Portugal Loses 3,652 Teachers to Retirement in 2026, Almost Matching the 3,670 Newcomers Counted Since September

Portugal's state schools will have lost 3,652 nursery, primary and secondary teachers to retirement by the end of 2026, almost exactly the 3,670 newcomers the Education Ministry says have joined since September. Público reached the retirement figure by counting teachers on the monthly lists of the Caixa Geral de Aposentações (CGA, the civil service pension fund), the latest of which appeared in the Diário da República on Thursday.

For families, the timing matters as much as the total. Most departures fall in the autumn, in the middle of the school year: Público counts 557 in September, 544 in October, 440 in November and 390 more due in December. Each one leaves a timetable that the school must fill again.

Retirements running near 4,000 a year

The 2026 total is close to last year's 3,620 and among the highest of the past decade, Público reports. Its counts were 2,441 in 2022, more than 3,520 in 2023 and 3,976 in 2024. The paper says its method undercounts, because it covers only teachers attached to the Education Ministry and leaves out higher education, private schools, Madeira and the Azores.

On the other side of the ledger, Secretary of State for School Administration Maria Luísa Oliveira told MPs this week that 3,670 teachers had registered for the first time since September on the ministry's staffing system, and that more than 2,000 of them hold a professional teaching qualification. Minister Fernando Alexandre put new arrivals this term at 3,000, against 5,500 last year, according to the paper.

Público also cites the ministry's study of teacher needs for 2025 to 2034, which puts the requirement at 20,000 more teachers by 2029/30 and 38,000 by 2034/35, or about 3,800 recruits a year. The gaps are widest in Years 7 to 12: 3,639 Portuguese teachers, 2,322 for maths and 1,866 for physics and chemistry, even as pupil numbers are expected to fall by 5 percent.

Keeping older teachers, training new ones

The 750 euro monthly bonus for teachers who stay on past retirement age is now limited to school clusters with a structural shortage, which Público says are concentrated in Greater Lisbon, the Setúbal peninsula and the Algarve. The ministry says more than 2,000 teachers extended their careers under it last school year, and the 2027 budget proposal sets aside 6.2 million euros for it.

On 4 November the ministry announced 15 new funding contracts with universities and polytechnics and five amendments to existing ones. Across 20 institutions, they provide 20,292 places on Basic Education degrees and teaching master's courses between 2026/27 and 2029/30. That is 3,020 more than if this year's intake were simply repeated, a 17.5 percent rise. Annual places grow from 4,318 this year to 5,465 in 2029/30.

What it means for you

• Expect gaps in the middle of the school year rather than only in September, since most retirements take effect from autumn onwards.
• The hardest-hit subjects are Portuguese, maths and physics and chemistry in Years 7 to 12. If a class has no teacher, ask the school's director what replacement is planned and how missed lessons will be recovered.
• New courses take years to produce graduates, so the stopgaps will continue for now. The government has already cleared Basic Education graduates without a master's to teach Years 1 to 4 where qualified teachers are scarce. At the end of September, 664 timetables still had no teacher, most of them in the Lisbon region.