Scholarships in Portugal for International Students 2026/2027

Portugal has become one of Europe’s most searched study destinations for a simple reason: it combines respected public universities, a growing number of English-taught degrees, Atlantic-coast student cities, and living costs that are still lower than in most of Western Europe. For applicants from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Nigeria, Indonesia, and many other countries, scholarships in Portugal for international students in 2026/2027 look, at first glance, like the missing piece that makes the whole plan affordable.

This guide starts with the honest version, because Portugal is also one of the most misrepresented destinations on scholarship blogs. There is no single, open, fully funded “Portugal Government Scholarship” that any international student anywhere can apply to for a full degree with tuition, flights, and a large monthly stipend covered. Pages that promise exactly that are recycling invented details. What Portugal actually offers is more specific — and, if you match yourself to the right route, genuinely useful: automatic state merit scholarships for students who excel after enrolment, a world-class national doctoral funding system run by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Portuguese language and culture scholarships run by the Camões Institute, university-level tuition incentives and merit reductions that are usually partial, Erasmus Mundus joint master’s scholarships that can be truly fully funded, and bilateral cooperation scholarships for citizens of Portuguese-speaking countries. Alongside those awards sits the single biggest financial fact about Portugal: public tuition itself is comparatively low, especially if you hold EU status, so a partial scholarship plus a realistic budget can be enough.

Read this guide as a map of what is real. It explains who can and cannot use the Directorate-General for Higher Education (DGES) grant system — including the rule, stated plainly on the official DGES website, that students who enter under the international student regime are not eligible for direct social support grants — what the DGES merit scholarship actually rewards, how FCT doctoral scholarships work and what they paid in the most recent published values table, what the Camões Institute scholarships cover and when their applications open, how university incentives at institutions such as the University of Coimbra work, what tuition really costs for EU and non-EU students, what documents and timelines to expect, and the mistakes that waste the most application cycles. Plan your wider search in the StudyGraduate scholarships directory, compare countries in the study abroad section, browse institutions in the universities directory, check standing in the rankings section, and run your numbers with the StudyGraduate tools before you commit to any city or course.

Why Portugal, and Why the Scholarship Picture Is Different Here

In the United States or the United Kingdom, a scholarship often decides whether study is possible at all, because tuition alone can exceed what many families earn in several years. Portugal works differently. The Portuguese state heavily subsidises public higher education, and the annual tuition fee — the propina — for students on the standard national regime at public universities has been capped by law at a very low level in recent years: €697 per year for 2025/2026 at institutions such as the University of Lisbon. International students admitted under the special international student statute pay a separate, higher fee set by each institution for each programme, commonly in a broad band of roughly €3,000 to €7,000 per year at public universities, with real exceptions in both directions that this guide will show you. Private universities charge market fees that are higher again.

Because the tuition baseline is lower, the role of a scholarship in Portugal is usually to close a gap rather than to fund everything: a merit award that rewards a strong first year, a tuition incentive that cuts an international master’s fee, a doctoral studentship that pays a proper monthly maintenance allowance for up to four years, or a language scholarship that funds a year of Portuguese before a degree. Students who understand this build strong, honest budgets. Students who arrive expecting a non-existent fully funded package for a bachelor’s degree are the ones who end up in difficulty. The sections below take each real funding route in turn, with the eligibility limits stated as clearly as the benefits.

Scholarships in Portugal at a Glance

Two rows of that table deserve emphasis before you read further. First, the DGES need-based grant — the award most “Portugal government scholarship” blog posts describe — is a social support grant for students with a defined legal status in Portugal. The official DGES award-conditions page states that, in addition to Portuguese citizens, EU nationals with permanent residence, third-country nationals with a permanent residence permit or long-term resident status, nationals of states with cooperation agreements providing for these benefits, stateless people, and beneficiaries of refugee status may apply — and it states explicitly that students who enter higher education under the international student regime do not have access to direct social support and are therefore not eligible for a grant, with an exception for students in emergency situations for humanitarian reasons. If you are applying from Dhaka, Delhi, Karachi, Kathmandu, Lagos, or Jakarta as a new international student, that grant is not your route, and any budget that includes it is wrong. Second, the DGES merit scholarship works in the opposite direction to most scholarships: you do not apply for it before you arrive. You earn it, automatically, by your results in Portugal. Both facts shape a realistic plan, and both are explained in full below.

