How to get into university in Portugal

First work out which competition you are applying through

You do not get into a Portuguese university through one competition but through several, and which one you fall into decides everything else: where to send your papers, by when and how much a year will cost.

The general national competition is the Concurso Nacional de Acesso (general competition for places at state universities). It is run by DGES (Direção-Geral do Ensino Superior — the Directorate-General for Higher Education); from 2026 its work is moving to the new Instituto para o Ensino Superior (IES, I.P. — the Institute for Higher Education), but applications are still made on dges.gov.pt. Once a year, three rounds, six choices of «university plus course».

The competition for international students is the concurso especial para estudantes internacionais. You apply not through the portal but directly to the university you choose, and each university has its own dates, its own selection rules and its own fees.

Special competitions (concursos especiais) are for people over 23 who have no ordinary right of entry; for graduates of vocational courses and higher vocational courses; and for those who already have a degree. Private universities recruit on their own, through their own competition.

The scale: for the 2026/2027 academic year the country has announced 107,598 places on bachelor’s and integrated master’s degrees, of which 56,790 are under the general system at state universities and polytechnics (IES data, February 2026).

“I wrote in the chat based on my understanding of what’s set out on the DGES website: [link] The logic of the law, as I see it, is that you can’t get into university as a foreigner, study for 2 years and then claim lower fees like locals. My answer is yes. Since the residence permit was for study.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

HigherEducationPortugal20.11.2024

Who counts as an international student and who does not

This is the first question to ask yourself: both the application route and the price depend on it. Under DGES rules, an international student is someone who is not a citizen of Portugal, a European Union country or a European Economic Area country. But there are exceptions to this rule, and they are what decides the matter:

— family members of a citizen of Portugal, the EU or the EEA, whatever their own nationality (spouse, registered partner, children under 21 or dependent, dependent parents); — those who on 1 January of the year of entry had lived legally in Portugal for more than two years in a row, and the children living with them; «legally» here means with a residence permit valid for a year or more; — those who have equal rights and duties under an international treaty; — those entering through special admission routes.

In March 2025 this rule was tightened: Decreto-Lei n.º 20/2025 added a clause to the international student statute (Decreto-Lei n.º 36/2014) under which time lived on a residence permit issued for study counts towards those two years only while the person is at a Portuguese secondary school. Put simply, years on a student residence permit at university do not bring you any closer to «home» applicant status.

And one more thing people find out too late: anyone who enters as an international student stays one until the end of the programme. You can give up the status only by becoming a citizen of Portugal, the EU or the EEA, and even then only from the next academic year.

The two years of residence are proved with an AIMA certificate — the Certidão de Contagem de Tempo de Residência (certificate of the length of legal residence). In the chats people request it by email to AIMA’s general address and to their own branch, with the form filled in; then they are sent the payment details for the fee, and the certificate comes by post (July 2026). The count starts strictly from the date the card was issued: in August 2026 one person’s waiting time after applying through Manifestação de Interesse (expression of interest) was not counted at all.

There is a separate door for those who came from Ukraine under temporary protection: there is a status for students in a situation of humanitarian emergency. The application is made directly to the university at any time, the limit on the number of places does not apply to them, and temporary protection itself counts as meeting the nationality or residence condition when a grant is awarded. If the protection ends, the grant payments stop too.

“In case anyone’s interested: I ordered the Certidão de Contagem de Tempo de Residência to find out whether the waiting time for residence for those who applied through Manifestação de Interesse now counts towards the period of legal stay in the country (to get home student status). I got the certificate today, nothing was counted( Strictly from the date the residence permit was issued.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

HigherEducationPortugal18.08.2026

“In winter we went to the uni to find out the admission conditions in our case, showed them the paper with the residence permit application. They told us to bring the certificate. But what’s the point of bringing it when it says January 2024, i.e. we miss out as locals.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

HigherEducationPortugal18.08.2026

If your school certificate is not Portuguese: equivalence

Equivalence means matching your school certificate to Portuguese school years. Without it a foreign certificate is not a valid document for a university. The rules are set by Decreto-Lei n.º 227/2005 and are handled by DGE (Direção-Geral da Educação — the Directorate-General for Education; its work is now moving to the new institute EduQA, I.P.).

