INTRODUCTION Recently, the International Diabetes Federation reported that the number of individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) had increased worldwide, especially in Brazil, which placed this country in fifth place among the countries with the most people with diabetes mellitus. 1 Given this reality, strategies are being sought in an attempt to easily and cost-effectively screen individuals with high potential to develop T2DM, in order to implement preventive measures against the onset of the disease. In this context, use of questionnaires has been an ally in screening for several other diseases. 2-5 A few questionnaires directed towards people with T2DM have been validated for Brazilian Portuguese, including the Diabetes Quality of Life Measure, 6 Diabetes Mellitus Knowledge and Attitude Questionnaire 5 and Diabetes Self-Care Activities. 7 With regard to the risk of developing T2DM, there is no validated questionnaire for use in Brazilian Portuguese for these purposes. The Finnish Diabetes Risk Score (FINDRISC) is a questionnaire that was developed in Finnish and English in 2003 by Finnish researchers. It had the aims of tracking the risk of diabetes and stimulating the adoption of measures to prevent the onset of T2DM, especially for individuals who are at increased risk of the disease, but without the need for low-cost laboratory tests. 8 Some articles using the FINDRISC have already been published in Brazilian Portuguese, 9,10 even without proper translation, cross-cultural adaptation or validation of the questionnaire for this language. However, the FINDRISC has already been validated for other languages, including those spoken by the populations of Spain, 11