Apps for the Portuguese citizenship test, compared
Search for an app to study for Portugal's citizenship test and you will find four products — and discover quickly that you are not comparing like with like: two are websites you open on a computer, two are apps you install on a phone, and the numbers each one leads with — 400, 477, 800 questions — measure different things.
This page puts the four side by side using what each one publishes about itself. One of them is ours, and it is labelled as such in the table and again further down. None of them is official, and none can be until the exam regulation is published — that separate question is answered in is there an official site for the citizenship test.
- Two are web platforms and two are phone apps — a web platform always needs a connection, an installed app can do without one.
- TNIC.pt and Provacidadania.pt are one platform, by the statement of both sites.
- The question count tells you nothing about the exam: nobody yet knows how many it will have.
- What is worth comparing is what each product gives you after you answer — and that shows in each one's free sample, not in its description.
| Product | Where it runs | Questions | Languages | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teste de Nacionalidade (ours) | iPhone, Android and web | 477 | PT and EN | 20 free, then €19, €29 or €39 — one-time payment |
| Teste Nacionalidade Portugal (App Store) | iPhone | 400 | Study in PT, with translations into eight more | Free |
| TNIC.pt | Web | 800 | PT and EN | €49 — one-time payment |
| Provacidadania.pt | Web | 800 | PT and EN | €49, or €79 bundled with the CIPLE |
Figures read on each product's own pages and App Store listing on 18 September 2026. Prices and counts change without notice — check the page before you pay.
TNIC and Provacidadania are one platform
Worth knowing before choosing between them, because they look like two options. TNIC.pt's footer calls it a member of the CivicLearn network; Provacidadania.pt prints «powered by CivicLearn» at the top of its own home page and links to TNIC and CIPLEonline. It is the same offer — 800 questions, five themes, PT and EN, €49 once — behind two shop windows.
The real difference is the bundle: Provacidadania sells a €79 package that adds the language-exam platform. If you need both, that is a pricing decision; if you do not yet know whether the CIPLE applies to you, that question is answered first, and for nothing, in CIPLE or citizenship test: which one do you actually need.
App or website: the difference shows outside the house
Both web platforms run in any browser, a phone's included, but they need a connection: they are pages that load. An installed app can keep the content on the device, and then it changes where studying is possible — on the metro, on a plane, in a waiting room with no signal. If that matters to you it is worth checking in each app's description: in ours it is the study sheets that download, and those are the part that stays available offline.
It is a practical difference, not a question of quality. Someone who studies sitting at a computer, an hour at a time, gains nothing from the app. Someone whose only study time is twenty minutes on the commute cannot use anything else.
Why the question count misleads
400, 477 and 800 look like a scale where more is better. They are not, for a simple reason: nobody knows how many questions the exam will have, or in what form, because the regulation that defines the format has not been published. Every one of these banks is an estimate built from the themes the law names — what can be said about the likely format is in test format: how many questions to expect.
What can be compared is what each question does once answered. A question that returns «wrong» and moves on teaches little; one that explains why, gives the context and says where the answer comes from teaches the material and lets you check the claim. That is the question to ask when choosing — not how many there are.
What to check before paying
Five things, all visible before payment, none of which requires trusting the seller:
- Is there a real free sample? You should be able to answer real questions with no account and no card.
- Does every answer come with an explanation? Check in the sample, not in the product description.
- Does the explanation say where it comes from? An answer about the Constitution should be able to cite the article behind it.
- What is promised for the day the regulation lands — an update included, or a new product to buy again?
- Who is behind it? A name, an address and an email that answers; if you find none, you have learned something important.
The fourth point is what separates a purchase from a gamble. All these products predate the regulation, and the regulation will change the material: what matters is whether the seller committed to updating without charging again.
Our app, said in full
This site is Teste de Nacionalidade and the app of the same name is ours — saying so in the middle of a comparison is the minimum. What it does: 477 questions across the five themes, each with an explanation, the context and the source in the law; a free twenty-question mock with no account and no card; 44 study sheets read aloud in Portuguese and in English for offline listening; memory cards; and a full mock against the clock. It is on iPhone and Android, and access bought on the site opens in the app with the same account. The prices in the table are the site's; buying inside the app means the store's own price for that tier, which is what Apple and Google charge for it.
What it does not do, and none of them does: it does not have the official syllabus, because there is none; it does not belong to the Government, to AIMA or to the IRN; and it does not know how many questions the exam will have. The commitment we make is the fourth point on the list above — when the regulation is published we adjust the content the same day, at no further cost to anyone who has already bought.
While the regulation has not landed
Any of the four serves the part that does not depend on the regulation: the material itself. History, culture, symbols, rights and duties, and how the State is organised are the themes the law names, and they will not stop being so when the format is published. The study plan that uses this waiting time is in how to prepare with no official syllabus, and it holds for any tool in this table.
