New Zealand vs Portugal Grading System
Enter your grade to convert between GPA (9-Point Scale) or Letter Grades and 0–20 Scale (10 to pass)
A Bachelor's / first-degree grade — for graduate (Master's) admission or employment
Got a school-leaving qualification instead — A-levels, Class 12, WASSCE, the Abitur? Here's what actually happens to those.
Hover or tap a band to see what it means.
Hover or tap a band to see what it means.
Enter a grade above to see what it means in Portugal
You'll get the classification it corresponds to, the range it falls in rather than a single false-precise number, and how firm that answer is.
How does the New Zealand grading system work?
New Zealand universities use a 9-point GPA scale where 4 is typically the minimum pass.
Credential-evaluator source: Scholaro — New Zealand 9-point GPA (credential-evaluation database) · cross-checked against Tertiary Education Commission, New Zealand · grading data verified 2026-07-24 · how we convert · report an error
How does the Portugal grading system work?
Portuguese universities use a 0–20 scale inherited from the French tradition. Pass mark is 10. Grades of 18–20 are rarely awarded.
Credential-evaluator source: Scholaro — Portugal grading system (credential-evaluation database) · cross-checked against Direção-Geral do Ensino Superior (DGES), Portugal · grading data verified 2026-07-24 · how we convert · report an error
Do New Zealand and Portugal mark to the same standard?
No — and it is the difference in marking culture, not the arithmetic, that makes a direct comparison mislead. Here is how each country actually uses its own scale.
What a good grade means in New Zealand
New Zealand marking sits close to the Australian pattern: an A grade starts around 80% and A+ marks are awarded sparingly, so a B+ average is a solid degree rather than a modest one. Postgraduate entry is generally framed as a B average or better in your final-year courses, and universities describe that as an indication of readiness rather than a hard cut-off — applicants below it are commonly routed through a postgraduate certificate or diploma rather than refused outright.
What a good grade means in Portugal
As with other 20-point systems, the top of the Portuguese scale is barely used: marks above 17 are uncommon and 20 is effectively unattainable, so a 15 or 16 represents a strong degree rather than the mediocre 75–80% it resembles when converted arithmetically. The honours labels at 18 and above are worth stating on an application precisely because the number alone does not communicate how rare they are.
Will a grade from New Zealand get you into Portugal?
We do not yet hold published entry requirements for Portugal, so we do not compare your grade against a bar we cannot cite. The conversion above still tells you how your result reads in Portugal terms.
NZ GPA 9 (A+) → 4.0 US GPA. GPA 7 (B+) → approximately 3.3.
What goes wrong converting grades from New Zealand to Portugal?
The pass marks differ — 4 in New Zealand against 10.0 in Portugal — so the two scales have different usable ranges and the middle of one is not the middle of the other.
Mistakes specific to New Zealand grades
- Reading the nine-point GPA against a 4.0 scale. A New Zealand 7 is a B+, not a near-perfect result, and the difference is large.
- Assuming the whole degree counts. Postgraduate entry usually looks at your final-year or highest-level courses.
- Treating a shortfall as a refusal. A postgraduate certificate or diploma is the normal bridging route into a New Zealand master's.
What should you do next, applying from New Zealand to Portugal?
- Check the course, not the country. Entry requirements are set per programme and revised every cycle. We hold no published national bar for this destination, so the course page is the only figure that binds.
- Check whether an evaluation is even required. Unlike the US and Canada, Portugal universities commonly assess foreign transcripts in-house. Confirm on the course page before paying for a report you may not need.
- Get your documents moving early. Universities normally require your transcript sent directly by your institution rather than as a copy from you, which takes longer than most applicants expect.
- Read both systems in full. How New Zealand grading works · How Portugal grading works
What do these grading terms mean?
- GPA (Grade Point Average)
- The US way of expressing an overall grade, on a 0–4.0 scale where 4.0 is the top — so a 4.0 is roughly what a 90–100% or a First Class would be elsewhere.
- Honours degree
- A bachelor's degree that includes a higher-level final year or research project — in Australia, South Africa and New Zealand it is often an extra year, and master's entry can depend on it.
- Percentage scale
- A 0–100 marking scale — but the numbers are not comparable across countries: 70% is an outstanding result in the UK and a modest one in India.
- Transcript
- The official document from your university listing every subject you took and the grade you got — not the same as your degree certificate, and universities abroad want both.
- Grade compression
- Where a marking culture rarely uses the top of its own scale, so the highest grades anyone actually earns sit well below the theoretical maximum.
- Credits / credit hours
- A measure of how much a subject counts toward your degree — bigger subjects carry more credits and pull your average further.
Frequently asked questions
What is a 6 from New Zealand on Portugal's scale?
Approximately 12.5–13.3 / 20 — Bom (Good). That is a range rather than a single number because grade conversion is an estimate, and the range widens where either country's data is less certain. Enter your own grade in the converter above for your figure.