You apply not to the ministry but to a school: any state school, or a private school with teaching autonomy — the one you plan to attend, or one where you live. Those living outside Portugal send their papers by post to DGE, Avenida 24 de Julho, 140, 1399-025 Lisbon. There is no deadline, but if a child is going to school, equivalence is requested at enrolment.

What you need: the certificate or statement of marks, with an apostille or consular legalisation, an official translation into Portuguese, and the document must show the years completed, the marks and the grading scale. Under DGE rules the procedure is free and takes 30 days. In the chats it works out differently: at the school office people paid €10–⁠20 and got the paper in a week or two, and sometimes the next day. What this money is for is not written in the rules — ask the school what the receipt is for.

The main trap is year 12. It is recognised only for those who passed their country’s final state exam. A certificate without that exam will be matched to 11 years of schooling, and you cannot go to university with it.

The second trap concerns those whose child already attends a Portuguese school: if you submit their earlier certificate for equivalence, it may turn out that they have already completed secondary education — and the school will take them off its roll. That conversation took place at a school in June 2026.

Schools respond differently: one refuses, another does it the next day. If you are refused, go to the school next door — the requirements are the same.

“Here’s the table of how school years match, which is what they go by here. You can get into year 12 on the condition written below the table: Equivalent to year 12 provided the applicant has successfully passed the final state exam. If this exam has not been passed successfully, only equivalence to the 11th year of schooling is recognised. So they won’t put you in either year 10 or year 11.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

schoolinportugal07.08.2026

“Just sharing my experience, the only advice I can give is to try another school. The certificate has to be apostilled and translated, in my case it was also notarised (I think it isn’t compulsory in some cases, I don’t remember). I went to the school where I did the PLA course (not where I’m registered) Apart from the certificate, nothing else was needed, I didn’t prove my address at all. 2 weeks and 20 euros.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

schoolinportugal12.06.2026

The general competition: password, Ficha ENES and six choices

To take part in the general competition you need four things at once: completed secondary education (your own or recognised through equivalence), passed entrance exams, met prerequisites if the course requires them, and not having international student status.

Applications are made only through the DGES portal, and you need a password (senha) to log in. The steps: fill in the request form on the website, confirm the email, print the receipt and have it certified at your school or at a GAES (Gabinete de Acesso ao Ensino Superior — higher education access office, attached to universities); after that the password arrives by email. Passwords from previous years do not work, there is a new one every year. You can also log in with the Chave Móvel Digital (the state digital signature; for a foreigner it is linked to their passport or residence card number).

The second document is the Ficha ENES, issued by the school: it shows final marks, the codes of the exams passed and the regional preference code. Everything else — marks, school number, address — is loaded into your personal account automatically.

In the application you list up to six «university plus course» pairs in order of preference. In each round you can get only one place. If you got in during the first round, applied in the second and got in there too, the first-round admission is cancelled automatically together with the matrícula.

The 2026 calendar (Despacho n.º 9359-A/2026): first round — from 20 July to 6 August (for emigrants, their families and those asking to replace exams with foreign ones — until 29 July); results on 23 August; matrícula 24–⁠27 August. Second round — from 24 August to 20 September, results on 30 September, matrícula 1–⁠3 October. Third round — from 10 to 12 October, results on 18 October, matrícula 18–⁠20 October.

In the first round some places go to priority quotas: 3.5% for applicants from the Azores, 3.5% for applicants from Madeira, 7% for Portuguese emigrants, their families and descendants, 2.5% for contract military personnel, 4% for applicants with disabilities and 2% for those receiving school social support.

In practice all this breaks down over small things: marks and exams are pulled from the school database and may not show up in your personal account. DGES’s answer in such cases is that they look at the Ficha ENES: if the exam is on it, it will come through.

“My son has a problem, for example, his exams from last year didn’t load. And they weren’t on the ficha because of a mistake by the secretaria. He went there for a week to get it fixed. And then it still didn’t show up on the portal, even though it was on the ficha. We went to dges to ask. That’s where they told us that if it’s on the ficha, everything’s ok. It’ll load later. And it’s a common problem.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

HigherEducationPortugal01.08.2026

“If it’s there, everything’s ok, it’ll load after 7 August. If not, run to the school secretaria to get it fixed. Or straight to dges. And you can reapply with the results of the next round, there’s a gap in time”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

HigherEducationPortugal01.08.2026

Entrance exams: which you need and what counts

Provas de ingresso (entrance exams) are the same national exams of years 11–⁠12, only counted by the university. Which ones you need is decided not by the university as a whole but by the specific «university plus course» pair: some need one exam, some two, and medicine sometimes three. Look them up in the «Índice de Cursos» (course index) on the DGES website — the minimum scores and the formula are there too.

