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Expat Family Living

Moving a family to Portugal

Lisbon · 12 sources · Verified Aug 2026

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Does your household clear €11,040 a year?

Residence visa for retirement, religious purposes or people living from passive income. The threshold rises for each person you bring, so it counts your children.

Threshold from Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Portugal, national visa portal, means of subsistence, checked 2026-08-26. It is the published test, not a decision on your case.

What year one costs

2 adults, 2 children · USD
To arrive
$914

Every figure, with its source

A residential apartment block in Lisbon, seen from the street.
Ordinary Lisbon housing stock. Rent here is the one figure Portugal publishes only per square metre, which is why the cost page is still held back.Leonie Bourke via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Your children

Schooling is compulsory in Portugal for every child between the ages of 6 and 18, and schools enrol them whether or not their foreign qualifications have been through the equivalence process and whether or not their residence status has been regularised.

Worth knowing

State schools teach in Portuguese. Children who arrive without it are placed by a sociolinguistic diagnosis into Portuguese as a Non-Native Language, offered in the basic and secondary curriculum under article 12 of Portaria n.º 223-A/2018 and Portaria n.º 86/2025/1, with beginner and level zero pupils taught in groups of eight.

International schooling runs €11,778 to €23,532 per child per year.

What goes wrong

Families who need their children taught in English at public expense. Portugal's state system teaches in Portuguese, so English-language schooling means paying international tuition, and that single line is the largest cost in this plan.

Moving to Portugal With Children

Who to call

We are paid here

Keep this current

The cost desk letter

When a number a family relies on changes

A short note when a visa fee, an income threshold or a school fee we track moves, plus each new edition of the Cost Index. No selling, unsubscribe anytime.

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Sources

Changed since? Tell us and we recheck it.

  1. Administracao Central do Sistema de Saude, Registo Nacional de Utentes checked August 26, 2026
  2. AIMA, residence permit general regime, article 77(1) checked August 26, 2026
  3. AIMA, table of fees for administrative procedures (Portaria n.º 307/2023) checked August 26, 2026
  4. Carlucci American International School of Lisbon, fee schedule 2026-2027 checked August 26, 2026
  5. Consulate General of Portugal in San Francisco checked August 26, 2026
  6. Direcao-Geral de Alimentacao e Veterinaria, entering Portugal from a non-EU country, dogs and cats checked August 26, 2026
  7. Directorate-General for Education, Ministry of Education, Inclusion of Migrant Students in Education (2024) checked August 26, 2026
  8. Directorate-General for Education, Portugues Lingua Nao Materna checked August 26, 2026
  9. Instituto Nacional de Estatistica, Estatisticas de Rendas da Habitacao ao nivel local, indicator 0014704, published on dados.gov.pt checked August 26, 2026
  10. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Portugal, national visa portal checked August 26, 2026
  11. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Portugal, national visa portal, means of subsistence checked August 26, 2026
  12. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Portugal, national visa portal, residency documentation checked August 26, 2026