Spain

• One digital accreditation (UNEDasiss) is accepted by most Spanish universities, so you do not repeat the paperwork for each one
• Public university tuition for EU students is genuinely low: around €1,015–€1,241 a year at Universidad Carlos III for 2026/27
• You can actively raise your admission grade to 14 points by sitting PCE subject exams, so a mid-range IB is not the end of the story
• IB Diploma holders do not need to homologate their diploma — UNEDasiss replaces that
• Strong English-taught options in Madrid and Barcelona, plus real alternatives in Bilbao and Segovia

• The timetable is tight for an IB student: the ordinary PCE exams in Spain (25–29 May in 2026) fall in the week straight after the May IB exams end (20 May in 2026), so you revise for both at once
• Competitive degrees (Medicine, some engineering) are decided by cut-off grades that can sit above 12 out of 14, so a good IB alone may not be enough
• Which PCE subjects count double for your degree is decided by each university's weighting table (ponderaciones), and those change year to year
• The private universities (IE, Navarra, ESADE, Deusto, Comillas) run their own admission with their own tests and interviews, and charge many times the public fee
• Spanish access rules have been changing (Real Decreto 534/2024, amended by RD 482/2025 and RD 535/2026). Re-check the rules that apply to 2027 entry rather than trusting an older guide.

Accepted

Yes

Minimum

24 points (the full IB Diploma pass). The minimum for an equivalent Spanish grade to be issued.

Subjects and levels

PCE subject exams, not HL/SL, are what Spanish universities use to check subject depth. Where a university does recognise IB subjects directly, HL subjects are the ones normally accepted for weighting — check this with the university.

Score conversion

UNEDasiss converts your IB record into a Spanish 'nota de acceso' between 5 and 10. That can be raised to a maximum 'nota de admisión' of 14 by adding up to 4 points from weighted subject exams (each weighted subject contributes up to 2 points, at a coefficient of 0.1 or 0.2 set by the destination university).

• In the UNEDasiss application you select country/system 'Europa' then 'Programa del Diploma IB', and study type 'Estudios secundarios del Anexo I del reglamento'.
• The one service you must tick is 'Calificación para Admisión Universidad española'. Everything else (modalidad de bachillerato, PCE, language accreditation) is optional but often required by the university you are aiming at — check its criteria first.
• Documents to send: a copy of your passport or ID, a compulsed copy of the IB Diploma, and a compulsed copy of the grades for your last two years. The IB Diploma is a Swiss document, so it does not need an apostille — a copy compulsed at a Spanish embassy or consulate is enough.
• IB holders access Spanish universities through UNEDasiss without homologating the diploma. Real Decreto 412/2014 established that IB and European Baccalaureate holders are admitted on the same criteria as Spanish students.
• Some universities, notably Universidad de Navarra, run their own IB pathway with fixed minimum IB scores per faculty (for example 37 points for Medicine with HL Biology and HL Chemistry at 6; 34 for Engineering with HL Maths at 6 and SL Physics at 5), an interview and a conditional offer on predicted grades. Final results go to Navarra by 10 July, and you still need the UNED accreditation to enrol.
• A widely repeated conversion (an IB subject grade of 4 counting as a Spanish 7, a 2 as a Spanish 5) appears in commercial guidance but is not confirmed on a UNED page. Treat it as unconfirmed.

1. Before anything else, look up the admission criteria of the universities you want: which UNEDasiss services they demand, which subjects they weight for your degree, and - this is the one people skip - that university’s own preinscripción closing date, which can be earlier than the national one.

2. Create a UNEDasiss account and submit the accreditation request, selecting ‘Europa’ → ‘Programa del Diploma IB’ and ticking ‘Calificación para Admisión Universidad española’. UNED asks for this at least six weeks before the university round closes, and takes about three weeks to process it.

3. Send the documents: passport copy, compulsed copy of the IB Diploma, compulsed copy of your last two years’ grades. Posted from abroad they take more than 15 working days to reach UNED.

4. If you need more than 10 points, register for PCE exams in the subjects your target degree weights — normally four to six subjects. The May/June call comes the week straight after the IB exams end; the September call gives you the summer, but falls after the admission deadline.

5. Sit the PCE exams and let UNEDasiss compute your nota de admisión out of 14. Re-download your resguardo a week before each exam, because times and centres change.

6. Apply through the preinscripción system of the region you want (Madrid, Catalonia, Andalusia and the rest each run their own) or directly to a private university, quoting your UNEDasiss accreditation. Apply even if the accreditation has not arrived — UNED says to, and lets the paperwork follow.

7. Accept your place and enrol (matrícula), which at public universities means paying per credit.

Public universities admit strictly by rank on the nota de admisión against a published cut-off (nota de corte) for each degree, which moves each year with demand. Private universities (IE, Navarra, ESADE, Deusto, Comillas) run their own selection: own admission test, essays and interview, usually with rolling rounds from the autumn.

