convention on 2 March 2022 but has not ratified it, and the convention does not operate between the US and any other party on that basis [N170]. The critical-date test cannot be satisfied for a US judgment, so the treaty route stays closed regardless of when the US judgment was issued.

The only channel open is Portugal's domestic statute, the revisão e confirmação de sentença estrangeira procedure, brought before the Tribunal da Relação. The US judgment must be transitado em julgado, final and no longer open to ordinary appeal, before the Portuguese court will look at it [N515]. Other origins sending judgments into Portugal work from different critical dates, set out in the Portugal jurisdiction profile and the broader routes into Portugal overview.

What the destination court will check

The Tribunal da Relação checks several conditions together, and all of them have to be met, not just the easiest one [N515].

• The US judgment must be transitado em julgado: final, with no ordinary appeal pending or still available.
• The document put before the court must be the authentic judgment, apostilled for use in Portugal.
• The claim and the parties must match what was actually litigated in the United States, with no conflicting Portuguese decision already in place.
• Recognition must not conflict with Portuguese public policy, a question the court decides on the specific file rather than by a fixed list.

The registry confirms the finality requirement directly. The remaining conditions reflect the general architecture of the confirmation procedure rather than a specific statutory citation, and should be checked against the file before relying on them. Refusal on any of these grounds falls within the same non-enforcement refusal category this page addresses.

What will not go through

A judgment that has not reached transitado em julgado in the United States does not qualify. Interim orders, provisional injunctions, and judgments still open to ordinary appeal fall outside the procedure until finality is reached [N515].

Arbitral awards are not run through revisão e confirmação at all. They follow the New York Convention 1958 track, a separate channel that is generally more reliable than the judgment route [N016][N172].

Default judgments where the US defendant's summons is challenged as inadequate are a recurring point of dispute, though the registry does not set out every ground the court applies.

This page covers the United States to Portugal direction only. The reverse direction, Portugal to the United States, runs on different rules and is not a mirror of what is described here.

Documents

Documents produced in the United States for use before a Portuguese court need an apostille. Portugal has applied the Hague Apostille Convention since 4 February 1969, with a reservation recorded at position 13 of the convention's status table; the content of that reservation is not detailed in this registry [N408]. The apostille authenticates the US judgment and any supporting certificates filed with it. Certified Portuguese translation is handled at submission and confirmed document by document rather than by a general rule stated here. Legalisation requirements change by destination; the enforcement routes from the US overview sets out how they differ elsewhere.

Timing

No registry entry fixes a deadline for opening the revisão e confirmação action itself against a US judgment. That gap should be checked against the specific dates on the file before assuming any comfortable margin.

Once the Tribunal da Relação confirms the judgment, the debt can be enforced in Portugal for twenty years from the date of confirmation, the general limitation period applied to judgment debts [N514]. That clock starts at confirmation, not at the date the US court issued the judgment, so a judgment left unconfirmed for years still gets a full run once it clears the Portuguese court.

Limitation periods differ by regime and by jurisdiction pair; the limitation periods across enforcement regimes overview sets them out where the registry confirms them.

If the primary route is closed

Where the underlying dispute has not yet gone to judgment, an arbitration clause pointing to a New York Convention seat gives a more reliable route into Portugal than litigation, because that Convention already covers Portugal without the treaty gap that closes off the US judgment route [N016][N172].

For a claim already reduced to a US judgment, a conduit strategy is sometimes available, confirming or restating the debt in a jurisdiction that Portugal recognises automatically, or under Hague 2019, such as within the EU under Brussels Ia [N018]. Whether that works depends entirely on where the debtor and the assets actually sit, not on a general rule.

A court settlement reached in a Hague 2019 contracting state and enforceable there as a judgment can also reach Portugal on different terms than an ordinary US judgment [N014]. Assessing which of these applies to a specific claim is part of what the firm's cross-border recognition and enforcement service covers.

What to do before filing

Before filing, confirm that the debtor holds identifiable assets in Portugal. A confirmed judgment gives no more traction than the assets that actually exist behind it.

Whether an interim measure can be secured over those assets while the revisão e confirmação action is pending depends on the material facts of the case; availability is not stated here as a blanket answer, only assessed on the file.

Budget for the Portuguese court fee before filing. The unit of account (UC) is set at 102 EUR, and a revisão e confirmação action runs to roughly 306 EUR if uncontested, or 612 EUR paid in two instalments if the debtor opposes [N552].

Checking the debtor's asset position and the risk that assets move before the action is filed is covered in securing records before they disappear. The firm does not work on a no-win-no-fee basis, and its registration is checked against the public company register.