Eligibility: Who Can Actually Use Each Route

DGES merit scholarship. According to the regulation as summarised on the official NOVA FCT page about Directorate-General for Higher Education merit scholarships, eligible students are those enrolled in a bachelor’s (licenciatura), integrated master’s, or master’s (mestrado) programme who, in the academic year to which the award refers, passed all course units of their curricular year — corresponding to 60 ECTS credits — and achieved a grade average equal to or higher than “Very Good”, meaning 16 out of 20. The award is made regardless of the student’s socioeconomic status, and no application is required: institutions identify eligible students under the national regulation (Order No. 7761/2017). Because eligibility is based on enrolment and results at a Portuguese institution rather than on a pre-arrival competition, this is one of the few state awards an international student can realistically plan around — as a reward for a strong first or second year, not as funding for getting there.

DGES need-based grant. As set out above, this grant is limited to the legal categories listed on the DGES website, requires enrolment at a Portuguese higher education institution in a CTeSP (higher professional technical course), licenciatura, integrated master’s, or master’s programme, and requires enrolment in a minimum of 30 ECTS credits. New international-regime students are excluded. If your status changes — for example, you later obtain long-term residence — your eligibility may change too, and the university’s social services (SAS) can advise. Until then, treat this grant as out of scope.

FCT doctoral scholarships. The Foundation for Science and Technology is Portugal’s national research funding agency, and its doctoral scholarships (bolsas de doutoramento) are open to Portuguese citizens, other EU citizens, third-country nationals, stateless persons, and recognised refugees. In recent calls, applicants had to be enrolled in, or meet the conditions to enrol in, a doctoral programme; must not already hold a doctorate; and must not have previously held an FCT-funded doctoral scholarship. Applicants whose research is carried out partly or entirely abroad must live permanently or habitually in Portugal. The competition is a true research competition: recent calls scored the merit of the applicant (30%), the merit of the work plan (40%), and the merit of the hosting conditions (30%), and applications scoring below 3.000 out of 5.000 were not eligible for funding. Always read the current call notice, because lines, dates, and conditions change between calls.

Camões Institute scholarships. Camões — the Institute for Cooperation and Language — runs scholarship programmes that support the study and research of Portuguese language and culture, scientific or professional training in Portuguese as a non-native language, and training in translation and conference interpreting. Its published programmes include the Annual Course programme (eight-month Portuguese language and culture courses at Portuguese universities), a Summer Course programme, a Research programme, the Pessoa programme for heads of Portuguese Studies chairs and departments abroad, and the Fernão Mendes Pinto programme for projects in Portuguese language and culture. Separately, under Portugal’s cooperation programmes with Portuguese-speaking African countries (PALOP) and Timor-Leste, grants are awarded annually for study in Portugal to nationals of those countries, applied for in the country of origin through the competent local authorities. If you are a citizen of Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cabo Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, or Timor-Leste, that cooperation route — not the general routes in most blog posts — is the one to investigate first, through your local authorities and the Portuguese embassy.

University incentives. Every Portuguese university sets its own rules. To take one documented example, the University of Coimbra publishes financial support options for international students that include merit-based tuition waivers for undergraduates with very high admission grades who can demonstrate limited financial means, and a master’s-level incentive linked to research and scientific production for full-time international students — described in secondary summaries of its Regulation 346/2025 as €2,000 of support towards tuition. Treat any such figure as programme-specific and confirm the current regulation and notice on Coimbra’s own website before you rely on it: a tuition incentive reduces one line of your budget; it does not pay rent, food, or flights. The University of Porto similarly separates its social services support (SASUP), which excludes students holding International Student Status, from named merit and scientific scholarships, each with its own notice and eligibility. The lesson generalises: at Portuguese universities, always read the eligibility section of the specific notice, never the headline of a blog post.

Erasmus Mundus and Erasmus+. Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters are open to applicants worldwide for the specific consortia that run them; several consortia include Portuguese universities as partners or coordinators. Erasmus+ mobility, by contrast, is not a degree scholarship: it funds students already enrolled at a partner institution to spend a period in Portugal, with no tuition charged by the host. Both are real, competitive, and programme-specific.

