Porto's Student Federation Reopens a Closed Primary School in Povoa de Varzim as Eleven Beds, With a Free Metro Pass Attached

Eleven beds is not a solution to Portugal's student housing shortage. The Federação Académica do Porto, which announced eleven of them on Sunday, is the first to say so.

The old Escola Primária do Grémio in Póvoa de Varzim, 300 metres from the metro station, reopens this academic year as a student residence. It has eight bedrooms, three doubles and five singles, each with its own bathroom, plus a fitted kitchen, a laundry and shared living space. Eleven displaced students move in from September under admission criteria set jointly with the social services of Porto's academic institutions.

A federation that has become a landlord

The building is the third residence run by Academia 24, the FAP's own accommodation service. The others are Academia 24 da Bainharia, in Porto's historic centre, and Academia 24 do Marquês, beside the Marquês metro station, which opened on 11 September 2025 and cost 150,000 euros paid for out of the receipts from the Queima das Fitas, the student festival. With the Póvoa building the three residences come to 75 beds.

Residents get a free Andante travel pass, arranged with Transportes Metropolitanos do Porto, and a 50 percent discount on Bolt journeys. Those two additions are the substance of the argument the federation is making. Its president, Francisco Porto Fernandes, says the search has to widen beyond the city: "Nearby municipalities have good links to the higher education institutions and can offer accommodation alternatives without pushing students away from academic life, above all where there are good mobility conditions."

He is equally direct about the scale of what eleven beds addresses. "Year after year, the lack of student accommodation continues to seriously constrain access to and continuation in higher education for many students," he said. "Every new bed counts and can be decisive in a student's academic path, but we need structural responses on the scale of the problem."

Póvoa de Varzim council built the residence. Its mayor, Andrea Silva, framed the decision as the municipality claiming a role: the council believes the concelho "has the conditions to be part of the solution to the student accommodation crisis in the Porto region", and says projects of this kind "bring more life to the city centre".

The market the beds are competing with

The context is a private market that has moved faster than any public programme. A student room in Lisbon went from 500 to 550 euros in a single week in late August, above the state's own reference value. The public alternative is being built, but slowly and unevenly: Braga converted a derelict soap factory into a 786-bed residence, the country's largest, this summer.

What this means for expats

• Look beyond the city boundary: Póvoa de Varzim sits on the Porto metro. A residence 300 metres from a station is a commute, not an exile, and rents outside the city are lower.
• The state grant has changed: Portugal raised the displaced-student housing grant to 161 euros a month and dropped the requirement to produce a rental contract.
• Places are allocated through social services, not the federation: the criteria come from the Serviços de Ação Social of the Porto academy, so apply through your institution.
• Cost of living is part of the package: a free Andante pass is worth roughly 30 to 40 euros a month depending on the zones you cross.
• Demand keeps rising: the University of Coimbra alone expects more than 2,300 mobility students from 120 countries this year.