International MSc in Management

Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics placed 30th worldwide in the Financial Times Masters in Management 2025 ranking, with a weighted three-year salary of approximately US $101,000 and a 95% employment rate at three months.⁴ Founded in 1972 as part of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, it became the first Portuguese school — and one of very few in Southern Europe — to earn triple-crown accreditation from AACSB, EQUIS, and AMBA simultaneously.³

Overview

The International MSc in Management is a three-semester, fully English-taught programme delivered from Católica Lisbon’s campus in the heart of Lisbon.¹ It is designed for early-career graduates and professionals with limited work experience who are looking for an internationally recognised management credential — typically candidates aged 21 to 26 from more than 60 nationalities represented across the school’s master programmes.¹

The programme sits within a school with a clear international orientation: its faculty are research-active in global journals, its recruiter network spans continental Europe, North America, and beyond, and its location in Lisbon places students in one of Europe’s fastest-growing business and technology hubs. For a broader look at whether a MiM is the right credential for you, see our guide on whether a MiM is worth it in 2026.

Curriculum & Structure

The standard programme runs over three semesters, opening with a core management curriculum that covers strategy, finance, marketing, organisational behaviour, and quantitative methods.¹ The structure is designed to build a rigorous generalist foundation before allowing students to develop depth through elective courses and a final project or dissertation.¹

A four-semester option is available for students who wish to include a full exchange semester at one of Católica Lisbon’s international partner universities.² This track costs €19,500 compared to €16,900 for the standard track, and is well suited to students who want structured international exposure built into their degree rather than sourcing an exchange independently.² The four-semester variant is particularly relevant for students targeting roles in international firms or considering careers outside Portugal, and it mirrors the structure common at other high-ranked European MiM programmes. For a closer look at how to build the kind of profile that gets admitted to top MiM programmes, see our piece on how to build a MiM profile.

Application & Deadlines

Católica Lisbon admits to the International MSc in Management for a single September intake and reviews applications in rounds, announcing results by email roughly two weeks after each round closes.⁹ A file that is neither admitted nor rejected is waitlisted and carried into the next round rather than turned down, which is worth knowing before you read a non-answer as a rejection.⁹ Read on 5 September 2026, the admissions page states that applications for the 2026 intake are closed and publishes no dates for the following cycle, so the 2027/28 rounds are not yet available.⁹

Three published rules shape when you should actually apply.⁹ Double-degree applications close at the end of February, whatever the final round date — so the partner routes priced in the fees section below are off the table for a late applicant. The Católica TOP+ scholarship must be requested inside the application form; there is no separate application and none is accepted afterwards, and the funds are allocated on a rolling basis.² And you may name three MSc programmes in order of preference on one application, which makes the ordering decision a real one rather than a formality — a point our guide to how MiM scholarships work in Europe makes at several other schools, where ranking a programme second can quietly forfeit its funding.

The document list is unusually short, and Católica is explicit about what is not required.⁹ The mandatory documents are a CV in English — which the school calls “the most valued document” in what it describes as a qualitative evaluation process, weighting professional experience, international experience and extracurriculars — and a transcript of records with courses, grades and ECTS, for which a screenshot of a student portal is accepted where an official transcript is not available. The GMAT is not mandatory (for the Finance programmes a 650 GMAT or 595 GMAT Focus is “valued”), an English certificate is not mandatory, and a motivation letter is required only for double-degree applications, one per partner school. Recommendation letters are optional. The stated candidate profile is ages 21 to 26 with under three years of work experience, internships counted.⁹

Tuition & Funding

The standard three-semester programme totals €16,900 and the four-semester exchange track totals €19,500.² Those are among the most competitive prices in the FT top 30, and Lisbon’s cost of living is substantially lower than Amsterdam, London or Paris, which matters when you compare total cost of attendance rather than tuition alone.

