International courier from Bangalore to Portugal. Free home pickup.
Picked up from your Bengaluru address at an hour that suits you, packed and papered at the door, and flown out of Kempegowda on the DTDC International network. 7–10 working days door-to-door on express, from ₹1,400 per kilogram before fuel surcharge and GST.
Five steps from your Bengaluru door to a Portuguese address.
Pickup, Bengaluru.
Free at 5 kg+, at whatever hour you are actually home. The HSR Layout desk runs 24×7, which on this lane matters more than it sounds — Portugal is four and a half hours behind us, and people book after a late call with Lisbon. Koramangala, Indiranagar, Bellandur, Malleshwaram: same night.
Pack & document.
Item-level declaration, sender KYC, printed invoice where the contents are commercial. We also write the item descriptions in plain Portuguese alongside the English on request; it costs nothing and it saves a query at Lisbon more often than you would expect.
Out through BLR.
Bengaluru is a working international gateway, so the parcel is booked into the DTDC International facility here and flies from here — an origin without one loses a day or two on a road or rail leg before the journey starts. The Portugal connection then trans-ships through a northern or central European hub, which is where the extra days on this lane come from.
Portuguese customs.
Clearance at Lisbon Humberto Delgado (LIS) or Porto (OPO). Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira is efficient and predictable, with one firm habit: it wants the recipient identified by their NIF. Supply it and clean parcels typically move in a day or two.
Doorstep delivery.
Last mile in Lisbon, Porto, Braga, Coimbra, Setúbal and the Algarve, and onward by air to Madeira and the Azores where a further leg applies. POD reaches you on WhatsApp the day it is signed.
Starting rates. Real pricing depends on weight.
Final price depends on actual or volumetric weight, whichever is greater, plus the international fuel surcharge in force on your booking date. GST is extra.
Starting per-kg rates
- Express (7–10 days, door)from ₹1,400 / kg
- Economy (10–15 days, door)from ₹1,050 / kg
- Min billable weight0.5 kg
- Pickup from BengaluruFree at 5 kg+
Volumetric formula: (L × W × H cm) ÷ 5000.
Worked example
A 2 kg parcel — say cotton kurtas, a sandalwood soap set and a stiff document wallet going to family in Porto, about 34 × 24 × 12 cm:
- Express, 2 kg × ₹1,400≈ ₹2,800
- + fuel surcharge (~25%)≈ ₹700
- + GST 18%≈ ₹630
- Approx total, express≈ ₹4,130
Indicative only. Fuel surcharge and rate cards change.
What you’ll need at pickup.
Portugal is not a difficult destination, but it is a specific one. Get three things right at your door and the parcel behaves; get the third one wrong and it sits in a Lisbon warehouse waiting for a phone call.
KYC of the sender
One photo ID for the name on the AWB — Aadhaar, passport or driving licence — photographed at pickup and held only in DTDC’s record. A company sender adds its GSTIN to the invoice; we do that for you at the desk.
Invoice, and honest values
Portugal assesses imports under the same union tariff as the rest of the EU, so what actually decides the outcome is your description and your numbers, not the border you land at. Every line gets its own description and its own value. ‘Household goods, €50’ on a box of textiles is the fastest route to an inspection.
The recipient’s NIF — genuinely required
The NIF is Portugal’s taxpayer number, and Portuguese clearance treats it as near-mandatory for an inbound consignment; businesses use the NIPC. Ask the recipient for it before you pack rather than after the parcel is held. Medicines sit under INFARMED: sealed strip, prescription with the doctor’s registration number, no liquids and no injectables.
What Portugal doesn’t let in.
Some of this is union-wide and some is Portuguese. All of it is real, and a seized parcel is destroyed or returned at the receiver’s expense rather than yours — which is worse, not better.
Don’t even try
- Ghee, milk sweets and anything dairy — the EU bars personal consignments of milk and meat products from outside the union. Mysore pak, dharwad pedha, khova barfi and ghee tins are the parcels we most often have to unpack at the door on this lane.
- Meat, dried fish and podis containing dried prawn — the same rule, and the last one surprises people. Read the ingredient panel on that packet before it goes in.
- Seeds, saplings, fresh leaves and untreated wood — EU plant-health controls. Curry leaves and moringa seed are the recurring refusals.
- Narcotics of any kind — Portugal handles personal drug possession as a health matter domestically, which is widely misread abroad as leniency at the border. It is not: importing by post or courier is an offence, and the network carries nothing of the sort.
- Alcohol, vape liquid and heated-tobacco devices — not accepted on this service.
- Replica weapons, decorative swords and martial-arts pieces — including the ornamental ones sold as wall décor.
- Counterfeit branded goods, aerosols, loose lithium cells and any liquid — the first is seized at Lisbon, the rest never leave the ground.
Allowed with care
- Filter coffee powder and dry masala — sealed, factory-packed, ingredients printed. Portugal has its own serious coffee culture and nobody at customs finds an Indian coffee packet unusual; it clears as an ordinary dry food.
- Silk sarees and cotton clothing — declare realistically. Textiles are the most commonly under-declared item on this lane and the most commonly opened one.
