From the start of the new school year a pupil in a Portuguese school will not be able to take out a phone in a lesson, at break or over lunch. On 30 July the Council of Ministers approved it: the smartphone ban that has been in force for a year for years 1–6 is being extended to the seventh, eighth and ninth. Schools have been given the first term to prepare; the rule becomes mandatory on 1 January 2027. We look at how strict the Portuguese ban really is, how similar restrictions are arranged in other countries, and what the research says about whether they work.
What Kinds of Phone Bans There Are
There are two approaches to restrictions on phones in schools. The soft version covers the lesson only: at break, in the canteen and in the yard the phone can come out. The strict version cuts off access to the device for the whole day — the phone sits switched off in a backpack, is handed in to the school, or is locked in a pouch.
By March 2026 national restrictions of one kind or another were in force in 114 education systems — 58% of the world’s countries. In June 2023, when UNESCO began counting them, there were fewer than a quarter. So the bare fact of a ban now tells you almost nothing: what to look at is the age of the pupils, how long it lasts, how devices are stored, what the exceptions are, and how parents can reach their child when they need to.
How Portugal Got Here
In autumn 2024 the Ministry of Education recommended dropping smartphones in the first six years, limiting their use in years 7–9, and discussing the rules together with older pupils.
From the 2025/2026 school year the ban became mandatory for years 1–6. For years 7–9 the decision was still left to each school.
During that voluntary period roughly half of the schools with years 7–9 introduced a full ban, and about a third more limited smartphone use in part. All told, restrictions of some kind applied in around 80% of such schools. About 90% of head teachers backed a nationwide rule.
On 30 July 2026 the Council of Ministers approved extending the ban to years 7–9. Schools were given the first term to prepare: by 1 January 2027 they have to update their internal regulations.
For years 10–12 there is no nationwide ban. A school can introduce a rule of its own and write it into its Regulamento Interno.
What Exactly Is Not Allowed
The national ban covers almost any use of a smartphone: in every school for years 1–9 it cannot be taken out in lessons, at break, over lunch or at other points in the school day. Simply having a switched-off phone with you, though, is allowed.
How the device is stored is for the school to decide. The national rule does not dictate where the phone goes. A backpack, a locker, a box in the classroom, a lockable pouch — the choice is the school’s, and it has to be set out in the regulations along with the procedure for taking phones away and handing them back.
An exception can be arranged if a child needs a smartphone for health reasons. Which cases qualify on that ground, what evidence will be required and exactly how the device may be used are not spelled out in the national rule — the school sets the procedure in its internal regulations.
Emergency contact is regulated separately as well. There is no single procedure for all schools, so parents need to find out in advance what number to call in an urgent situation and how their child can ask for help or reach the family. It may run through a teacher, a member of school staff or the school phone — the specific arrangement is set by the school. Separate exceptions are provided for agreed schoolwork and for translation, where a pupil does not yet speak Portuguese well.
An ordinary phone with no internet access does not formally fall under the national ban, although a school may prohibit that too.
If your child needs to use a phone continuously, permission is better arranged in advance. Who grants it, what evidence is needed and how long it holds for are things the school writes down itself. The thought that it is simply more convenient for the child that way is not enough.
How Strict the Portuguese Ban Is
On duration Portugal belongs to the strict group: the phone is out of reach from the beginning to the end of the school day. On age coverage, though, its rule is not the broadest — the nationwide ban stops after the ninth year. So the countries below are compared on two things: how long the ban lasts, and which years it covers.
France has gone furthest of all. A 2018 law shut phones out of primary schools and collèges, and since 2025 Portable en pause has applied there — the device is taken away for the whole day. And on 21 July 2026 parliament gave final approval to extending the ban to lycées: from 1 September the whole of a French pupil’s school life, from nursery to the final year, runs without a phone.
In England compulsory rules were adopted only very recently — on 29 June this year. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act established the requirement that a school must stay free of phones all day: in lessons, moving between rooms, at break and over lunch.