Benefits and Coverage: What Each Award Really Pays

FCT doctoral scholarships are the most complete funding in this guide. Under the FCT values table published for 2025, a doctoral scholarship holder carrying out research in Portugal received a monthly maintenance allowance of €1,309.64, and FCT scholarship competitions describe funding for up to 48 months, renewed annually, with tuition fees covered under the scholarship components, personal accident insurance, and — depending on the component rules — support for training activities and conference attendance, plus a settlement-type component at the start in some descriptions of the scheme. Values are updated by FCT, so check the current table on the FCT website for the call you apply to; the figure above is the published 2025 table value, quoted here so you can judge the scale of the award rather than guess. Note also that project-based research fellowships advertised by individual institutes use the same FCT values table but are separate, post-specific competitions — a €1,309.64 monthly allowance appears in those notices precisely because it is the standard FCT doctoral rate.

Camões scholarships pay a monthly allowance set by the Camões Board for each programme, and the published notices give the scale. In the Annual Course notice, the scholarship consisted of a monthly subsidy of €500, with Camões paying the registration fee directly to the university up to €871.52; travel and accommodation remained the scholarship holder’s own responsibility. In the 2026 Research Programme opening notice, the monthly allowance was €990, for a maximum of eleven monthly payments per year. Programmes, amounts, and the number of scholarships change by year and by budget — the Pessoa notice for 2026, for example, offered a single scholarship — so Camões awards should be treated as prestigious, targeted support for Portuguese language and culture, not as general degree funding.

DGES merit scholarships are a one-off recognition award for the year of exceptional performance, paid under the national regulation; the amount is set in the regulation framework and institutional notices rather than negotiated, and because no application is involved, the practical advice is simple: the award follows results. Ask your institution’s services how and when merit scholarships for your year are processed, and do not build a first-year budget that depends on receiving one.

University incentives are almost always tuition-side support: a percentage or fixed reduction of the international fee, a waiver for the very highest admission grades combined with demonstrated need, or a fixed incentive such as Coimbra’s master’s tuition incentive. They rarely include a living stipend, accommodation, or travel. Erasmus Mundus scholarships are the exception that proves the rule: a successful consortium application can cover participation costs and pay a monthly allowance across the joint programme — which is why competition is intense and why applications go to the consortium, not to the Portuguese partner alone. Erasmus+ mobility grants contribute to travel and living costs for an exchange period at rates set by the programme and the sending country; for incoming students from partner countries outside the EU, the 2026 IKY-published Erasmus+ tables for Greece illustrate the system-wide pattern (KA171 incoming grants of €850 per month in that Greek call) — your own sending institution’s call is the document that governs your grant.

Tuition Fees and Living Costs: The Numbers Behind the Scholarships

Read the tuition table carefully, because it explains Portuguese scholarship strategy better than any award list. Two students on the same corridor can pay €697 and €7,000 respectively for the same lecture hall, depending on their admission regime — which is why establishing your status (national regime, EU, international statute, or a cooperation agreement) is the first financial question to settle with the university, before scholarships. It also explains why a “partial” Portuguese scholarship can still leave Portugal affordable: a €2,000 tuition incentive against a €3,500 international master’s fee, in a city where a careful student lives on €700 a month, produces a total annual cost that undercuts a fully self-funded year in most English-speaking destinations by a very wide margin. Run your own version of that calculation with the StudyGraduate budgeting and cost tools, and compare Portugal honestly with neighbouring options such as scholarships in Greece for international students and scholarships in Romania for international students, where the funding structures are completely different.

