Concurso Externo vs Concurso Interno: What Is the Difference?

The concurso externo and the concurso interno are two separate competitions run by the DGAE for two different populations. The concurso externo is the entry route into a permanent teaching post for candidates not yet integrated into any Quadro. The concurso interno is restricted to teachers who already hold a permanent post and who are seeking to move to a different school or pedagogical zone.

Who is eligible for each competition?

The concurso externo is open to newly qualified teachers and to teachers who have been working under successive fixed-term contracts without ever entering a Quadro. The concurso interno, by contrast, is only open to docentes de carreira, meaning teachers already placed in a Quadro de Agrupamento or a Quadro de Zona Pedagogica (QZP), as our guide to those two Quadros explains. A teacher cannot use the concurso interno to enter the career for the first time; that route only runs through the concurso externo.

What is each competition trying to achieve?

The concurso externo fills newly created or vacated permanent posts with candidates from outside the career, integrating them into a Quadro for the first time. The concurso interno instead reallocates teachers already in the career, letting docentes de carreira compete for a transfer closer to where they live or to a school they prefer, without losing their permanent status. Neither competition changes a teacher’s underlying qualification; both rank candidates using graduacao profissional, covered in how graduacao profissional is calculated.

Do they run at the same time?

Both competitions are typically opened through avisos de abertura published close together in the annual recruitment calendar, and both use SIGRHE for the candidatura. A teacher already in a Quadro who also wants to try for a different placement participates in the concurso interno, not the externo, and should not confuse the two applications inside SIGRHE.

Is there a route between them?

A candidate placed through the concurso externo into a Quadro de Zona Pedagogica becomes, from that point on, a docente de carreira and only then becomes eligible to compete in future concurso interno cycles. Separately, career teachers who cannot be assigned a minimum teaching load at their current school may be required to participate in a related process called mobilidade interna, which we cover in how mobilidade interna works for teachers.

Which one should a candidate without a permanent post apply to?

Any teacher not yet holding a Quadro placement, regardless of years of contracted service, applies through the concurso externo. Contracted service does matter, though: teachers who complete three consecutive years in a full annual horario acquire a right that opens a Quadro vacancy for them in the concurso externo, a distinction covered in our comparison of contracted teachers versus Quadro teachers.

Frequently asked questions

Can a teacher apply to both the concurso externo and the concurso interno in the same year? No, not for the same purpose: a teacher already in a Quadro applies to the concurso interno to move, while a teacher outside any Quadro applies to the concurso externo to enter one; a candidate’s current status determines which one is available.

Does the concurso interno use the same graduacao profissional formula? Yes, ranking in both competitions is based on graduacao profissional, built from professional classification and years of teaching service.

Is the concurso interno open every year? Its opening depends on the annual recruitment calendar set by the ministry; a candidate should check the current aviso de abertura on the DGAE portal rather than assume it runs on a fixed schedule.

Does winning a concurso interno placement change a teacher’s permanent status? No, it relocates an already-permanent teacher; it does not create or remove a Quadro integration.

Where can I read the full profile of this competition on this site? See the Concurso Externo de Docentes exam page.