The 2026 dates: the first exam round — from 16 to 26 June, the second — from 16 to 22 July. You register through the PIEPE platform. For school pupils, registration on time is free; for an «autoproposto» (external candidate) past compulsory school age it is €3 per subject, and late registration costs an extra €25 on top.

An exam is valid not only in the year it was taken: the 2026 campaign accepts exams from 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 and this year.

A foreign school-leaving exam can replace a Portuguese one — this is Article 20-A of the admissions law. The list is approved afresh every year by the CNAES (Comissão Nacional de Acesso ao Ensino Superior — the National Commission for Access to Higher Education); for 2026/2027 it is Deliberação n.º 619/2026 of 28 May 2026. Russia and Ukraine are on the list of countries, but a general rule is set out for only two entrance exams: «Biologia e Geologia» (biology and geology) — the national school-leaving exam in biology counts, and «Física e Química» (physics and chemistry) — the average of the two exams, physics and chemistry, is taken. For maths, Portuguese, history and other subjects the table has no match for Russia and Ukraine: those exams will have to be taken here. Before building a plan around your school exams, open the decision and find your subject in it.

And one more thing: PLNM (Português Língua Não Materna — Portuguese as a non-native language) does not replace the national Portuguese exam. Courses that have Portuguese among their entrance exams need the general exam.

“Because their combination of entrance exams includes Portuguese, and it has to be the national exam specifically, not PLNM”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

HigherEducationPortugal16.01.2026

“My daughter got in as a home student. She took general Portuguese, together with everyone else. At the university she got into, PLNM doesn’t count.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

HigherEducationPortugal30.08.2025

How the admission score is calculated

Everything is calculated on a scale of 0 to 200 (the school mark from 0 to 20 is multiplied by ten). The admission score (nota de candidatura) is made up of the average school mark and the entrance exam results. Each «university plus course» pair sets its own exact formula; almost everywhere it is half and half, but some give the exams different weights.

There are two minimum scores, and you can fail on either: a minimum for each exam and a minimum for the admission score itself. For example, the 2026 campaign: for sociology at the University of the Algarve you need at least 95 in the exam and an admission score of at least 100; for biomedical sciences there — 95 and 140; for medicine at the University of Aveiro — 140 and 140, plus three compulsory exams and a prerequisite.

A prerequisite is a separate aptitude check (for example, «interpersonal communication» for medicine or physical tests for sports courses). It is taken in advance, on its own dates, and without it an application for such a course is simply not accepted.

How the school part is calculated: for a subject with a national exam, the final mark is worked out with the formula (7.5 × school mark + 2.5 × exam) / 10 — that is, the school counts for 75% and the exam for 25% («Guia Geral de Exames 2026»). The old 70/30 ratio still goes round the chats — it no longer applies.

“You get into university if after year 12 you pass the exams you need and get the required number of points. Each university/faculty has its own exams and a set number of points (50% points from exams, 50% points from the school certificate) You choose universities, look at which exams you need, register, pass them. You register on the portal, choose your university priorities, upload the certificate, exam results, and at the end of August they send you a letter saying where you’ve got in... So it doesn’t matter which school you go to, what matters is whether you study at all🧠 P.S.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

chatsetubal03.10.2025

The competition for international students: different dates

There is no portal here: you apply directly to the university, and each has its own dates. By law the university must announce them at least three months before applications open, and in practice the first round opens in winter — long before the general competition.

Here is a real example. For the 2026/2027 academic year the University of Porto set aside 712 places for international students and set three rounds: from 2 January to 6 February 2026, from 9 February to 2 April and from 12 June to 22 July; five faculties, including medicine and engineering, have their own calendar. You apply to the academic office of the faculty you are going to.

What they ask for: a qualification that gives the right to enter university in your country (or a Portuguese certificate with equivalence), knowledge of the language the programme is taught in — with a document, and if you have none, they may check it in a video call — and prerequisites if the course requires them. Each university writes its own selection criteria, and some hold their own entrance tests.

