School

Steps

1. Find the schools in your area. Public schooling is organised in agrupamentos de escolas (school groupings); priority goes to children who live in the catchment area or whose parents work there.
2. Enrol your child on the Portal das Matrículas, identifying yourself with the citizen card, the Chave Móvel Digital or your Portal das Finanças access. List five schools in order of preference (public or private), or all those in your municipality if it has fewer.
3. Without online access, submit the application at the head school of the agrupamento for your area (find out its opening hours).
4. Child schooled abroad or in a school with a foreign curriculum in Portugal: the enrolment remains "pending placement with equivalence procedure". For ensino básico (up to 9th year), no equivalence is needed since Decreto-Lei n.º 7/2025: the head of the chosen school places your child in a year (posicionamento) according to the years completed, their age and their reports; if they arrive during the school year, they may be placed one year below, with your written consent. For secondary school, it is the classic equivalence procedure (Decreto-Lei n.º 227/2005), to be requested at a school in your area or your first choice, on a form provided by the school. The enrolment becomes final once the placement or equivalence has been granted.
5. In the following years, re-enrolment is automatic, unless there is a change of school, of legal guardian (encarregado de educação), of track or of options.
6. Apply for the aid (ação social escolar, ASE): it depends on the bracket of family allowances (abono de família) paid by the Segurança Social; authorise the link between the Portal das Matrículas and the Segurança Social, or attach the supporting document.

Documents

• Recent colour passport photo.
• The child's NIF if they have one, SNS utente number, NISS if they receive the abono de família.
• Identity document, NIF (if there is one), address and contact details of the legal guardian.
• Proof of address if it is not read automatically from the citizen card or the Chave Móvel Digital, and proof of work address if you want to use it for priority.
• For placement or equivalence: the originals of the foreign reports and school certificates. For placement in ensino básico, the head may waive legalisation and translation if they have enough information (Decreto-Lei n.º 7/2025, art. 4.º, n.º 5); ask them before paying a translator.
• No tax document or IRS return is requested, apart from the NIF.

Costs and timelines

• Structure: pre-school from 3 to 6 years (optional); ensino básico in three cycles (1st cycle: ages 6-9, 4 years; 2nd cycle: ages 10-11; 3rd cycle: ages 12-14); ensino secundário from 15 to 17 years (general, vocational or artistic).
• Pre-school: 25 free hours per week from age 4; Law n.º 22/2025 makes pre-school universal from age 3. The State is gradually expanding the network (200 new classrooms in 2025-2026, places are especially lacking in the Lisbon region): a place at age 3 still depends on your municipality, ask the agrupamento. Crèches (ages 0-3) are optional; crèches in the social and solidarity network are free for children born from 1 September 2021 (Creche Feliz programme); for children born before that date, only in the first two income brackets of the family contribution. If there is no place in a crèche in the social network, you can choose a private crèche and ask the Segurança Social for a fee exemption; the Creche Feliz mobile app helps to find places (gov.pt, article of 26/04/2023, predating 2026: ask the Segurança Social whether the conditions have changed).
• Enrolment calendar (2025 campaign, the latest one cited by the DGEstE): pre-school and 1st year from 22 April to 31 May; re-enrolments from 16 to 27 June (6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 11th years), from 1 to 11 July (2nd to 5th years) and from 15 to 22 July (10th and 12th years). The dates change every year (despacho published around March): for the start of the 2027 school year, check the Portal das Matrículas in spring. After the deadlines, you can still enrol your child at the secretariat of the agrupamento; applications made within the deadlines have priority for places in pre-school and 1st year.
• School year: from 1 September to 31 August, at least 180 days of classes, in terms or semesters depending on the school; the calendar for the years 2024-2025 to 2027-2028 is set by Despacho n.º 8368/2024. 2026-2027 (schools with terms): start between 11 and 15 September 2026, end of the 1st term on 15 December; 2nd term from 4 January to 19 March 2027; 3rd term from 5 April, ending on 4 June (9th, 11th and 12th years), 11 June (5th to 8th and 10th) or 30 June 2027 (pre-school and 1st cycle).
• Hours in the 1st cycle: generally from 9:00 to 16:00, Monday to Friday, 25 hours per week, with optional activities until about 17:30.
• French schools in Portugal (AEFE network, October 2026): Lycée français Charles-Lepierre (Lisbon, a school directly managed by the AEFE), Lycée français international de Porto (under agreement), and two partner schools in Lisbon, L'École trilingue and Redbridge School. All are paid; ask each school for its fees.
• AEFE grants (French families): apply from January to March for the following school year, on the Scolaide platform or at the consulate. A second campaign exists for families who arrived after the deadline of the first or whose situation has changed: for 2026-2027, the embassy states that applications are open until 7 September 2026, with the consular council meeting in October-November; if you arrive after that, ask the consulate what is still possible. A grant is not a right and requires, among other things, that the child be registered in the register of French nationals established outside France.
• Higher-education diplomas: recognition of foreign diplomas falls under the Instituto para o Ensino Superior (IES), which has replaced the DGES. Automatic recognition (for a diploma on the official list) is requested from the IES or from a public higher-education institution, with an indicative deadline of 30 days after a complete file; "level" or "specific" recognition is requested from a public higher-education institution, up to 90 days after a complete file. The fees are set by the chosen entity and are not uniform: ask for the amount before applying.

Common pitfalls

• Arriving during the school year without contacting the school. Since school is compulsory, a child arriving from abroad can be enrolled outside the campaign: go to the secretariat of the agrupamento for your area, which records the enrolment itself, with your child's reports for the placement.
• Forgetting the placement or equivalence. Until one of the two is granted, the enrolment of a child coming from a foreign system remains pending placement and is not final.
• Listing only one school. The portal asks for five choices; without a vacancy, your child is placed elsewhere.
• Believing that the French school is free. Schools in the AEFE network are paid, even when directly managed; only grants (for French children) reduce the bill.
• Language. Public education is in Portuguese; support in Portuguese as a non-native language has not been verified on an official page: ask the school what it offers.
• Azores and Madeira. Schools there come under the regional governments, with their own procedures and calendars: an enrolment coming from those regions requires proof of schooling. Find out from the region's school administration.

What changes by country of origin

• French children: AEFE network (Lisbon, Porto) and school grants if the family is registered in the register of French nationals established outside France and no longer receives CAF benefits.
• Other countries: other foreign or international schools exist in Portugal (not listed here); check their recognition with your country's ministry of education and, for a return to the Portuguese system, the equivalence procedure.
• All: placement in ensino básico (Decreto-Lei n.º 7/2025) and equivalence at secondary level (Decreto-Lei n.º 227/2005) follow the same procedure, whatever the country of origin.