Programmes and Fields of Study

Portuguese public universities teach most bachelor’s programmes in Portuguese, with a growing English-taught offer concentrated at master’s and doctoral level and in specific international bachelor’s degrees. Business and economics lead the English-taught expansion: NOVA School of Business and Economics (part of Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, a public university) and Católica Lisbon run full English-taught degrees and hold triple-crown accreditation, and ISCTE in Lisbon is another major English-friendly business and technology institution. Engineering and computer science are strong at the University of Lisbon’s Instituto Superior Técnico, the University of Porto’s Faculty of Engineering (FEUP), the University of Minho, and the University of Aveiro. The University of Coimbra — one of Europe’s oldest universities — is prominent across humanities, law, sciences, and health. Marine and environmental sciences (the Algarve and the Azores and Madeira universities, and Lisbon’s MARE research centre), architecture, tourism, nursing and health sciences, and Portuguese language and culture itself round out the fields international applicants most often choose.

Field choice interacts with funding in three practical ways. First, doctoral funding through FCT is field-blind in principle — all scientific areas can apply — but your work plan is hosted by a research unit, so fields with strong, well-funded Portuguese research units (marine science, materials, computer science, health, social sciences) generate more host capacity. Second, English-taught private and business programmes carry the highest fees and their own institutional aid rules; a scholarship plan that works for a public master’s in Aveiro will not transfer to a private MBA in Lisbon. Third, regulated professions (medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, architecture, law) have specific admission and language realities — medicine at Lisbon, for example, carries the highest published international fee (€18,000 per year in the figures cited above) and is taught in Portuguese. Choose the field for the career, then price that exact programme page, then look for funding that matches it — never the reverse.

How to Apply, Step by Step

Because Portugal has no single scholarship portal for international degree students, the correct process is a sequence of parallel tracks. Work through it in this order:

1. Settle your admission regime and shortlist programmes. Contact each university’s international office and confirm, in writing, which regime you will be admitted under (international student statute, national competition, or a cooperation agreement), the exact annual tuition for your programme, and the language of instruction. This one email determines which funding you can and cannot use.
2. Apply for admission through the university’s own portal within its international application phases. Portuguese universities typically run several application phases across the year; earlier phases have more places and more time for visas. Prepare your diploma, transcripts, passport, and language evidence exactly as the programme page specifies.
3. Ask the scholarship question programme by programme. For each offer, ask the university which named incentives, merit reductions, or faculty scholarships apply to your regime, what the notice and deadline are, and whether consideration is automatic at admission or requires a separate application after enrolment. Get the answer from the notice, not from a summary.
4. If you are a doctoral applicant, build the FCT track early. Secure a supervisor and host research unit, develop the work plan that carries 40% of the score, register on the myFCT portal, and submit within the annual call window, ensuring your contracting institution validates the application in time — applications not validated are excluded.
5. If Portuguese language and culture is your field, watch the Camões calendar. Recent Camões competitions for the Annual Course opened on 5 May and closed about two weeks later (5–18 May 2026, Lisbon time) through the Camões Services Portal — a short window that punishes late starters. Prepare your form and documents in April.
6. If you are a PALOP or Timor-Leste national, apply through your own authorities. Cooperation scholarships for study in Portugal are applied for in the country of origin through the competent local authorities, with selection by a local jury — start at your ministry and the Portuguese embassy, not at a university portal.
7. Consider Erasmus Mundus consortia as a separate, earlier track. Consortium applications typically open in autumn for the following year’s intake and require a complete, polished file — transcripts, references, and a programme-specific motivation statement — by a winter deadline.
8. After enrolment, protect the merit route. Once studying, the DGES merit scholarship is earned by passing all 60 ECTS of the year with an average of at least 16 out of 20. Treat that threshold as a concrete academic target from your first semester, and confirm with your institution how merit awards are processed, since no application is required.
9. Apply for your visa in good time. Non-EU students need a long-stay study visa and, after arrival, a residence permit through AIMA (the agency that replaced SEF). Scholarship holders should include their award letter in the visa file; everyone else must show means of subsistence, accommodation, and insurance as the consulate requires.