The main problem with this route is the calendar. Applications close before your country issues the school certificate, and without the certificate the application is not accepted: in April 2026 people wrote to universities in Lisbon and were told that applications were possible only with the document in hand and that they would have to wait until the following year. The only way round it that comes up in the chats is universities with a summer round, when the certificate is already in hand.

“We also asked a Lisbon university whether they’d accept us on the promise of providing the certificate and exam results in early July (we’d already bought tickets), and got the reply that you can only apply with the certificate. And they suggested applying in 2027”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

HigherEducationPortugal06.04.2026

“I wrote to lots of universities asking whether you can apply with a letter like that, but everywhere they said no.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

HigherEducationPortugal07.04.2026

What a year costs

The tuition fee is called the propina and is charged per year. At a state university, for those who did not enter through the international competition, the fee cap is set by law: €697 a year for higher vocational courses, bachelor’s degrees and integrated master’s degrees. It has not changed since 2020. In autumn 2025 the minister announced that from 2026/2027 the fee would rise to €710, but when the 2026 budget was passed the freeze was kept. The DGES website still shows €697 for the 2025/2026 academic year — check your university’s website before paying.

You do not pay all at once: by law there must be at least seven monthly payments from the matrícula, and in practice usually ten. At the University of Leiria and the West (formerly the Polytechnic of Leiria) it is €112 at matrícula and nine payments of €65.

A master’s degree that is not the continuation of a regulated profession costs whatever the university sets: at the same University of Leiria it is €697, €1,140 or €2,000 a year depending on the programme.

An international student pays according to a separate fee list, and the difference is several times over. At the University of Leiria and the West for 2026/2027: €2,250 for higher vocational courses, €3,000 for a bachelor’s degree, €3,000 for a master’s and €4,000 for a doctorate. At the University of Porto — from €3,500 to €16,500 a year, depending on the course; citizens of Portuguese-speaking countries (CPLP) get a discount of up to 45% there. There is also a fee for the application itself: €60 in Leiria.

If a payment is not made on time, a state university charges a penalty, but it is small, and an arrangement is usually reached with the debtor: by law state universities must have repayment plans for tuition fee debts.

“All the available grants are on the university website. Sometimes foreigners get a grant simply because they’re citizens of non-EU countries. I got that grant (50% of the tuition fee) and a grant from my municipality — it covers the other 50% of my studies. In Portugal there is formally no free education. The minimum tuition fee is 697 euros a year. And most universities for most courses let you pay for the year of study in 10 equal instalments.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

HigherEducationPortugal12.04.2025

“Well, literally every more or less decent university has a management course in the economics faculty. There are lots of master’s in English in this area. As a rough guide to cost — 7000 euros a year. If someone’s asking about project/product, they probably want to go into IT, but universities teach it badly at the moment. Better to find a mentor, much more effective in terms of cost and career growth. I don’t see any point in a PhD at all, in a doctorate you develop theoretical concepts, and project/product is hands-on experience, and these days it has to be with AI.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

HigherEducationPortugal19.09.2025

Doors for those who did not finish a Portuguese school

Besides the two main competitions there are special ones, and they help when you do not quite make it into the general one.

For those over 23. The competition for maiores de 23 is for those with no right to the general competition: secondary school not completed, entrance exams not passed or out of date. Age is counted strictly: you must turn 23 by 31 December of the year before the tests. The tests are set by the university itself and have three parts: a review of your study and work history, an assessment of motivation (usually an interview) and written or practical work in the subjects needed for the course. Each university writes its own rules and dates, and the places in this competition are at least 5% of what the university has set aside for the general system. Passed tests are valid for the «university plus course» pair they were taken for and do not give any school certificate on their own.

For graduates of vocational courses. Since 2020 they have had their own competition — without national exams. Holders of a CTeSP diploma (Curso Técnico Superior Profissional — a two-year higher vocational course at a university) go separately: for 2026/2027 there are 19% more places for them. Such a course is a legitimate short route: first a profession, then a bachelor’s degree.

For those who already have a degree. There is no need to look for a school certificate: a higher-level degree replaces it. There is a special competition for them too — «holders of other higher education courses».

And an option rarely mentioned in the chats: finish years 10–⁠12 here — at a school or a college, including specialist ones such as a music school — and apply through the general competition on equal terms with everyone else.

