Portuguese translation services from €0.05/word Portuguese translation agency.
Portuguese translation services for marketing, contracts, technical documentation and software. Native-speaker specialist translators from Portugal and Brazil, coordinated by a dedicated contact in Hamburg. Get a no-obligation quote.
Four ISO certifications, independently auditedTranslation partner to companies with high standards
- Language pairs: German ↔ Portuguese (pt-PT and pt-BR), English ↔ Portuguese and Portuguese ↔ other European languages. In both directions.
- Translators: native speakers living in Portugal, Brazil or the PALOP countries, with specialist backgrounds in marketing, law, engineering or medicine.
- Prices and turnaround: MTPE from €0.05/word, specialist translation from €0.12/word. Standard delivery in 1 to 3 working days, express in 24 hours.
- Key point: Portuguese is spoken in 9 countries on four continents. pt-PT and pt-BR differ in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. We choose the variant to suit your target market.
Why Portuguese deserves a specialist agency
250 million speakers, nine countries, four continents
Portuguese is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Around 250 million people speak it as their native language, across nine countries where it is an official language: Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, East Timor and Equatorial Guinea, plus the Special Administrative Region of Macau. With 215 million speakers, Brazil is by far the largest market. Portugal, with around 10 million, is where the language began.
Commercially, Portuguese spans several markets. German industry has been present in Brazil for decades (VW, Bosch, Siemens, Bayer). Tourism in Portugal and Lisbon’s growth as a tech hub create business translation needs within Europe. And the PALOP countries are becoming increasingly relevant for infrastructure, energy and mining. A professional specialist translation to ISO 17100 covers every variant, provided the translator knows which one is needed.
European vs Brazilian Portuguese
Where the differences lie and why they matter
There is no separate “Brazilian” language. Portugal and Brazil share the same language, but pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and tone have drifted apart. A pt-BR translation feels foreign in Portugal, and a pt-PT translation feels stiff or old-fashioned in Brazil. For marketing and customer communication, that is a real problem.
| Aspect | Portugal (pt-PT) | Brazil (pt-BR) |
|---|---|---|
| Forms of address | tu (informal), você (formal, distant) | você (universal, informal too) |
| Pronunciation of r | rolled r | soft, similar to the English h |
| Pronunciation of s | usually sh at the end of a syllable | usually s (sh in Rio de Janeiro) |
| Vocabulary example | comboio (train), pequeno-almoço (breakfast) | trem (train), café da manhã (breakfast) |
| Word origins | French, Arabic | Tupi, other indigenous languages |
| Business tone | more formal, hierarchical | more direct, personal |
For tolingo, this means every Portuguese project starts by clarifying the target variant. If you are writing for Brazil, a Brazilian native speaker translates. If you are writing for Portugal, a Portuguese one does. For groups active in both markets, we produce the texts in both variants, either in parallel or as separately adapted versions.
Specialist fields for Portuguese translation
The six areas German companies ask about most
Brazil is a key production location for German industry, and Portugal is a growing tech market within the EU. At tolingo, every Portuguese project goes to a specialist translator with the right background and the right language variant.
VW, Bosch, Siemens and Mercedes run large plants in Brazil. We translate workshop manuals, training material, quality documentation and audit reports.
Product descriptions, newsletters, social media content and landing pages for audiences in Brazil and Portugal. Including transcreation for campaigns.
Lisbon is one of Europe’s fastest-growing tech hubs. We localise user interfaces, onboarding copy and help articles for pt-PT and pt-BR, separately or in parallel.
Contracts, terms and conditions, privacy policies under the GDPR and the LGPD (Brazil’s data protection law) and commercial register extracts. Sworn translators on request.
Package leaflets, clinical trial documents and patient questionnaires. Aligned with ANVISA (Brazil), Infarmed (Portugal) and MDR requirements.
Operating manuals, safety data sheets and technical specifications for Brazilian plants and PALOP projects. Including CE documentation.
What does a Portuguese translation cost?
