School in Portugal: the conversion table exists, the priority doesn't

The Portuguese system is built more simply than the Dutch one. No school types a child is sorted into at twelve: the ensino básico lasts nine years and consists of three ciclos of four, two and three years, after which the ensino secundário follows for three years, and only there do you choose between a route towards university and a vocational route — with, the law says, permeability between those routes in both directions. Compulsory education runs from 6 to 18 and ends with your secundário diploma or, diploma or not, at the moment in the school year in which you turn eighteen.

Public education is free. What that covers exactly is stated literally: tuition, fees and the charges around enrolment, attendance and the certification of your results. Books, transport, meals and accommodation appear in the framework law with the word may in front of them — those are not a right but a provision, and more on that below.

Groep 3 is the first year — and groep 2 isn't school yet

This is the first surprise for Dutch parents. In the Netherlands a child goes to school at four; in Portugal school starts at six. The matrícula in the first year is compulsory for children who turn six before 15 September. If your child turns six between 16 September and 31 December, it may already start if you ask for that, but the place isn't guaranteed: it depends on a free place once the priority rules have been applied.

What sits below that is called educação pré-escolar, and that is not a school year but a provision. Since the change in the law of March 2025 it is universal from the year in which a child turns three: the State has to guarantee that a place exists. Universal doesn't mean compulsory, and it doesn't mean you get the school of your choice either — in the priority queue four- and five-year-olds come first, then the three-year-olds.

A child who was in groep 1 or 2 in the Netherlands therefore doesn't go to the "first year" in Portugal but to that pre-school provision. That feels like a step back and isn't: Portuguese compulsory education simply starts two years later than the Dutch school start.

The table that gives your child a year group

This is the part that is mentioned almost nowhere and that gives you the answer at a glance. Official comparative tables have been established for a series of countries, and the Netherlands is among them — in annex XX of a portaria from 2006. That table lays the year groups side by side one to one. Portugal numbers them from 1 to 12 and writes that as 1.º ano, 2.º ano, and so on; that is the form you will see on forms and in letters.

Netherlands	Portugal	Where that falls
groep 3 to 6	year 1 to 4	1.º ciclo
groep 7 and 8	year 5 and 6	2.º ciclo
klas 1 to 3	year 7 to 9	3.º ciclo
klas 4 to 6	year 10 to 12	ensino secundário

A second table comes with it, for the marks in the secundário — the level where equivalence is granted with a grade. A Dutch 6 becomes a 10, a 7 a 13, an 8 a 15, a 9 a 17 and a 10 a 19. The Portuguese scale runs to 20, so a Dutch ten doesn't reach that twenty — but the bottom end is generous, because the Dutch pass mark lands exactly on the Portuguese pass mark.

Note what that table does not do: it knows only "klas", no vmbo, havo or vwo. Two children from the same klas therefore come out at the same Portuguese year, regardless of their level. That is caught by the criteria the school must weigh, and there are two of them, cumulatively: the number of school years completed successfully and the nature of the education. The table gives the year, the nature of the education gives the nuance — and that weighing is done by a person, not by a form.

The equivalence runs, and meanwhile your child sits in class

The recognition of a foreign school career is called equivalência de habilitações, and three things about it are good news.

The first: the decision lies with the school, not with a ministry. You apply at the school your child wants to attend or at the school of your area of residence, with the form from the annex to the decree. Only cases for which no table exists go on to the national service — and for the Netherlands that table exists.

The second: no exact similarity of curricula is needed. The law asks for paralelismo na formação and says in so many words that full correspondence of curricular structures and programme content is not required.

The third, and the most important for a parent arriving in September: while the equivalence is running, a conditional enrolment must be made that lets your child attend lessons. So your child is in class while the paperwork does its rounds. The school decides within thirty days.

Two things do need your attention beforehand. The diplomas and mark sheets have to be translated and carry an apostille — arrange that in the Netherlands, not afterwards. And the clock is short if the school is missing something: it may request additional documents within eight days, and then you have ten to supply them. If you don't, the application is rejected and your documents come back.

