Your Digital Covid-19 Vaccination Certificate is valid for 180 days

More than three million people, equivalent to about 30% of the Portuguese population, already have the European digital certificate, but the first people vaccinated in the country, at the end of December 2020/ January 2021, mostly health professionals, were the first to realise that the Digital Vaccination Certificate expires.

The Digital Covid Vaccination Certificate, available from the sns24.gov.pt website 14 days after your vaccination course is completed, is valid for 180 days, then needs to be renewed, which is apparently done very easily.

In recent days, the first people to have received their vaccinations have received an alert message on their mobile phone, sent by the number 2424, with the following text: “Covid-19: The seal on your vaccination certificate has expired.”

Note that this validity is not related to the full validation of the document 14 days after taking the last dose of vaccine against Covid-19. They are different deadlines and exist for different reasons.

With the digital certification system in operation since July 1st, just over a month ago, the validity period exists to achieve immunity and thus maximum protection. It is not possible for the vaccination certificate, at this time, to have a validity period of more than six months, when the validity period of the vaccines that we are making has not yet been defined.

Everyone must renew their digital certificate as soon as they receive the alert message and, according to the Ministry of Health, it is a simple process. “To renew the certificate, simply request a new one through the SNS 24 application or the SNS 24 portal at sns24.gov.pt . Everyone who consulted their certificate in the app or on the portal since the 21st of July automatically obtained a certificate valid for 180 days from the date of that consultation.”

For more details on the Covid-19 Digital Certificate in Portugal, CLICK HERE