FAQS 5 | Preparing to Apply via Foreign Secondary Education

Please see  FAQ 4.9.

If you are in Portugal, you should apply for the Certificate of Equivalence to Portuguese secondary education at the secondary education establishment (public, private and cooperative, or private, with pedagogical autonomy for the level of secondary education) in your area of residence.

If you are not in Portugal, and even if you have Portuguese nationality, you should send your application to the Direção-Geral da Educação (DGE) by registered mail with acknowledgement of receipt, to the following address: Av. 24 de Julho, n.º 140 - 4.º andar | 1399-025 LISBOA. See all the necessary documentation here.

Paid applications, even if incomplete, will always appear in results. If you are not admitted due to the absence of scores, you will automatically be transferred to the next phase, should there be one. If you have foreign diploma grades with results after the application deadline, for example, A-Levels, check the calendar for the deadline and send them to revisions.lisboa@ucp.pt.

Please see FAQ 3.4.

See the legislation published each year on the foreign exams that can replace the entrance exams here.

If you intend to use an exam from a country for which there is no provision in the Portuguese legislation please send an email to admissions.lisboa@ucp.pt to be evaluated.

Yes, in certain situations this may be possible, although it is always necessary to submit the certificate of equivalence to Portuguese secondary education in order to complete the admission process.

Contact admissions.lisboa@ucp.pt to see if your case qualifies.

You can apply under the General Scheme if you have an ENES form issued in the year of application. Typically, applicants with the nationality of a non-EU country must apply through the ‘International Student Status’ competition, whose requirements and exceptions can be found at here. 

For the purposes of the secondary school average, the applicant must use the mark on the certificate of equivalence.

Students with foreign secondary education can take and use the Portuguese national final exams, with the possibility of combining foreign exam marks with Portuguese exam marks, when the applicant shows that they are using the Portuguese exam because they do not  have the corresponding foreign exam to replace the entrance exam, or because they did not take it, or because they did not get the minimum mark required by the Academic Unit.

If the applicant chooses to take national exams for exams that they also have on their foreign diploma, they cannot mix exams from both diplomas, but only use the set of exams from one of the diplomas, and must choose the one that maximizes their application grade.

You should check with the DGE-Direção Geral da Educação to see if you qualify for and obtain a certificate of equivalence to Portuguese secondary education. 

If you haven't taken higher education entrance exams in your country of origin, or if there are no higher education entrance exams in that country, the only solution is to take national exams in Portugal in order to use them as entrance exams.

The applicant has two options:

a) take the final exams, according to your diploma, in the subjects you are missing, even if you did not take them during secondary school,

b) take the national exams in Portugal required for the course you wish to apply for.

Please see FAQ 4.10.

Yes, when the required documents have been issued in another country (outside Portugal), they should be legalised/authenticated, depending on the country, in:

a) portuguese embassies or consular services in the foreign country to which the qualification relates;

b) embassies or consular services in Portugal of the foreign countries where the qualifications were obtained (ask the embassy/consular service in advance if this option is available);

c) in the country of origin, with the Hague Apostille in accordance with Article 3 of the Convention, for countries that adhered to the Hague Convention of October 5, 1961, ratified by Decree-Law no. 48450, published in the Government Gazette, 1st Series, no. 148, of June 24, 1968;

d) in countries where there is no Portuguese diplomatic representation, or that do not adhere to the Hague Convention Apostille, the legalization/authentication will be done, depending on the case, by the official entity of the country of origin competent for that purpose (e.g., Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Justice).

When the documents to be submitted are written in a foreign language, the respective official translation into Portuguese must be provided, carried out in accordance with the notarial law. 

No, the Apostille has no expiry date.