The format of Portugal's citizenship test: what is set, and what is not

How many questions, what the pass mark is, whether you can retake it, what it costs. As of this article's date — 22 July 2026 — none of those answers exists yet, and anyone who gives you a number is guessing. The format of Portugal's new citizenship knowledge test belongs to the Nationality Regulation, and the revised regulation has not been published.

What is settled is the subject matter and the deadline. Organic Law 1/2026 wrote down what has to be demonstrated, and its Article 4 gives the government 90 days to amend the regulation — a deadline that falls in mid-August 2026. If you are new to all of this, it is worth first understanding what the new nationality law actually changed, and then coming back to the format question.

One institutional point first, because it saves confusion

Portuguese citizenship applications are handled by the IRN (Instituto dos Registos e do Notariado), under the Ministry of Justice — the civil registry offices known as conservatórias and their online platform. AIMA is a different agency and deals with residence permits. Almost every English-language forum thread muddles the two, and it matters here: the body that will administer the knowledge test has not been named, and it need not be either of them. The existing state language test for nationality, for instance, is run by the education ministry, not the justice ministry.

What the statute actually says

Two sub-paragraphs of Article 6(1) of Law 37/81, as amended. Point (c) requires applicants to:

«Comprovarem, através de teste ou de certificado, conhecer suficientemente a língua e a cultura portuguesas, a história e os símbolos nacionais» — to demonstrate, through a test or a certificate, sufficient knowledge of the Portuguese language and culture, of history and of the national symbols.

Point (d) then requires sufficient knowledge of the fundamental rights and duties attaching to Portuguese nationality and of the political organisation of the Portuguese state. Read the two together and something stands out: (c) specifies the means of proof, and (d) does not. Whether both end up in a single exam, or (d) is handled some other way, is precisely the sort of question the regulation exists to answer. The official text is in the Diário da República, 1st series, no. 95, of 18 May 2026.

Note also that the law never says «five themes». It lists six things across two sub-paragraphs. Grouping them into five is a study convention — ours included — and not a legal category or an official syllabus.

The closest thing Portugal has to a precedent

This is the part worth your attention, because it is concrete while everything else is speculation. Portugal has run a state exam built specifically for nationality purposes for close to two decades — the Portuguese language test, currently governed by Ordinance 176/2014 of 11 September. Its design tells you how the Portuguese state builds this kind of exam when left to its own devices:

• Pass mark: 50 %. Article 6 scores the test from 0 to 100 percentage points and awards a pass at 50 % or above. There is no numeric grade — just Aprovado or Não Aprovado.
• Duration: 75 minutes for the written version, 15 minutes for the oral-only version available to candidates over 60 who cannot read or write and to those with serious health conditions or disabilities.
• Three times a year («periodicidade quadrimestral»), with room to add sittings if registrations justify it.
• Where: in designated schools inside Portugal, and abroad at centres accredited by the Camões Institute.
• Fee: set by ministerial order and expressly non-refundable. It currently stands at €65.
• Results: within 30 working days.

If the government wants a civic test running quickly — and it has 90 days — extending this existing machinery is the path of least resistance. We are not claiming that is what will happen. We are saying it is the option with an institutional basis, and that if you are studying now, planning around a radically different format would be odd.

What comparable European tests look like

Two are worth knowing, because they bracket the plausible range and because both publish far more than Portugal has.

Spain — CCSE. Run by the Instituto Cervantes: 25 questions in five tasks, 45 minutes, pass at 15 correct (60 %). Twelve sittings a year. The fee is €85 and covers two attempts. Crucially, the entire question bank is public: the 2026 preparation manual contains the 300 questions from which every exam that year is drawn, downloadable free. The result is a pass rate above 98 % — in the November 2025 sitting, 29,948 candidates registered and over 98 % passed.

Germany — Einbürgerungstest. 33 multiple-choice questions with four options each, 60 minutes, pass at 17 correct. It costs €25 and can be retaken. The full catalogue of 310 questions — 300 general plus 10 for your federal state — is published by the BAMF.

The pattern in both countries is the same, and it is the honest headline for anyone anxious about difficulty: where the question bank is published, the test is not designed to fail people. It is designed to make people learn the material. Portugal has published no question bank, so nobody can yet promise you the same — and a Portuguese pass rate is, for now, an unknowable number.

Will the test be in Portuguese?

The statute does not say, so this is not settled either — but it is the one open question where the honest advice is not to wait and see. Point (c) requires knowledge of the Portuguese language itself, and the state exam Portugal already runs for nationality is conducted entirely in Portuguese. Planning on an English-language version would be an expensive assumption to get wrong.

A related trap for English speakers: the language requirement and the civic knowledge requirement are separate things in the law, proved separately. If you have read that citizens of Portuguese-speaking countries are excused, that concerns the language side. It does not follow that the knowledge of culture, history, symbols, rights and state organisation goes away with it.

So what should you actually do?

The practical conclusion is almost dull. The format is the one thing you do not know, and it is the thing that needs the least preparation. The subject matter has been fixed in statute since May. Whether the exam turns out to have 25 questions or 33, a 50 % or a 60 % threshold, what you need to know is identical — factual, checkable, and learnable today. Waiting for August buys you less time, not more useful information.

If you want to see where you stand before deciding how much to study, the free 20-question mock test gives you a diagnosis in about ten minutes, with no signup.

What remains undefined, as of today

Before publishing we searched the Diário da República for any ordinance or decree-law regulating the knowledge test: there is none, and we found no draft put out for public consultation. Still officially unanswered: the number of questions, the question type, the duration, the pass mark, how many retakes are allowed, the fee, which body administers it, the calendar, the locations, whether waivers by age or disability will exist, and the exact reach of that «test or certificate» alternative — which could mean that people holding an accepted certificate never sit an exam at all.

We will update this page the day the regulation lands, and we will leave visible what we wrote beforehand. Until then, the honest answer to “what is the test like” is that it is not yet defined — and the date that stops being true is mid-August 2026.