The wording is that a school is phone-free by default, all day: lessons, moving between rooms, breaks, lunch. Schools have to follow these rules from 1 September. Ofsted will check whether a school has rules to that effect and whether they are being observed. For the last two years of school, concessions have been left in place — a separate room where a phone can be used, for instance.
In the Netherlands the decision so far is that phones are barred in the lesson itself and nowhere else. From 1 January 2024 phones, tablets and smartwatches cannot be used in a secondary school classroom, and from 2024/2025 the same applies in primary school. What happens to the phone outside the classroom door is for each school to decide.
In the US there is no single federal rule and none in prospect: school policy in America is written by the state and the school district. By June 2026 restrictions of one kind or another had been introduced by 38 states and the District of Columbia. Of those, 28 states and DC adopted a bell-to-bell regime, lunch and free periods included — exactly the Portuguese model. Another eight restrict phones in lessons only. So an American school has to be checked against the particular state, and sometimes the particular district: in Texas and New York a child will not see a phone all day, in Michigan they put it away for the lesson and no more.
Put side by side, on duration Portugal sits in the strict group — with England, France and most American states, and noticeably stricter than the Netherlands. On age coverage it stays where France and England have set tougher rules: in Portugal the restrictions end at fifteen, and the senior years are left to each school separately.
What the Research Says
The government based its decision on an assessment by PLANAPP — the centre for planning and evaluation of public policy, which for a second year has been tracking, on the ministry’s behalf, what happens in schools with a ban and without one. The figure that made the headlines: where smartphones were banned outright, pupils’ socialisation rose by 36% relative to schools with no restrictions; where use was limited in part, by 16%. The first report, a year earlier, also recorded a drop in bullying, scuffles and truancy, and a rise in the time children spend in the library.
There is a caveat to those numbers, and the report’s authors state it themselves. All of it is built on surveys of head teachers and school staff assessing pupils’ behaviour. PLANAPP compared schools that brought in restrictions in different years and calculated what the indicators would have looked like without a ban. That helps separate the effect of the measure from general changes in the system, but it does not prove causation: the report says a definitive conclusion cannot be drawn.
International data confirms at least the distraction problem. UNESCO pulled together research from fourteen countries and found that smartphones do get somewhat in the way of pupils’ learning; it notes separately that a device can be a distraction simply by lying nearby.
The LSE economists Louis-Philippe Beland and Richard Murphy studied exam results at 91 schools in four English cities before and after bans were introduced. The average gain was 6.4% of a standard deviation, roughly the equivalent of an extra hour of lessons a week. But the entire effect came from weak pupils: the bottom quarter gained 14.2%, the strongest nothing at all. Hence the authors’ conclusion: a ban works not as a way of lifting everyone, but as a cheap way of narrowing the gap.
And the most recent statistics, and the most awkward for supporters of a ban, come from the British SMART Schools study published in Lancet Regional Health Europe. The researchers compared 1,227 adolescents aged 12–15 across thirty English schools: in twenty the phone was banned, in ten it was not. The strict rules did cut time on the phone — by around 40 minutes over the school day, and by half an hour on social media. And? Total screen time on weekdays and at weekends did not change at all, and neither did wellbeing scores on the standard WEMWBS scale.
Portuguese officials nonetheless take the view that a ban can remove part of the distraction inside the school and change what a break looks like. Marks may go up, especially among weaker pupils. But parents should be ready for their child to spend longer on the phone after lessons than before — that is what an unchanged total screen time means in practice.
What to Check at Your Own School
Find the current Regulamento Interno. It tells you whether the new rule is already working in September or whether the school is taking the transition period until January.
Find out where the phone is kept. That determines whether your child can use it on the way to school and straight after lessons.
Write down the emergency channel. In an urgent situation there is no point calling a device your child has no access to.
Check how exceptions work. Medical evidence or permission for translation is better prepared in advance.
Check the sanctions and the return procedure. The school should explain who takes the phone, for how long, and to whom it is handed back.
If your child is in years 7–9, the rules may still change during the first term. For years 10–12 the national decision changes nothing automatically, but a school is entitled to keep or introduce restrictions of its own.