Required Documents

Exact lists live on each programme and competition notice, but a complete Portugal file almost always draws from the same core set. Prepare certified copies and, where required, apostilled or legalised versions, with sworn translations into Portuguese or English as specified: a valid passport; your secondary-school diploma and transcripts for bachelor’s entry, or your bachelor’s degree and transcripts for master’s entry, and a master’s degree for doctoral entry; recognition or equivalence documentation where the university asks for it; a curriculum vitae in a clear academic format; a motivation letter or, for FCT and research routes, a structured work plan with supervisor and host-unit details; letters of recommendation for master’s, doctoral, Camões research, and Erasmus Mundus applications; language evidence — Portuguese proficiency for Portuguese-taught programmes (commonly around B1–B2 at entry, programme-dependent) or English evidence for English-taught programmes, which may be a test score or, at some institutions, a medium-of-instruction route confirmed by the university; proof of financial means for the visa; and, for need-linked university awards such as Coimbra’s extraordinary merit route, documents proving your financial situation, exactly as the notice lists them. Two habits save applications: name and scan each file exactly as the portal requests, and keep a folder of the same documents in visa-ready form, because the consulate will ask for a second, overlapping set.

Deadlines and Timeline

The practical reading of that timeline is that a 2026/2027 or 2027/2028 Portugal plan is really two plans: an admission-and-university-aid plan that runs from winter to summer, and — for doctoral and language applicants — a national competition plan (FCT, Camões) with its own short, fixed windows that do not move for late applicants. Put both in one calendar, using a deadline tracker, and set your personal deadlines two weeks ahead of every official one.

Selection Criteria and How to Improve Your Chances

Each Portuguese route rewards something different, and strong applicants align their effort with the actual scoring. For FCT doctoral scholarships, the published weighting in recent calls — applicant merit 30%, work plan 40%, hosting conditions 30% — tells you exactly where applications are won: a feasible, original, well-structured work plan hosted by a strong research unit matters more than any single credential. Choose a supervisor whose unit actively hosts FCT fellows, align the plan with the unit’s real infrastructure, and write the plan so a panel outside your sub-field can score its originality and feasibility. For university admission and tuition incentives, the currency is your admission grade and the completeness of your file: Coimbra’s undergraduate merit framework, for example, is built around very high admission scores (its extraordinary route references admission grades at the top of the 0–200 scale) combined, for that route, with demonstrated financial need — so an early-phase application with flawless, legalised documents is itself a competitive act. For Camões awards, demonstrated commitment to Portuguese language and culture — prior study, teaching, translation, or a credible research project in the field — is the substance panels look for; a generic “I love Portugal” letter scores nothing. For the DGES merit scholarship, there is no statement to polish: there are only grades. Front-load your effort in the first semester, attend, submit everything, and treat 16 out of 20 across all 60 ECTS as the explicit target it is. Across all routes, two habits compound: apply in the earliest phase you are ready for, and keep every claim in your file verifiable — Portuguese institutions check documents, and an inconsistency between your admission file, scholarship file, and visa file can unravel all three.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Budgeting around a fictional “fully funded Portugal Government Scholarship”. No such open programme exists for general international applicants. If a page promises full tuition plus €15,000 a year plus flights for any nationality at any level, it is inventing the award — plan only around the routes in this guide and confirm each on its official page.
• Assuming the DGES need-based grant covers new international students. DGES states that international-student-regime entrants are not eligible for direct social support grants. Counting this grant in your budget is the single most damaging Portugal planning error.
• Confusing the capped €697 fee with the international fee. The cap applies to the standard regime. International-regime fees are set per programme and can range from around €1,500 to €18,000 (Medicine at Lisbon). Always price your exact programme page.
• Missing the short Camões window. Recent competitions opened on 5 May and closed within about two weeks. Prepare in April or do not plan on the award.
• Applying for an FCT scholarship without a validated host. An unvalidated application is excluded, and a weak hosting case caps your score regardless of your own record.
• Treating a tuition incentive as living-cost funding. University incentives reduce tuition only, unless the notice explicitly says otherwise. Rent in Lisbon will still be your largest cost.
• Ignoring the language of instruction. Most public bachelor’s programmes are taught in Portuguese. An English-taught assumption at bachelor’s level, without checking the programme page, derails both admission and budgeting.
• Leaving the visa until after scholarship results. Run the visa file in parallel: means of subsistence, accommodation evidence, insurance, and legalised documents take weeks to assemble.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a fully funded Portugal government scholarship for international students in 2026/2027?

