Portugal

• Public tuition is capped: €697 a year for a licenciatura in 2025/26, and EU students pay exactly that
• Nova SBE charged EU students €697 while charging international-statute students €7,500 for the same degree (2025/26 figures) — the EU passport is worth real money here
• Living costs outside Lisbon are low by Western European standards
• A small but genuine set of English-taught bachelors in business and economics at Nova SBE and Católica Lisbon
• The academic year timetable is late, so you apply after you have your IB results rather than on predictions

• As an EU citizen you cannot use the Estatuto do Estudante Internacional — it explicitly excludes EU/EEA nationals, so the easy English-language route is closed to you
• The Concurso Nacional de Acesso requires an equivalence certificate for your foreign secondary education plus provas de ingresso, which you satisfy either by sitting Portuguese national exams or by substituting homologous foreign exams
• The list of foreign exams recognised as homologous is republished each year by 31 May, so you cannot plan more than a year ahead with certainty
• Portuguese is required for most degrees; even the University of Porto's international route demands Portuguese at independent-user level
• The whole national contest runs in late July and August, which is very late if you also need housing and a fallback

Accepted

Yes

Subjects and levels

Not defined nationally. For the national contest what matters is whether your IB subject exams can be accepted as homologous substitutes for specific provas de ingresso. Private institutions such as Católica set their own IB rules. Nova SBE's 36 points (Mathematics HL at 6 or better) for Economics and Management, and 34 for Ocean Studies, are the rules of its international route, which is closed to EU citizens.

Score conversion

For the Concurso Nacional de Acesso, foreign final exam grades are converted onto the Portuguese 0–200 scale using formulas published by DGES, with separate formulas for numerical and alphabetic grading systems.

• You need a certificate of equivalence confirming your foreign secondary course is equivalent to Portuguese secondary education. This is requested from a Portuguese public or private secondary school, or from the Direção-Geral da Educação.
• Documents must be apostilled or consularly legalised and translated into Portuguese.
• The Comissão Nacional de Acesso ao Ensino Superior publishes the list of foreign exams accepted as homologous to Portuguese provas de ingresso annually, by 31 May of the application year. Exams sat from 2022 onwards remain valid for five years.
• If you request substitution of provas de ingresso by foreign exams you must apply in the earlier priority window of the first phase, not the ordinary deadline.
• Private institutions such as Católica accept the IB directly with their own minimum scores and do not depend on this machinery.

1. Confirm early that you are treated as an EU candidate, not an international student — Decreto-Lei n.º 36/2014 excludes EU/EEA nationals from the international-student statute.

2. Apply to a Portuguese secondary school or the Direção-Geral da Educação for a certificate of equivalence for your IB Diploma, with apostilled and translated documents. Start this a year ahead.

3. Check which provas de ingresso your target degree requires, and whether the CNAES list published by 31 May recognises an IB exam as homologous. If not, you must sit the Portuguese national exams.

4. Register with DGES and submit the national contest application in the first phase, using the earlier priority deadline if you are substituting foreign exams.

5. Rank your choices — the national contest lets you list several degree-and-institution pairs in order of preference.

6. Wait for the placement list, then enrol within the short window that follows (typically three or four days).

7. If you miss out, use the second or third phase, or apply directly to a private institution such as Católica Lisbon.

The national contest is a pure ranking exercise. Each degree has a fixed number of places and a cut-off (nota do último colocado) driven by demand. Your rank comes from your converted secondary grade plus your provas de ingresso results on the 0–200 scale, weighted as the institution specifies. Private institutions and the international contest run their own selection instead.

English-taught bachelors

Small. English-taught bachelor's degrees exist mainly in business and economics (Nova SBE, Católica Lisbon) with a scattering elsewhere. No official national count is given here.

Proving your English

Set by each institution. Nova SBE and Católica accept standard English evidence; check the exact IB English grade each accepts.

Local language needed?

Yes, for most programmes

• Most public university degrees are taught in Portuguese, and the national contest is designed around Portuguese-taught programmes.
• Even the University of Porto's contest for international students states that applicants need Portuguese at independent-user level.
• Portuguese is not hard to start once you are there, but it is not optional if you go the public-university route.

Tuition, EU/EEA

€697 a year (maximum propina for CTeSP, licenciatura and integrated master's), payable in at least seven monthly instalments. Institutions may not exceed the previous year's cap. Small extras apply — Nova SBE adds €36.50 for administration and insurance. (2025/26)

Tuition, non-EU

Set by each institution under the Estatuto do Estudante Internacional. The University of Porto publishes a range of €3,500 to €16,500 a year (2026/27 call); Nova SBE charges €7,500 a year, a figure it labels as valid for 2025/26. Católica Lisbon, which is private, charges non-EU students €858 a month over ten months (2026-27). (2026/27)

Application fee

Nova SBE charges €70 for the international bachelor application plus a €750 enrolment fee that is deducted from tuition. Católica Lisbon charges €180 (€100 early-bird in its first three rounds), then €450 on a conditional offer and €470 on enrolment (2026-27, non-refundable). No application fee for the national contest is confirmed here.

• The €697 figure is the legal maximum, not an average — some institutions charge less.
• Parliament kept the cap frozen at €697 for 2026/27 in the 2026 State Budget, according to press reports; DGES's own page still gives only the 2025/26 figure, so treat 2026/27 and 2027/28 as unconfirmed.
• For master's and doctoral programmes institutions set their own fees; the cap only covers the first cycle.
• Nationals of Portuguese-speaking (CPLP) countries can get reductions of up to 45% on international-statute fees — not relevant to an EU/EEA student, but it explains fee tables you will see.
• No official living-cost figure is quoted here.
• Private Católica Lisbon charges EU students €780 a month over ten months — about €7,800 a year (2026-27), more than eleven times the public cap.

Funding you could actually get

• Danish SU can follow you here if you can claim it (Danish citizens, or EU/EEA citizens with equal status under EU rules) and meet the ties-to-Denmark requirement. The programme must be SU-approved, and outside the Nordics SU is capped at four years (48 klip). If you cannot claim SU, look first at your own country's student finance: several EU/EEA systems fund a full degree in another country.
• Portuguese state need-based grants (bolsas de ação social) administered by DGES and the institutions' social services; EU students are generally eligible; check the residence conditions with DGES.
• Nova SBE and Católica run their own merit and need-based scholarships for bachelor students.
• Erasmus+ for an exchange period inside the degree.

Residency

Travel on your EU/EEA passport or national ID card. For stays over three months, EU citizens register at the local câmara municipal and receive a Certificado de Registo de Cidadão da União Europeia. You will also need a NIF (tax number) from the Finanças office almost immediately — rental contracts, bank accounts and phone contracts all require it.

Working

EU/EEA citizens have full labour-market access in Portugal with no permit. Non-EU students on a study residence permit may work part-time; check the current hour limit on the permit.

Housing

Public universities have limited residências with means-tested places; most students rent rooms in shared flats. Lisbon rents have risen sharply and are the main practical obstacle to studying there. Porto is cheaper, and Braga, Coimbra, Aveiro and Faro are cheaper again. Because the national contest only places you in late August, look for housing before you know your result, and be ready to move quickly.

Healthcare

Bring a European Health Insurance Card for short stays. Once you register as a resident and have a NIF you can register with a local health centre (centro de saúde) under the Serviço Nacional de Saúde and be assigned a family doctor.

Your IB is still a foreign qualification here, so the IB entry rules still apply to you.