Opportunities 4 August 2026

47,960 applications are already in for Portugal's public universities (and the first phase shuts on 6 August)

The national admissions round opened on 20 July and closes this Thursday, with more than 56,000 places on offer. Applications are running 164 ahead of the same point last year.

If your application is still sitting unfinished, you have two days. The first phase of Portugal’s national admissions competition for public higher education opened on 20 July and closes on 6 August. What follows are second and third phases with far fewer places and much sharper competition.

The numbers suggest this summer’s disruption has not put anyone off. In the first 14 days the Directorate-General for Higher Education logged 47,960 applications, 164 more than at the same point last year. That is a striking figure given the whole calendar was dragged around by the problems marking this year’s national exams.

What is actually on the table

More than 56,000 places across the public system. Nearly every course-institution pairing is available in this first round, which is the reason it matters so much. Applicants who wait for phase two find a considerably narrower map.

The application is submitted online and lets you list up to six course-institution pairings in order of preference. That order does real work. The system places you in the highest choice your entrance mark reaches, not in every choice you qualify for.

Three things to check before you submit

Your preference order, because it is effectively locked once the deadline passes. The entrance exams each pairing requires, which differ between institutions offering what looks like the same degree. And the application mark the simulator returns, which is rarely the average most students carry in their head.

If a place comes through, the next stage has its own timetable: results and enrolment deadlines are set out here, and anyone who will need financial support should be working on the DGES study grant application alongside it rather than afterwards.

The full official timetable for the national competition is published on the DGES portal.

By Miguel Sarmento

Image: Mignof / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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