- Sealed dry snacks — chakli, kodubale, mixture, banana chips, no dairy in the ingredient list, allergens stated on the pack.
- Sandalwood soap and powder — manufactured toiletries are fine; the pure oil is a liquid and does not travel.
- Documents, certificates and apostilled papers — declared as documents of no commercial value, sent express, tracked end to end.
- Small electronics and costume jewellery — make, model and value on the invoice. No gold, no unhallmarked precious metal.
Papers to Lisbon, tech families to Porto.
This lane is unusually document-heavy, and the reason is historical. Portugal has a long, direct connection to India through Goa, and Bengaluru holds one of the largest Goan-origin populations outside Goa itself.
Documents for family registration in Lisbon
Goan-origin families with a claim to Portuguese nationality through birth or descent generate a steady flow of certified papers to Lisbon — birth and marriage records, attestations, notarised translations. We ship them; we do not advise on the process. Send originals express in a rigid wallet, scan every page first, and give us the receiving office’s exact suite and floor.
Relocations to the Lisbon and Porto tech scene
Portugal has pulled in a lot of software work over the past decade, and a share of it is staffed from Bengaluru. Once the flight is taken, the rest follows by courier: books, kitchen kit, winter clothing that was never needed here, and the household oddments that would not fit in checked baggage. Ship in two or three parcels rather than one heavy carton — volumetric weight punishes bulk.
Family parcels to the Goan and Indian community
Lisbon and its outer belt hold a settled South Asian population, with Porto and the Algarve smaller but real. Festival clothing, sealed snacks, prescription medicine with paperwork and children’s things move constantly. Apartment addresses need the floor and the door side written out, not guessed at.
Student parcels to Portuguese universities
Lisbon, NOVA, Porto and Coimbra take a growing Indian intake on engineering, management and design tracks, and the parcels follow the September rhythm. Bedding, kitchen tools, sealed dry food, a spare charger. Put the student’s Portuguese mobile on the invoice — a residence hall will not release a parcel to an unreachable name.
Samples and stock to Lisbon buyers
D2C brands and hardware startups out of Koramangala, HSR and Whitefield send product samples, packaging mockups and small trial stock to Portuguese distributors and to buyers met at the Lisbon conference circuit. Commercial invoice with HS codes, no exceptions, and tell us if there is a date attached.
Filter coffee, podis and silk
The Bengaluru staples, and they all survive EU rules as long as they are dry, sealed and truthfully labelled. Filter coffee powder, huli podi, chakli, Mysore silk. The line to hold is moisture and dairy — if it can be poured or if it contains milk, leave it out and we will tell you what to send instead.
AWB on WhatsApp. Track on dtdc.in. POD when it lands.
You get the AWB on WhatsApp as soon as the parcel is booked into DTDC International, whatever the hour — the Bengaluru desk is staffed overnight. Track it at dtdc.in. On this lane expect the tracking to go quiet twice: once in the air, once at the European hub while the Portugal leg is arranged. If it stops at Lisbon with a status asking for information, that is almost always the NIF — send us the AWB and we will chase it rather than leaving you on an overseas helpline. POD follows within the hour of delivery.
Asked most often on this lane.
Customs is asking for my sister's NIF before they will release the parcel. Is that normal?
Entirely normal, and it is the single most common hold on Bangalore–Portugal parcels. The NIF is the Portuguese taxpayer identification number and Portuguese clearance effectively requires the consignee to be identified by it on an inbound consignment; the business equivalent is the NIPC. It is not a tax on you and it does not mean anything has gone wrong — the system simply will not complete the entry without it. The fix is to collect it before you pack. Ask the recipient for their NIF, we print it on the invoice at pickup, and the question never arises. If a parcel is already held, send us the AWB and the number and we will pass it through the network; release usually follows within a day.
I need to send original certificates to Lisbon for a family registration. How do I do it safely?
Send them express, and treat the packing as seriously as the paperwork. Use a rigid document wallet or a stiffened envelope inside the carton so nothing creases, seal it against rain, and declare the contents as personal documents of no commercial value — certificates carry no duty. Before anything is sealed, photograph or scan every page, including the reverse of anything stamped; if a document is ever queried later you will want that copy. On the address side, be exact: the receiving office, the suite or floor, the four-plus-three digit postcode, and a Portuguese phone number that someone answers during working hours. We can label the item description in Portuguese as well as English, which removes any ambiguity at the counter. What we will not do is advise you on the nationality process itself — for that, talk to the consulate or a lawyer.
The address is in Funchal, Madeira. Does it cost or take more?
The rate band is the same, but the clock is not. Madeira and the Azores are autonomous regions well out into the Atlantic, so a parcel clears on the Portuguese mainland and then flies onward as a domestic leg — figure on two to three additional working days beyond the mainland transit, and a little more around the winter weather. Tell us the destination is an island at booking so the quote you get is the real one rather than the mainland one. Address detail matters more than usual out there: full street name and number, floor and door side, the postcode in its NNNN-NNN form, and a landmark if the building is not obviously numbered.
Tell us the rough weight and the destination city.
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A real person at your Bengaluru door, at any hour.
Tap WhatsApp with your pickup details, or call directly. The HSR Layout desk answers 24×7 — international bookings included.