How to homologate a degree in Spain: Step-by-Step Guide

Have you acquired a professional qualification in your home country and would like to validate or homologate it in Spain? Whether you are a doctor, lawyer, architect, or want to work in any other regulated profession in Spain (as well as if you want to know how to validate your high school diploma), read on! In this article, you area bout to learn everything you need to know about obtaining the recognition of your foreign qualifications in the country successfully (and saving time!).

The three types of procedures to get degree recognition in Spain 

It is very important to pay attention to this point since there are three different ways to validate your title or education so that it is fully recognized in the country: homologation, equivalence, and partial validation.

What is the difference between them, and what do they each mean?

Homologation (“homologación”)

Homologation (“homologación” in Spanish) is nothing more than the official validation in Spain of a higher education degree (or of certain subjects taken) obtained abroad.

In other words, it is the process by which the competent body (in this case the Ministry of Education and Professional Training) will recognize the degree (whether a university, master’s or postgraduate degree, for example) that you have studied and obtained in your country of origin as an official Spanish one.

In other words, this process makes the degree obtained abroad official and fully valid for legal purposes in Spain.

This is the case, for example, of those non-EU citizens who want to homologate their medical degree.

And that is because this procedure is necessary and required for all regulated professions in Spain; that is, those that require a certain degree of prior knowledge. We are talking about the case of doctors, lawyers, architects or engineers, for example.

So if your intention is to work in any of these positions or similar, you should carry out the homologation procedure of your university degree beforehand.

If you are not sure if your degree requires homologation or equivalence, the Ministry of Universities puts at your disposal the Valida-TE portal, where you can enter your degree data and directly check which procedure corresponds to you before starting the application.

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What are the regulated professions that require homologation in Spain?

The Annex to Royal Decree 889/2022, dated October 18, which establishes the conditions and procedures for the recognition, declaration of equivalence, and validation of university education from foreign educational systems, contains the complete list of professions that require validation.

• Doctor
• Veterinary
• Nurse
• Physiotherapist
• Dentist
• Pharmacist
• Speech therapist
• Optician-Optometrist
• Podiatrist
• Occupational Therapist
• Nutritionist-Dietician
• General Health Psychologist
• Engineer (road, aeronautical, industrial, etc.)
• Architect
• Technical Engineer (public works, aeronautical, agricultural, naval, etc)
• Technical Architect
• Early Childhood Education Teacher
• Elementary School Teacher
• Teacher of Compulsory Secondary Education and Baccalaureate, Vocational Training and Language Teaching
• Lawyer
• Court attorney

This Royal Decree, in force since November 8, 2022, replaced the previous Royal Decree 967/2014, of November 21, which was repealed.

What titles are homologable in Spain?

A degree is homologated in Spain when it appears in the Annex to Royal Decree 889/2022 as belonging to a regulated profession. If your degree is not on that list, you will not be eligible for homologation, but you will be eligible for the declaration of equivalence, which we will see below.

Equivalence

On the other hand, we find equivalence (which is not the same as homologation, since homologation may require you to take or study additional subjects in Spain, as we will see in a second), which is called “equivalencia” in Spanish.

In this case, this method implies that the degree obtained in your country of origin is comparable to one in Spain (so it gets full automatic recognition) since it is sufficiently effective and similar when it comes to content.

The Ministry of Universities does not intervene in the partial validation as a resolution body: it is the destination university itself that decides, by reviewing your academic record, which subjects already taken are recognized and which ones you must complete in Spain.

The university can validate all of your subjects or only those that it considers adjusted to its study plan.

Equivalence is necessary for the rest of the non-regulated professions, such as marketing professionals or accountants; job positions that may require a university or professional degree as a minimum requirement during the recruiting process.

Partial validation

And, finally, we find the process of partial validation.

This procedure will be suitable for those foreign students who have started their career or degree abroad and who want to finish it in Spain (meaning they are now halfway through obtaining their title).

In this case, they will carry out a partial validation of the subjects they have already completed, in order to finish the remaining ones in their new country of residence.

Here it won’t be the Ministry of Justice that manages the validation, but the host university itself; which can validate all the subjects already taken or just those that it considers to be most in line with its syllabus.

The process is usually much faster in this case.

Who needs to homologate her degrees in Spain?

Below you will find all the cases in which it will be necessary to homologate or validate your foreign studies degree.

Basically, we are talking about those non-EU citizens in Spain who…

• Would like to continue their studies at a higher level, either a master’s or postgraduate studies
• Have studied high school in their country of origin and would like to start working in Spain in any profession (as high school is usually a requirement)
• Want to participate in a public competition to sit an administrative examination or apply for a post with the Spanish Government
• Would like to work in Spain in a regulated position, so this step is required by law (as we have seen, this would be the case for doctors or lawyers)
• Want to have high professional and social recognition in their new country of residence
• Have studied in Spain in any school that bases its teachings on a foreign educational system (without taking into account primary or secondary education)

Obviously, for those positions where no credentials are required, it will not be necessary to validate a foreign degree. Therefore, depending on your situation and plans in Spain, you may not need to have your degree homologated.

For more specific answers, we recommend that you contact our team of lawyers so that we can assess what you should do for your personal case:

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How does it work? Previous considerations

Before we dive deep into the legal process required for the recognition of your degree, it will be important to first understand the logic behind how it all works.

Keep in mind that the Ministry of Universities (through the General Subdirectorate of Degrees and Recognition of Qualifications, and with the technical analysis of the Commission for Technical Analysis of Homologations and Declarations of Equivalence, CATHDE), after evaluating your application, will decide if approves the entire degree or title, or only validates some subjects taken.

