Portugal's Teacher Relocation Payments Expire in July 2027, and the FNE Wants Them Replaced by a Scale Reaching 900 Euros a Month

The support Portugal pays teachers who are posted far from home expires on 31 July 2027. On Tuesday one of the country's main teaching union federations sent the government a proposal to replace it with something permanent, and the top of its scale is 900 euros a month.

The Federação Nacional da Educação (National Education Federation, FNE) wants a standing estatuto de apoio à deslocação (relocation support statute) in place of the current extraordinary payments, plus a separate housing subsidy for teachers working where schools cannot recruit.

What exists now

Since September 2025, teachers placed more than 70 kilometres from home have received between 150 and 500 euros, the amount depending on distance and on whether the posting is in a part of the country short of teachers. The scheme is explicitly extraordinary and temporary, and it runs out at the end of the 2026/27 school year.

The FNE's objection is that 70 kilometres is a cliff edge. A teacher placed 68 kilometres away, it argues, can face much the same commuting and accommodation costs as one placed 72 kilometres away, and receives nothing. It calls the threshold "excessively rigid" and proposes removing it.

The proposed scale

• Up to 69 kilometres: a base payment of 100 euros a month for every teacher, rising to 175 euros in a territory short of teachers and 250 euros where the shortage is classed as critical.
• From 70 kilometres: a floor of 250 euros a month, climbing with distance and with the severity of the local shortage.
• Top of the scale: 900 euros a month for a teacher posted more than 350 kilometres from home in a critical-shortage zone.
• Housing: a separate allowance for teachers carrying extra accommodation costs in hard-to-recruit areas, with a supplement where housing cost is itself the barrier.
• Staying power: a rising bonus for teachers who remain three years in a critical-shortage posting.

Shortage classifications would be refreshed annually using public, auditable data broken down by concelho (municipality), or by individual school where that is justified. The federation is asking for a dedicated negotiating round to open before the end of this year so the statute can take effect for the 2027/28 school year.

A housing policy in education clothing

Read the proposal closely and the second half matters more than the first. Distance payments compensate for kilometres; the housing allowance and its territorial supplement are an admission that in parts of Portugal a teacher's salary will not rent a home near the school. "Retaining teachers is not just about compensating for kilometres," the FNE document argues. "It is about creating the conditions for them to accept a posting, live with dignity in the territory where they work, and stay."

That reads differently alongside Tuesday's price data, which put existing homes 18 percent above a year ago. The regions where schools struggle most to staff up are also the ones where rents have moved furthest.

What this means for parents

• Staffing stability is the real stake. Classes without an assigned teacher, and teachers who leave after one year, are a direct consequence of postings people cannot afford to accept. Lisbon, Setúbal and the Algarve have been the hardest districts to staff, and they are where most foreign families enrol their children.
• Nothing changes this school year. This is a union proposal, not a government decision. The current 150 to 500 euro scheme continues until July 2027 regardless.
• Watch the year-end negotiating round. Whether the government opens one by December is the first real signal of whether any of this survives.

The government has been narrowing teacher incentives rather than widening them, having already restricted the 750 euro retirement-delay bonus to staff-short regions. The FNE is asking it to go the other way, and to put a price on housing while doing so.