In the básico the equivalence is granted without a grade, unless you ask for one yourself. In the secundário it comes with a grade — which is exactly where the conversion table does its work, and those grades count towards access to higher education.

Where you stand in the queue

Here the honest story has to come, because this is where Portuguese and Spanish practice part ways. In Spain the home address is the heaviest criterion. In Portugal, in the básico, it is the sixth.

Above your home address stand: children with specific educational needs, children who were already in the same school cluster the year before, children with a brother or sister at the desired school, and children with a grant from the school social support scheme whose parents live or work in the area. Only then comes "parents demonstrably live in the area". For a family that has just arrived that means: no siblings at the school, no year in the same cluster, and so a place at the bottom of the list — even with the right address. In the secundário the structure is comparable.

At enrolment you are required to give five schools in order of preference (or all schools, in municipalities with little choice). Do that seriously: the fifth is not theoretical.

And then the window. The regular periods fall in spring and summer and are set each year by a separate decision — for 2026/2027 the pre-school and first-year enrolment ran between 22 April and 1 June, and the other years followed in June and July. But for whoever comes with a foreign qualification there is a separate rule, and it is generous: the enrolment may be made outside those periods and acceptance depends only on a place existing in the classes already formed. So you are not too late. You are dependent on a free seat, and that is something other than being too late.

If you choose a school outside the area where you live, while the school of your own area could also have offered the same programme, you carry the travel costs yourself. That is stated literally, and it is a cost item people only discover in November.

Learning Portuguese happens in a subject that replaces Portuguese

A child who doesn't speak Portuguese is not an exception for this system but a known category: Português Língua Não Materna, PLNM. The school draws up a language profile and administers its own diagnostic test, and on that basis your child is placed — from nível zero (an absolute beginner, explicitly meant for children entering without Portuguese) through A1 and A2 to B1, B2 and C1.

What happens then is the point: at level zero up to and including B1 your child follows PLNM instead of the subject Portuguese. That happens in a group of at least eight pupils if they are all at level zero or A1, or at least ten for mixed levels — and where that isn't feasible, then in their own class during the Portuguese lesson hours, possibly with additional support lessons. So there is no village school where your child falls outside the scheme because it is the only non-native speaker; there is a fallback.

Progression goes A1 → A2 → B1 → B2, and a child may stay two school years at the same level. From B2 it simply follows the national Portuguese programme. Assessment shifts along too: a pupil entering at level zero or A1/A2 can receive a descriptive appraisal instead of marks in the first period, and there are adaptations to both internal and external assessment. At the national examinations in year 9 and 12 the PLNM exam may replace the Portuguese exam.

With one exception you need to know four years in advance: the PLNM final exam gives you the secundário diploma and access to higher education, but if the chosen university programme requires Portuguese as an entrance exam, the PLNM exam does not count for that. Anyone working towards a Portuguese degree has to move to regular Portuguese in time.

Free is not without cost

School textbooks are free throughout compulsory education at public schools. You collect them with vouchers through the MEGA platform, for which you register with your NIF and the login details of the Portuguese tax authority — the same login path that is also usable at the matrícula if you don't have a Portuguese identity card yet.

Those free books come with an obligation to return them: you get new books on condition that you hand the old ones in, so they can be reused. Since October 2025 there is one exception, and it is a welcome one: pupils of the 1.º ciclo no longer have to hand back their paper books. Workbooks, exercise books and the rest of the school supplies you buy yourself, as with meals and trips. The school social support scheme (ASE) cushions, on income, what weighs heavily of that.

What the counter asks of you

At the matrícula you hand over more numbers than a Dutch parent expects: proof of your home address, a recent passport photo, the NIF if your child has one, the household composition as the tax authority last established it, the número de utente for healthcare and the NISS, and your own identification and contact details. The enrolment preferably goes online through the Portal das Matrículas — with the Portuguese identity card, the Chave Móvel Digital or the tax authority's login details — and can otherwise be done in person at the school of your area of residence, regardless of which schools you give as your preference.

That list also makes clear the order in which this is supposed to happen: your proof of address and your CRUE come first, because the rest hangs on them.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 5 of 5 of the journey: the same steps, but on your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to Portugal.