Not as a single open programme for all nationalities and levels. The fully funded experiences students do have in Portugal usually come from Erasmus Mundus joint master’s scholarships (full consortium funding), FCT doctoral scholarships (monthly allowance plus tuition components for up to 48 months), or cooperation scholarships for PALOP and Timor-Leste nationals. General bachelor’s and master’s applicants should expect partial support — merit awards, tuition incentives — on top of comparatively low public tuition, and should budget accordingly.

Can international students get the DGES study grant (bolsa de estudo)?

Students who enter under the international student regime cannot: DGES states they do not have access to direct social support. The need-based grant is for Portuguese citizens, EU citizens with permanent residence in Portugal, holders of permanent or long-term residence status, nationals of cooperation-agreement states covered by those agreements, stateless people, and refugees, with an exception for humanitarian emergency situations. International students can, however, receive the DGES merit scholarship based on their results after enrolment.

How does the DGES merit scholarship work?

It is automatic and results-based. If, in the academic year in question, you pass all course units of your curricular year (60 ECTS) with a grade average of at least 16 out of 20 (“Very Good”), you qualify under the national regulation, regardless of your socioeconomic situation. No application is required; institutions process the awards under Order No. 7761/2017. Confirm processing details with your own institution.

How much does an FCT PhD scholarship pay?

In the FCT values table published for 2025, the monthly maintenance allowance for a doctoral scholarship in Portugal was €1,309.64, with tuition and other components covered under the scholarship rules, for up to 48 months. FCT updates its values table, so check the current table and the current call notice on the FCT website before you apply.

What are the Camões Institute scholarships, and when do applications open?

Camões scholarships support Portuguese language and culture: annual and summer language courses at Portuguese universities, research stays, and specialised programmes such as Pessoa. Recent competitions opened on 5 May — the Annual Course window in 2026 ran 5–18 May — via the Camões Services Portal. Published amounts include €500 per month for the Annual Course (with the registration fee paid up to €871.52 in that notice) and €990 per month for the 2026 Research Programme; travel and accommodation are generally the holder’s own responsibility. Confirm the current notice for amounts and dates.

How much is tuition in Portugal for a non-EU student?

At public universities, international-regime tuition is set per programme and commonly falls around €3,000–€7,000 per year, but real published figures range from about €1,500 (Law at the University of Lisbon) to €7,000 (engineering at Técnico), around €7,500 provisionally at ISEG for 2026/2027, and €18,000 for Medicine at Lisbon. Private universities commonly charge roughly €4,000–€12,000 or more. There is no substitute for checking your exact programme page.

Can I study in Portugal in English without IELTS?

Many master’s and doctoral programmes are taught in English, and a smaller set of bachelor’s degrees — notably in business — are fully English-taught. Language evidence rules are set by each university and programme: some require a test score, others accept alternative evidence. There is no national “no IELTS” rule, so confirm the requirement on your programme page and in writing with the admissions office.

Can I work in Portugal as an international student?

Student residence in Portugal can allow employment under the conditions of your residence permit and Portuguese law, and many students work part-time, especially in Lisbon and Porto. Treat part-time work as a supplement for living costs, never as the funding your visa or budget depends on, and confirm the current conditions with AIMA and your university when you arrive.

Sources and Verification

The key facts in this guide were checked against official sources at the time of writing: the Directorate-General for Higher Education (DGES) award conditions page, which sets out who may apply for a grant, the exclusion of international-student-regime entrants from direct social support, the 30 ECTS minimum enrolment, and the referral of doctoral funding to FCT; the NOVA FCT summary of DGES merit scholarships, which states the 60 ECTS and 16-out-of-20 conditions and that no application is required; and the Camões Institute’s Portuguese language and culture scholarship applications page, including the May application window — supplemented by the FCT values table referenced in FCT-funded scholarship notices (€1,309.64 per month for a doctoral scholarship in Portugal, 2025 table) and published university tuition figures for the University of Lisbon.

Disclaimer: Scholarship amounts, fees, deadlines, and eligibility rules change every cycle. Always confirm the current figures, notices, and dates on the official DGES, FCT, Camões, and university websites before applying or paying anything. StudyGraduate is an information portal, not an agency or a university: nothing in this guide is a promise or guarantee of admission, scholarship selection, or visa approval, and no legitimate scholarship requires payment to an intermediary to apply.