Requirements for Foreign Secondary Education Students

For students holding non-Portuguese courses legally equivalent to the Portuguese secondary education , the entrance exams may be replaced with final exams of the non-Portuguese secondary education subjects, provided these exams:

are national in scope or are recognised in the country;
refer to subjects similar to those of the entrance exams.

Similar subjects are considered to be those which, although with a different name, have an identical level and objectives and similar contents as those of the entrance exam syllabus they are meant to replace. The National Commission for Access to Higher Education (CNAES) decides on the equivalence of the subjects and publishes its Resolution every year in the Portuguese Official Journal, which sets out the equivalences.

The request for replacing this exam must be submitted to the General-Directorate for Higher Education (DGES) , but may be done in person at the Higher Education Admissions Office of the University of Évora.

Enyrance Exams for 2025/26 and 2026/27

Under the terms of article 21 of Decree-Law no. 296-A/98, ofSeptember 25, in conjunction with articles 18 and 20, the National Commissionfor Access to Higher Education (CNAES) is responsible for setting the list ofentrance exams, at the proposal of the higher education institutions, whereby thenumber of exams required for admission to each institution/course pair may notbe less than two and more than three. Competent body of the higher educationinstitution, authorize that, for certain institution/course pairs, the numberof lists be increased to a maximum of six.

In this context, and following the introduction of therequirement that the number of exams required for admission to eachinstitution/study cycle pair cannot be less than two and more than three,Decree-Law no. 64-A/2023 of July 31 three, by Decree-Law no. 64-A/2023, of July31, which made the tenth amendment to Decree-Law no. 296-A/98, of September 25,in its current wording, with article 34 of that Decree-Law providing that thechanges relating to the number of entrance exams and the resulting formula forcalculating the application classification are applicable to applications tohigher education for access and admission from the 2025/2026 academic yearonwards.

See here CNAES Decision no. 852/2024 , published in Diário daRepublica no. 126 - 2nd Series, of July 2, which publishes the list of entranceexams for applications to higher education in the 2025-2026 and 2026-2027academic years.

For more information, visit the SAC online help desk .