This is because there are certain degrees in which the content taught is homogeneous in any country in the world (for example, medicine), while others (such as law) can vary greatly depending on the territory, so they can’t be directly recognized as valid in Spain.

What happens then if you don’t get the whole degree approved?

In that case, the Ministry will ask you for proof that demonstrates you really have enough knowledge to have your degree recognized in Spain.

This is done by means of a test (called “prueba de conjunto”). In other words, you may be required to:

• Either attend university to take certain non-accredited subjects and pass a final exam
• You directly prepare on your own for an exam that you will take at the university

On the other hand, it is important to know that there are certain careers that, although they can be studied in your country of origin, do not exist in Spain.

It is in these situations that you will have to resort to the list that the Spanish Ministry of Universities has, which includes the repertoire of courses that are similar to the one you have studied. There you will find out which degrees are the ones the government recommends for possible validation (that is, which degrees in Spain are most similar to the one you have studied, and therefore you could aim to obtain directly).

In case you would like to get the homologation for your high school studies, here you can access a complete guide.

Step-by-step legal process to get your degree recognition

We can divide the process of validating your title into the following stages:

Gather and prepare all the required documentation

The first step will be to prepare all the documents required by the Ministry of Education, which you can find in detail here.

But basically, we are talking about:

• Valid passport and a copy.
• If you are in Spain, a student card or residence card.
• Application form, which must be properly filled out. You can download it from this link.
• Diploma of degree or of finished studies, legalized or apostilled before the competent authority. Thus, it is essential that the foreign studies have been completed successfully in their entirety.
• Academic curriculum, including the complete syllabus detailing all the subjects taken and a brief summary of each, the total duration of each course, weekly hour intensity, in addition to the grade per subject.
• Accreditation of linguistic competence, demonstrating that the foreigner has sufficient knowledge of the Spanish language to perform the desired job position.

As you can see, it is not necessary to be the holder of a residence permit in order to carry out this validation successfully. However, it won’t be until you obtain your residence and/or work authorization that you will be able to take the higher degree you had planned or start working for the company for which you validate your degree.

*If you are from a country where the official language is different from Spanish, you will have to legally translate all the documents to be submitted.

Identify and prepare the application at the electronic office

Once you have all the documents, the next step is to access the Electronic Headquarters of the Ministry of Universities and identify yourself. There are two ways:

• Access with Cl@ve: mandatory if you are going to identify yourself with NIF or NIE. You can authenticate with an electronic certificate, Cl@ve PIN or Cl@ve permanent.
• Access with username and password: if you still do not have a NIF or NIE, you can identify yourself with your passport or other documentation from your country of origin.

The original apostilled or legalized documents are attached as scanned copies to the electronic application; It is not necessary to go in person to certify them before the Spanish Administration, unless you choose to submit the application by in-person registration instead of the general electronic means.

Pay the corresponding fee

Then you must pay the corresponding fee.

In this case, we are talking about the model 790 code 107, which you’ll have to pay before your appointment (hence bringing the document certifying the payment was completed successfully).

Currently, the rate amounts to 166.50 €, although it is updated every year, so it is advisable to check the current amount on the electronic office before making the payment.

Submit all the paperwork

And the moment of truth comes. Once the fee has been paid and you have all the documents in order, you must submit the application to the Ministry of Universities.

Where exactly and how?

The general and recommended route is the electronic headquarters of the Ministry of Universities, where you upload all the documentation and pay the fee within the same procedure.
If you prefer or need the in-person route, you can submit the application at any public registry of the General Administration of the State, the Autonomous Communities, or some Local Administrations, although this is a less common case today.

In both cases, you can designate a legal representative to present the request for you, after granting powers of attorney.
Once all the documentation has been delivered, you will be given a receipt with your file number, with which you will be able to check the status of the procedure, so keep it safe!

Receive your approval

After waiting for your resolution, you will finally receive your validated and recognized degree. What will be next? Picking it up: the withdrawal of the credential.

And in that sense, you also have two options:

• You can go to Madrid to pick up the homologated degree, at the “Subdirección General de Títulos”, located at Paseo de la Castellana 162. The reception hours are from Monday to Friday from 09:00 to 10:00.
• Or you can also ask for it to be sent to your home (although this will extend the final reception even more, about 3 extra months), at the address you specified when you started the process.

How long does it take?

Currently, the Ministry of Education can take between 1 and a half and 2 years to validate your title.

However, partial validations with the university are usually much faster, taking between 6 and 8 months.

It is very important to keep these deadlines in mind if, for example, you are going to apply for a competitive examination or if you are planning to start working in the country.

Our recommendation is that you do the validation as soon as possible, even months or years before you move to Spain, so that you have everything ready once you arrive.

By using the same link through which you started your online application, you will also be able to check the status of your application.

What to do if your approval is denied?

An unfavorable resolution doesn’t mean you don’t have more options. Depending on your case, you can:

• Comply with the complementary training requirements: if the resolution is “favorable with conditions”, the Ministry may ask you to pass an overall test or to take specific subjects before obtaining full approval.
• Request the declaration of equivalence instead of homologation, if your objective is not to practice a regulated profession but rather for your degree to have academic validity in Spain (for example, to access a master’s degree).
• File an appeal against the denial resolution within the legally established period.
  • An appeal for reconsideration within one month of the resolution
  • A contentious administrative appeal within two months of the resolution
• Continue your studies in Spain, validating the subjects you have already taken at a Spanish university.

If you have any doubts or would like our team of lawyers to help you in the process of homologation or validation of your foreign educational degree, please do not hesitate to contact us!