A salary bonus to enhance qualifications was announced as a way of returning tuition fees and retaining young people. But foreigners who work here and didn’t study in Portugal are also entitled.
Young foreigners who come to work in Portugal will also be able to apply for the premium created by the government to pay back higher education fees, even if they didn’t study in the country. All they have to do is be resident in Portugal and declare their income here to have access to the support, which has a limit of 1,500 euros per year.
The measure was announced by António Costa at the PS rendezvous to keep qualified young people in the country and mitigate the talent drain. For each year of work, the tuition fees paid in higher education will be returned, with support ranging from 697 euros per year for bachelors to 1,500 euros for masters.
“In the first year of work, each young person who works and submits their tax return will receive, net, the 697 euros for their first year of university. If it’s a three-year course, you’ll receive it in the first, second and third year. If it’s a four-year course, you’ll receive it for the first, second, third and fourth years,” said the now resigned prime minister.
The rules of the measure, which is expected to cost the state 215 million euros next year alone, were published recently and make it clear, however, that you don’t have to be Portuguese, or have studied in Portugal, to have access to this support.
“For a young person to be eligible to benefit from the measures provided for in this decree-law, it is not relevant whether they are of Portuguese or foreign nationality,” say lawyers Ana Luísa Ferreira and João Nobre Garcia, from Abreu Advogados, in statements to ECO.
The lawyers stress that, in contrast, what matters is that the young person’s tax residence is in Portugal and that they meet the other criteria, namely: “they hold a bachelor’s or master’s degree or a recognized foreign academic degree, they have earned income in category A or B of the IRS, they are up to 35 years old and their tax and social security situation is in order with the Tax Authority and Social Security”.
Thus, Ana Luísa Ferreira and João Nobre Garcia believe that “a foreigner who is resident in Portugal can benefit from the measures set out in the law, provided that they meet the other requirements set out in the law”.
Patrícia Cabriz, from CCA Law Firm, also takes the same view of the government decree published a few days ago. And Luís Leon, a tax expert who helped found the ILYA consultancy, points out that the measure, as it stands, is not a refund of tuition fees, since it doesn’t only apply to those who studied in Portugal and chose to stay in the country.
“It’s for those who have studied and come to live here and work. You just have to be a tax resident and work here,” says the expert. So much so that the decree-law not only takes into account academic degrees obtained in Portugal, but also foreign degrees recognized as having “the same level, objectives and nature as Portuguese bachelor’s and master’s degrees”.
But the granting of this support will not be automatic, which means that young people, whether foreign or Portuguese, will have to fill in an electronic form in order to have access to the payment of 697 to 1,500 euros per year.
The details of this procedure are not yet known, as they depend on an ordinance that the Ministry of Finance has yet to publish. Therefore, even though this support is already in place, it is not possible to apply for it at the moment.
It should be noted that even young people who finish their degree before 2023 may be entitled to this subsidy, “provided that the number of years following the award of that academic degree is less than the number of years equivalent to the respective cycle of studies”. In other words, as long as no more than three years have passed, in the case of a young person who has completed a degree of that length. In these cases, beneficiaries can receive the salary premium for the remaining number of years.
Thus, a 25-year-old foreign graduate who has completed a three-year degree in 2022 at a university outside Portugal, and has come to work in Portugal in the meantime, can also ask the Portuguese state for support of 697 euros for one year. All they have to do is be resident, declare their income to the tax authorities as an employee or as a green receipt, and have no debts to the state.