How to Watch Portuguese TV Abroad in 2026

Written by Euroskara Support Desk · Published 12 October 2026

Few European communities are as widely spread as the Portuguese. There are long-established families in Paris and Luxembourg, growing numbers in London and the Channel Islands, builders and nurses in Switzerland and Germany, and retirees dotted along the Spanish coast. Wherever that community lands, the same wish follows: to end the day with Portuguese voices on the television. This guide sets out which Portuguese channels Euroskara carries and how they reach the living room, whatever country the flat happens to be in.

Who this guide is for

If you are Portuguese and living outside Portugal — or you have a holiday place in the Algarve you only reach a few weeks a year — this is written for you. It is also for the second generation who grew up abroad and want to keep the language alive at home, and for mixed families where one half wants Jornal da Noite and the other wants the local news. The Portuguese abroad are famously tied to home by more than a passport: by the novela everyone follows, the club they support and the saudade that a familiar television voice quietly answers. Euroskara’s country-by-country approach is built exactly for households like these, where home is more than one place.

It is worth saying plainly who it is not for, too. If you have fully switched to the language and television of your new country and never reach for anything Portuguese, you do not need this. But that is rare. Far more common is the household that functions day to day in French, German or English and still wants the Portuguese evening — the news, the match, the familiar faces — as the part of the day that belongs to home. This guide is for them.

RTP, SIC and TVI: the Portuguese line-up

The three pillars of Portuguese television all feature. From the public broadcaster there is RTP1 for the flagship schedule, RTP2 for culture and documentaries, the rolling news of RTP3 and — crucially for anyone abroad — RTP Internacional, which was designed with the diaspora in mind and carries a schedule aimed at Portuguese watching from overseas. SIC brings its entertainment and news strands including SIC Notícias and SIC Mulher, and TVI completes the set with its drama, reality formats and current-affairs output. Seeing all three groups in one programme guide is the point; you keep the whole Portuguese remote rather than piecing it together from scraps. It matters, too, for the many Portuguese abroad whose roots are in the islands or the north rather than Lisbon — a family from the Açores or Madeira, or from Braga or Trás-os-Montes, finds the same national schedule they grew up with rather than a thinned-out export feed. The channels page shows how Portugal sits within Euroskara’s wider European grouping.

Novelas, entertainment and news in your own language

For a great many Portuguese households the evening novela is the fixed point of the day, and missing a week of it abroad is a genuine loss — the storyline moves on without you and the weekend phone call home turns into a plot summary. Because the SIC and TVI channels run on their normal Portuguese schedule, the novela plays when it plays at home, not as a boxset weeks later. Around it sit the talk shows, the Sunday variety programmes, the music and fado specials, and the news that keeps you connected to what everyone back home is actually discussing. The on-demand catalogue — 120,000+ films and series overall — adds Portuguese cinema and series you can start whenever the evening allows, which is a gift for anyone working shifts whose free hours rarely line up with the live schedule.

Keeping Portuguese alive for the next generation

There is a reason so many diaspora families treat home-country television as more than entertainment. A child growing up in France or England hears the local language all day at school, and the mother tongue can slip to the margins — a few words at dinner, the odd phone call to avó. Portuguese channels on the living-room TV change that balance gently. Cartoons and children’s programming in Portuguese become part of the ordinary afternoon, the news gives a grown-up a reason to keep the telly on in the background, and the language stops being something that lives only on holidays in Portugal. It is a small daily habit that does real work over the years.

Following Portuguese football abroad

Football runs deep too. Euroskara includes the channels that carry the Primeira Liga in each country, so a Benfica, Porto or Sporting match is on the same screen as your novelas and news. The derbies — O Clássico between Porto and Benfica, the Lisbon derby between Benfica and Sporting — are the nights the whole diaspora watches at once from a dozen different countries. The European fixtures, when the big clubs are drawn against foreign sides, are covered in the same place, and the national team’s qualifiers sit alongside. For a Porto supporter in Geneva or a Sporting fan in Jersey, the comfort is in watching with the same commentary and the same build-up as the stands at home, rather than refreshing a score on a phone. Our sports hub lays out how the Portuguese football calendar fits with the rest of Europe’s leagues and competitions.

More than one screen under one roof

Portuguese households abroad are often three generations deep, and they rarely all want the same thing at the same time. The grandmother wants her novela on the main television, a parent wants the Benfica match, and a teenager would sooner watch a Portuguese film on a tablet in another room. A single-device plan handles one screen beautifully, but families in this position usually find a multi-device plan the sensible choice, letting two or three screens run their own corner of the line-up at once. It is the same idea as having several TVs tuned to different channels back home — just carried over the internet, with one subscription behind all of them rather than a separate box in every room. The pricing page shows which plan covers how many devices, so you can size it to the household.

Setting it up on the TV you already have

There is nothing to import from Portugal and no dish to mount. Euroskara installs as an app on whatever you already own. On an Apple TV, iPhone or iPad the free Smarters Player Lite does the job; on Android TV and Google TV boxes most people prefer TiviMate for its programme guide; and a fairly recent Samsung or LG set can run Smart IPTV directly, as long as the Samsung is on Tizen 6.5 or newer and the LG on webOS 3.0 or newer.

A quick buying note if you are starting from scratch: the newest Fire TV Stick 4K Select uses Vega OS and cannot sideload apps, so an older Fire OS stick, an Android box or an Apple TV is the smoother choice. Activation from payment to first picture is usually under fifteen minutes, with no installer appointment to wait in for, and the picture arrives in 4K, FHD or HD according to the channel and your broadband.

What it costs, in euros

Prices are set in euros. The simplest single-device plan is €15 a month, while the twelve-month option drops the effective rate to around €5.75 a month at €69 for the year. If more than one television needs the channels — the novela in the kitchen, the football in the lounge — multi-device plans cover that, and the whole range is laid out on the pricing page. For a wider view of how this compares with keeping a cable contract, the piece on what IPTV costs is a useful companion read.

Try Euroskara before you pay

You can watch RTP and SIC running on your own television first: the free-trial page gives you 24 hours to test it, and every paid plan comes with a 7-day money-back guarantee. The simplest start is a short message — message the team on WhatsApp and they will set you up with the right plan and player. Spanish-speaking friends in the same building might find the Spanish TV abroad guide useful; it follows the same idea for a neighbouring country.

Frequently asked questions

Is RTP Internacional included for the diaspora?

Yes, RTP Internacional is part of the Portuguese grouping alongside RTP1, RTP2 and RTP3, together with SIC and TVI. If you want to confirm a specific channel before subscribing, the WhatsApp team can check the current line-up for you.

Will the evening novela play at the Portuguese time?

The SIC and TVI channels broadcast on their standard Portuguese schedule, so the novela, the news and the Sunday shows air at their usual times rather than on a delay or as catch-up only.

Can I watch the Primeira Liga from another country?

Euroskara carries the channels that show the Primeira Liga in the country you are in, so Benfica, Porto and Sporting matches appear in your guide. The sports hub explains the wider football coverage.

Do I need a Portuguese address or box?

No. The service is not tied to a Portuguese postcode and needs no imported set-top box — it runs over your internet connection on the Apple, Android, Samsung or LG device you already use abroad.

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