“From a document someone sent me here: In 2020 the Government approved a law allowing vocational students to enter higher education institutions without national exams, aimed at increasing the diversity of access to higher education. Accordingly, recent vocational graduates can enter bachelor’s or integrated master’s degrees through a special competition that will take into account the specifics of the relevant degrees (applications must be submitted through the Directorate-General for Higher Education (Direcção-Geral do Ensino Superior (DGES).”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

HigherEducationPortugal20.03.2025

“If the child is under 18, you can also try to get into a college. University, I think, only as an international student, if they have no language. But a college until 18 is still on general terms, and you can improve the language as you go. That’s how my daughter is studying.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

HigherEducationPortugal26.11.2025

Master’s degrees and recognition of a foreign degree

You apply for a master’s directly to the university, by its dates: there is no centralised competition at all. Admission is open to holders of a Portuguese licenciatura or a legal equivalent; holders of a foreign first-cycle degree issued under the Bologna Process rules; those whose foreign degree the university’s scientific body itself recognises as equal to a licenciatura; and those whose academic, scientific or professional record is recognised as sufficient.

Recognition of a foreign degree follows Decreto-Lei n.º 66/2018, and there are three kinds:

— automatic: the degree is recognised from a ready-made table of equivalents (it includes Russia and Ukraine, separately before and after the move to the Bologna Process). You apply through the form on the DGES website or at a state university. The DGES fee is €32.20, and it takes up to 30 days. For people with temporary protection it is free; — recognition of level: the degree is compared with a specific Portuguese level, done by a university, taking up to 90 days (up to 30 if the case has already been considered), at a price set by the university; — specific: not only the level but also the field is recognised. It is needed for regulated professions — medicine, dentistry, engineering with membership of the professional body. It is expensive and slow: in December 2025 the University of Coimbra asked €1,500 up front for recognising a dentistry degree, a year of time, a written exam and the defence of a thesis, and failing either stage means you are out.

An important point that saves time and money: for admission to a master’s, recognition is often not needed at all — many universities accept an apostilled and translated degree and decide themselves. Ask the admissions office before paying.

On PhDs and doctorates: the equivalence of the degree is decided by a university with the same department, and doctoral grants are awarded not through DGES but through the FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia — the Foundation for Science and Technology).

“For recognition of a degree (if it’s automatic recognition) you can do it at any university or at dges itself (it goes through dges either way). If yours isn’t automatic recognition (I don’t remember whether Belarus is ok there or not, but Russia definitely is), then you have to do it through a university that has the same field as in your diploma. But that’s mainly for difficult specialities, like medicine and so on. And the cost there is huge, because they read the diploma. First check which type of recognition you need If it’s automatic (just recognition of a bachelor’s degree), then it’s all simple and 50 euros at DGES (or a university).”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

HigherEducationPortugal20.05.2025

“This was 2 years ago) I think it was on the Dges website. But I was applying for a master’s and they just accepted my apostilled bachelor’s diploma without equivalence.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

HigherEducationPortugal05.08.2025

Money: grants, student residences and tax relief

The state means-tested grant (bolsa de estudo) is not available to all foreigners, and this is where the chats mislead people most. Apart from Portuguese citizens, it can be claimed by: EU citizens with the right of permanent residence and their families; third-country nationals with a permanent residence permit or long-term resident status; people from countries with which Portugal has a reciprocity agreement; stateless people; refugees; people with humanitarian emergency status or temporary protection. An ordinary student residence permit and the first two-year residence permit are not on this list.

How to apply: an online application in the BeOn system on the DGES website, at least 30 ECTS credits a year, a separate login and password (the ones for the competition do not work). The 2026/2027 dates have been moved: from 14 August to 2 October instead of the usual 25 June — 30 September. You can apply later too, until 31 May, but then the amount is calculated in proportion to the rest of the year. The rules are set by Portaria n.º 331-B/2026 of 10 August 2026: from this year the grant is calculated from the student’s real costs in the municipality where they study. First-year students whose families received tier 1, 2 or 3 of the abono de família child benefit are awarded the grant automatically.

Housing supplement. Those who study far from home and rent somewhere get a supplement on top of the grant; non-grant holders with an income below the threshold get half of it. Limits for non-grant holders in 2024/2025: Lisbon, Cascais and Oeiras — €241.90 a month, Porto — €229.17, Coimbra — €152.78, other municipalities — €140.05. You apply through the same grant application, by 31 October, and only with rent receipts.