**Read the breakdown rather than the total, because Católica prices this degree in four lines and two of them are not tuition.**² Year one is a €700 annual registration fee plus €10,500 in tuition, paid in ten instalments from September to June after deducting whatever you paid at enrolment. Year two is a €450 registration fee, due in July before the year starts, plus €5,250 for the dissertation semester, paid in five instalments from September to January. The four-semester track inserts a €2,600 exchange-semester fee between them. So the €16,900 headline already includes €1,150 of registration fees — unusual, and in the reader’s favour, since at most European schools a quoted tuition figure excludes them. What it does not include is the €120 admission fee, which is non-refundable and which Católica states your application “will only be considered once” it has been received.⁹

The rule that decides what a scholarship is actually worth here is one line under the fee table. “Scholarships apply only to Tuition Fees marked with *” — the €10,500 and the €5,250, or €15,750 of the €16,900.² The registration fees and the exchange-semester fee are payable whatever you are awarded. The award itself is the Católica TOP+, a merit scholarship covering 10–90% of those tuition lines, explicitly not covering exchange semesters or double degrees.² Two procedural rules attach to it and both are easy to lose a scholarship to: it “is only available through your Master’s Application”, so there is no separate form and none is accepted after you submit; and Católica states plainly that awards are made “on a rolling basis, meaning funds may be allocated before the end of the Application Rounds”.² That is a school putting the early-round argument in writing — which, as our guide to how MiM scholarships work in Europe sets out, is not something every school agrees with.

A correction, and how it happened. This profile previously said that Católica “no longer publishes a standard-track price at all”, recorded on 29 and 30 August 2026 across four routes and repeated on five of our pages. Re-read on 5 September 2026, the three of those routes that are programme fee pages all publish the full regular-programme table: the English fees page, its Portuguese-language twin (“Custo Total do Programa - 16,900 EUR”) and the sibling International MSc in Finance, which prices its own standard track at €20,700.² ⁷ ⁸ We cannot tell from outside whether the page changed back or the earlier reading was wrong, and we are not going to guess — what we can say is that the figures were never wrong, only the claim that the school had withdrawn them, and that claim is now removed everywhere it appeared. One detail the earlier reading did get backwards is worth naming, because it is the kind of thing that misleads by a whole cycle: the caveat “Based on the prices for the 2025 Intake, which may be subject to change” appears under each double-degree table and under neither regular-programme table.²

The double-degree ladder is published alongside, and it is a useful reference in its own right. The standard partner routes — Antai College of Economics and Management €22,008 (including a €108 registration fee at Antai), Aston Business School, BI Norwegian Business School, FGV EBAPE and Kozminski University at €21,900 each — run on €700 + €10,375 in year one and €450 + €10,375 in year two.² WU Vienna is €21,924.70, the difference being €24.70 of Students’ Union costs, and Smith School of Business is €23,042, adding €804 of academic materials and €338 of health insurance.² Only three routes carry a separate €5,500 double-degree programme cost: WHU – Otto Beisheim €27,400, Bocconi €27,765 (plus a €365 Bocconi graduation fee) and ESCP €30,310, which additionally charges its own €970 annual registration fee twice — and a third time if you have not completed ESCP’s 36-week internship requirement within the two years.² All the double-degree tables are labelled 2025-intake prices, and Católica notes that host-university fees move with annual updates and exchange rates.²

Career Outcomes

The Financial Times 2025 ranking reports a weighted three-year salary of approximately US $101,000 and a 95% employment rate at three months for Católica Lisbon MiM graduates.⁴ These are the FT’s standardised cross-school metrics, calculated on salaries reported three years after graduation. Católica Lisbon does not publish its own salary figure, so the FT figure is the primary benchmark available. The school separately reports a 99% employment rate within six months of graduation.³

The recruiter list is notably strong for a programme of this price point. Officially published employers include McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company in consulting; Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan in investment banking; Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC across professional services; and Google, Microsoft, Amazon, L’Oréal, Nestlé, and P&G in technology and consumer goods.⁵ No industry percentage breakdown is officially published by the school. For an honest look at MiM earnings trajectories and how they compare to MBA outcomes, see our piece on MiM vs MBA.

Campus & Reputation

Católica Lisbon’s campus is located in central Lisbon, Portugal’s capital and a city that has become a significant European hub for technology, finance, and entrepreneurship over the past decade. The school’s triple-crown status — holding AACSB, EQUIS, and AMBA simultaneously — is a credential recognised by graduate recruiters and partner schools globally, and its position as the first Portuguese school to achieve this distinction reflects the sustained investment in research quality and programme standards since its founding in 1972.¹ ³

The FT #30 rank places Católica Lisbon firmly in the European top tier, ahead of several well-known schools in larger markets, and its combination of ranking, triple-crown accreditation, low tuition, and Lisbon location makes it one of the more compelling value propositions in the current FT table. For practical tips on converting a strong academic profile into MiM offers, see our guide on career tips for MiM graduates.