Receiving a Portuguese Bank Card and PIN From Abroad

Opening a Portuguese bank account from another country is the easy half. The half that goes wrong is physical: the card, the PIN letter and often a security device are printed in Portugal and posted to a Portuguese address, one envelope at a time. If that address is an empty flat, a former landlord or a cousin who travels, the account exists and stays unusable. This guide is about the envelopes, not about which bank to choose.

What still arrives on paper

• The debit or credit card, in a plain envelope that deliberately says nothing about what is inside.
• The PIN, in a second envelope, sent separately and usually a few days apart, because sending both together defeats the point.
• Access codes for homebanking, and in some banks a physical security device or a matrix card.
• Contract copies, statements and compliance letters, including the requests for updated documents that freeze an account when they go unanswered.

Four envelopes, four chances to lose an account you already opened. The failure is almost never the bank losing the card. It is the card arriving somewhere nobody is looking.

What a correspondence address changes, and what it does not

A Portuguese correspondence address gives you a real street address where a person receives the envelope, opens it under a written mandate you signed, and emails you the scan. For a bank card that means three concrete things: the PIN letter is readable the day it arrives, the compliance letter with a deadline does not sit unopened for six weeks, and the card itself is held safely until you say what to do with it.

It is equally important to be clear about what such an address is not, because the wrong expectation causes real damage:

• It is not proof of residence. A bank that asks for a residence document to open an account is asking for something else entirely, and a correspondence address does not satisfy it.
• It is not a morada fiscal. Your tax address with Finanças follows its own rules, and moving abroad carries its own obligations, including fiscal representation in some cases.
• It is not a company registered office or a business address, and it cannot be registered as your residence on your citizen card.
• The bank decides. Some accept a correspondence address without blinking, some ask questions, some insist on the address in their own records. Tell the bank exactly what the address is, which is a correspondence address; describing it as anything else is where people get accounts closed.

The order that works

1. Get the address first. Identity verification and the signed mandate take minutes, but they happen before an address is issued, and you want the address in hand before you give the bank an address at all.
2. Give the bank the correspondence address for post, keeping your real residence address wherever the bank asks for residence.
3. Wait for the envelopes and read the scans. The PIN and the card are separate items and often days apart; a scan of the PIN letter is usable immediately, and the card is the only piece that has to travel physically.
4. Decide about the plastic. Originals are stored for 60 days. Either you collect them on your next trip to Portugal, or they are forwarded to you for 10 € plus CTT postage.

The cheaper options, and where they break

A relative is free and works until the week it matters. CTT reexpedição moves the paper to your address abroad but opens nothing, costs 57,07 € for a single month to a foreign destination in the CTT 2026 price list, and needs a Portuguese address to forward from. An apartado is a locked box that still requires somebody to walk into the branch. The full comparison, with the four options priced side by side, is in our guide on receiving Portuguese mail while living abroad.

Related: setting up your mail before you arrive, Finanças letters when you live abroad, and AIMA notification letters. See also our virtual mailbox in Portugal, with scanning included. This page is informative and is not legal, tax or financial advice; what each bank accepts is the bank’s decision.