Validating foreign qualifications

Official recognition of foreign higher education degrees

The official recognition of foreign higher education qualifications into undergraduate or master’s degrees that are needed to grant access to regulated professions in Spain, is a process by which the studies you have taken in a foreign university are recognised as equivalent to the ones taught in Spain.

Who can request it?
Students with non-Spanish official higher education qualifications.

Your studies will be recognised as?
Your studies will be recognised as official undergraduate and master’s degrees that grant access to a regulated profession in Spain.

Where can you request your studies recognition?
You can make your application in the following addresses:

Ministerio de Universidades
Subdirección General de Títulos 
Paseo de la Castellana, 162
28071 Madrid

Or at:

Subdirección del Gobierno
Oficina de registro
Planta baja
C/ Bergara, 12
08002 Barcelona
Tel. 93 520 96 03

You can find more information regarding official qualifications recognition at the Ministerio website.

If your formal qualifications cannot be recognised as the Spanish qualification you want them to be recognised into, you may be required to:

• Pass an aptitude test.
• Undertake a professional practice period.
• Complete a project.
• Take supervised courses.

You can choose the university or universities where you want to meet these requirements, as long as the Spanish qualification you want to be recognised into is taught in them. In that case, you will need to pay for the tax established by the Catalan government in their Decree on public prices as “aptitude test” or the corresponding credit price if you need to pass any specific subject.

You can check the procedure and calendar of the aptitude tests on the faculty or school website where the degree you want recognised is taught.

You will need to attest you have met your additional training requirements within 4 years from the following day of the resolution notification.

After these 4 years, the conditioned recognition will be canceled. You will be able to ask for a partial studies validation.

You will not be able to make a new recognition application to the same Spanish qualification you have already tried to recognise it into.

You will be able to pursue a regulated profession with the same rights and under the same conditions as Spanish holders have.

Students with qualifications which do not entitle them to pursue a regulated profession in Spain, can request the certificate of equivalence of their superior foreign education diploma to the diploma and academic level of undergraduate or official master's degree to the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades.