If you studied outside Spain and want your qualification to count here, you are looking at one of two different procedures with very similar names. Choosing the wrong one costs months.
Declares your foreign qualification equivalent to a specific Spanish official degree that gives access to a regulated profession. This is the route if you need to practise as a doctor, nurse, teacher or engineer in Spain.
Declares your degree equivalent to a Spanish academic level and field of study, without granting professional access. Useful for job applications, public sector selection processes and further study.
A separate route for primary and secondary education studies, handled by the education administration, and normally what you need to enrol a child in school or continue studying here.
Regulated professions — those a Spanish law reserves for holders of a specific degree. In practice this means health professions (medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, psychology in the health field, veterinary medicine), teaching, architecture and several branches of engineering, plus the legal professions, which also require registration with a professional body.
For everything else — most private-sector jobs — an employer can hire you with a sworn translation of your degree. No homologación is needed.
This is a slow procedure. Cases commonly run for well over a year, and requests for additional documents restart the clock in practice. Two things help: filing complete from the start, and checking the file yourself online with Cl@ve or a digital certificate instead of waiting for post.
Recognition of your degree has nothing to do with your residence status or with Spanish nationality. It does not extend your card, it does not replace a work authorisation, and it is not required to apply for citizenship. They are separate files, handled by different administrations.
Last reviewed: 1 September 2026.
Sources: current Spanish immigration legislation and the electronic offices of the National Police, the Ministry of the Interior and the responsible ministry for each procedure. Always check the official information for your own office before attending.
General information only; this is not legal advice. Requirements and timeframes can change.
It varies widely by field and by the volume of files, and it is frequently more than a year. Health professions tend to be the slowest, especially when additional evidence of clinical training is requested.
Homologación equates your degree to a specific Spanish degree and gives access to a regulated profession. Equivalencia recognises the academic level and field only, with no professional access.
If your country is party to the Hague Convention, yes, the apostille is the route. If it is not, the document goes through consular legalisation. Either way it then needs a sworn translation into Spanish.
You can work in any job that does not require the regulated degree. You cannot practise the regulated profession until recognition is granted.
No. Nationality has its own requirements — residence period, the CCSE test and, where applicable, DELE A2. Your degree plays no part in it.
No. It is filed with the responsible ministry and does not use the immigration appointment system. We help with immigration and police appointments.
We monitor the official system continuously, and you only pay once the appointment is confirmed.
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