Clear per-word prices you can plan with
The price of a Portuguese translation depends on the type of text, the quality level, the language variant and the deadline. Translators for German ↔ Portuguese are readily available, for both pt-PT and pt-BR. For recurring content, translation memory matches cut costs by up to 70%.
| Service | From | Use |
|---|---|---|
| MTPE (post-editing) | €0.05/word | AI draft translation, edited by a human translator. Suited to product data and high volumes. |
| Proofreading | €0.04/word | Checks existing Portuguese text for spelling and grammar. |
| Editing | €0.06/word | Stylistic revision, adaptation between pt-PT and pt-BR, cultural fine-tuning. |
| Specialist translation (ISO 17100) | €0.12/word | Contracts, marketing, technical documentation. Includes revision by a second native speaker under the four-eyes principle. |
| Express (24 h) | +30% to 50% | Delivery within 24 hours for time-critical work. |
| Certified translation | Fixed price per document | Certificates, diplomas, contracts. Handled through Sworn Translators. |
Worked example: a 4,000-word German marketing campaign translated into Brazilian Portuguese as a specialist translation to ISO 17100 costs from around €480. If you localise into both variants (pt-PT and pt-BR) in parallel, translation memory matches often reduce the cost of the second variant.
Got a Portuguese project ready to go?
Send us your documents and tell us the target market. You get a quote with price, delivery date and the right language variant, and we reply within ~10 minutes (within business hours).
Free · No obligation · Reply in ~10 minutes (within business hours)Common pitfalls in Portuguese translation
What goes wrong with AI translation and non-native translators
| Pitfall | Problem | How tolingo solves it |
|---|---|---|
| Wrong variant | AI tools often mix pt-PT and pt-BR, or default to pt-BR regardless of the target market. A Portuguese public authority will not read “trem” as “train”. | We clarify the target variant before the project starts and record it in the style guide and termbase. |
| Wrong form of address | In Portugal, “você” is distant and formal. In Brazil, it is the standard form of address in every situation. Carrying German “Sie” copy straight over into “você” reads stiffly in Portugal and neutrally in Brazil. | Native-speaker translators choose the form of address and tone to suit the target market and audience. |
| Diacritics ã, õ, ç, á, é, ê | Faulty encoding turns ç into c, ã into a and ê into e. This is common with older CMSs, PDF exports and ASCII workflows, and it changes meaning (for example avo and avô). | UTF-8 throughout, a pre-flight check before delivery and, on request, layout adaptation. |
| Spanish false friends | Spanish and Portuguese are similar, but false friends mislead: Portuguese “acordar” means to wake up, Spanish “acordar” means to agree. AI often mixes them up. | Separate Portuguese and Spanish pools in our translator network, and no substituting a “close” language. |
| PALOP specifics | Angola, Mozambique and Cape Verde have their own terminology. A pt-BR translation often reaches these markets less precisely than an adapted local variant. | On request, translators with ties to the relevant PALOP region, documented in the order. |
Certified Portuguese ↔ German translations
Accepted by authorities, registry offices and courts
For use in Germany, certified Portuguese translations are produced under Section 142 of the German Code of Civil Procedure (ZPO) by publicly appointed and sworn translators. The translation carries their stamp and signature, so German authorities, registry offices, notaries and courts accept it. For use in Portugal or Brazil, an apostille is also required, as both countries are parties to the Hague Convention. tolingo coordinates the work with sworn translators through a specialist service:
Please note: tolingo delivers linguistically precise translations and coordinates the certification. Our translations are not a substitute for legal advice in the target market. For the legal interpretation of a document in Portugal, Brazil or Germany, please consult a law firm.
Key terms for Portuguese projects
What to know before you ask for a quote
- pt-PT / pt-BR
- IETF BCP 47 language codes for European and Brazilian Portuguese. The standard way to separate the two variants in CMSs, software and marketing platforms.
- PALOP
- Países Africanos de Língua Oficial Portuguesa: the African countries with Portuguese as an official language. Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe, plus Equatorial Guinea.
- Transcreation
- Creative translation that recreates the content, tone and cultural impact of a text in the target language. Particularly relevant between pt-PT and pt-BR, where a literal translation often falls flat.
- LGPD
- Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados, Brazil’s data protection law. It follows the GDPR in many respects but has its own requirements for privacy policies and cookie banners.
- ISO 17100
- The international quality standard for translation services. It sets requirements for qualifications, process and the four-eyes principle. tolingo is certified to ISO 17100.
Frequently asked questions about Portuguese translation
Variants, prices, turnaround and file formats
Ready for your Portuguese translation?
Upload your document and tell us where it is going. You get a binding quote with a delivery date, and we reply within ~10 minutes (within business hours).
Free · No obligation · ISO 17100 certified