Student residences. A place in a residence does not come with admission: the application is made separately to the SAS (Serviços de Ação Social — the university’s social support service), each university has its own application window, and grant holders have priority. If you miss the window, you are left with the ordinary rental market.

Municipalities also give grants: in Oeiras in 2024 they paid €1,450 a year, and 1,185 students received it. The conditions are usually: living in that municipality, studying at a Portuguese university and proving the family income with a tax return.

And tax: education costs reduce IRS — 30% of the costs count, with a cap per household, and the rent of a student studying far from home counts as a separate line within the same costs. Details are in the guide on tax deductions.

“I’m rich! — with those words my daughter came into my room. — Yes, I got 1450 Euros! Sharing the details. Every year the Câmara Municipal de Oeiras holds a competition among young people living in Oeiras and studying at Portuguese universities for Bolsas de Estudo do Ensino superior — grants for those in higher education (bachelor’s, specialist degree and master’s alike). Compulsory conditions: citizenship/residence permit, living in the Concelho de Oeiras, age under 40. The full list of requirements is here My son is also on the list of recipients, but he’s still waiting.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

trueportugal13.03.2024

“Well yes, I make the payment, and then it comes back to my account) Not free, but free)) About minors — makes sense. And about having to confirm the family’s expenses through IRS to be eligible for the money — that too. My municipality covers tuition at any university (state and private) and at any level of study (bachelor’s, master’s, doctorate). But it may be different elsewhere, of course.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

HigherEducationPortugal13.04.2025

The D4 student visa and the student residence permit

Those without EU citizenship need a national visa to study for more than 90 days — for study it is the D4. They ask for: confirmation of enrolment from the university (the matrícula or a certificate — at some universities it is called a Certidão Multiusos and is issued online after the matrícula), money to live on (the official guideline is about €870 a month), accommodation, health insurance for the whole period, a criminal record certificate and education documents with legalisation and translation. The Study & Research in Portugal portal, run by the same agency, advises applying one to three months ahead: that is how long the visa takes.

What the chats show. In May 2026 students in Moscow could apply without an advance appointment, getting a slot by writing to the visa centre — for which an extra charge on top of the fee was asked; two weeks passed from applying to the visa being put in the passport. A university can issue the matrícula before tuition is paid, and that was enough for the consulate (June 2025). But the consulate in Belgrade in September 2025 demanded a language certificate and would not accept a declaration instead — consulates’ requirements differ, and they are not written down anywhere in advance.

After arrival you get a student residence permit from AIMA (Agência para a Integração, Migrações e Asilo — the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum) under Article 91 of Law 23/2007. Documents taken: passport with visa, photos, a university certificate of enrolment and of having no debts, a rental contract registered with the tax office, a certificate from the junta de freguesia (parish council), bank statements, NIF (tax number), número de utente (health service number) and the modelo 1 form. In November 2024 in Odivelas it cost about €177, and the residence permit was issued for two years.

Those who get into university while already in the country and apply for a residence permit from inside it will have to wait: in August 2026 a request under Article 91.4 was processed in three and a half weeks, and the slot was set for May 2027.

For renewal they ask for roughly the same: a certificate of study, the matrícula, proof of accommodation and means, payment of the propina, health insurance, passport and the form.

On working while studying: the chats mention a limit of 20 hours a week, but there is not a single «I worked like this» story in the archive — neither about finding work nor about the paperwork. Ask your university and AIMA, not the chat.

“At the moment a student can apply for a D4 visa by writing a letter to the visa centre. They’ll offer a slot, though they may ask an extra 6900 roubles for it. Our processing took 2 weeks: applied on 5 May, on 19 May the visa was already in.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

left4portugal01.06.2026

“Maybe this will be useful to someone. I applied in July for a PhD at the University of the Algarve. Got in, they gave me the matrícula. From inside the country I requested an appointment at AIMA under article 91.4, and today (3.5 weeks after sending the application form) they gave me a slot on 3 May 2027. Only 8 months 😄 Tomorrow I’ll try to change the slot to an earlier one.”

Translated from Russian; the original is at the link

HigherEducationPortugal17.08.2026