• 2 November to 30 November 2026

  Universidad de Deusto applications for 2027–2028

  Hard deadline Via Spanish private university

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  A short window: Deusto takes undergraduate applications for 2027–2028 only from 2 to 30 November 2026.

• 15 January 2027

  IE University Round 2 closes

  Hard deadline Via Spanish private university

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  IE's other 2027-28 rounds: Early Round 18 September 2026 (passed), Round 1 6 November 2026, and Round 3, the last, 5 March 2027. From May 2027, only while places remain.

• 4 February to 1 December 2027

  UNEDasiss accreditation request window

  Applies to: EU, EEA and Swiss citizens

  Hard deadline Via UNEDasiss, then the region's preinscripción

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  UNED states the window as an annual rule, 4 February to 1 December. Ignore the December end: the accreditation is needed for the early-July admission deadline, and processing takes about three weeks plus postage.

  The one Spanish date that is safe to carry forward, because UNED states it as a standing annual rule rather than a calendar entry: "El plazo para solicitar la acreditación de UNEDasiss on line, se abre el 4 de febrero y se cierra el 1 de diciembre de cada año". The 1 December end is misleading on its own and UNED says so in the next sentence: the accreditation has to exist before the university admission round closes in early July, and UNED asks for the request "como mínimo, 6 semanas antes del cierre de inscripción universitaria". It has three months in law to process a request and says the usual turnaround is three weeks from receiving form, payment and documents together. Add postal time: UNED states that documents posted from abroad take more than 15 working days to arrive. And avoid the shutdowns - UNED is closed 29 March to 6 April 2026, 1 to 15 August 2026, and 24 December 2026 to 7 January 2027.

  Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3 · Source 4

• 6 July 2027

  IB results released

  Via Spanish private university

  Details

  Confirms a conditional offer. The university may still ask for UNEDasiss accreditation for enrolment.

• 6 July 2027

  IB results released

  Applies to: EU, EEA and Swiss citizens

  Via UNEDasiss, then the region's preinscripción

  Details

  Days before the preinscripción closes.

• Set by each institution

  Each private university's own admission rounds

  Via Spanish private university

  Details

  IE, Navarra, ESADE, Deusto and Comillas run their own tests, interviews and rolling rounds from the autumn before entry, and make conditional offers on predicted grades. Earlier rounds have more places.

• Not yet announced for this intake

  Preinscripción closes at the public universities

  Applies to: EU, EEA and Swiss citizens

  Hard deadline Via UNEDasiss, then the region's preinscripción

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  For 2026/27 UNED gave 7 July 2026 as the deadline for international students, with documents allowed until 31 July. Each region and university runs its own preinscripción and some close earlier: Catalonia has one for all its public universities; ask your university for its date.

• Not yet announced for this intake
  2027 entry

  PCE registration, ordinary (May/June) call

  Hard deadline

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  Precedent for the 2026 cycle, published in Spanish as "Convocatoria de mayo/junio de 2026: Puedes solicitar tus exámenes de PCE del 16 de marzo al 28 de abril de 2026 (puede sufrir pequeñas modificaciones)" - UNED itself flags that the window can shift slightly, so even the precedent is soft. The same date, 28 April, is also the last day to change which subjects you sit or which centre you sit them in. UNED's "Fechas clave 2026" page (https://unedasiss.uned.es/fechas_clave) covers only students starting in 2026/2027; the 2027/2028 dates had not been published on 23 September 2026. An earlier opening, 18 February 2026 at a UNED collaborating centre, is sometimes quoted, but it does not appear on UNED's site, so treat it as unconfirmed.

  Source

• Not yet announced for this intake
  2027 entry

  PCE exams, ordinary (May/June) call - the week straight after your IB exams

  Hard deadline

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  Precedent for the 2026 cycle: "Convocatoria de mayo/junio de 2026. España, del 25 al 29 de mayo." The IB May 2026 exams ran from 24 April to 20 May, so the PCE came in the week straight after them and you revise for both at once. That is one of the hardest things about applying to Spain from an IB school, and the September call is the fallback. UNED does not publish a per-subject timetable in advance: "El resguardo ofrecerá las fechas exactas de realización de los exámenes de PCE/PAU una vez estén pagadas las correspondientes tasas", and it tells you to re-download that resguardo a week before the exams because times, dates and the address of the centre can change. Candidates sitting outside Spain are told only "Comprueba tu resguardo" - the overseas dates are not published on the page at all. UNED's "Fechas clave 2026" page (https://unedasiss.uned.es/fechas_clave) covers only students starting in 2026/2027; the 2027/2028 dates had not been published on 23 September 2026.

  Source

• Not yet announced for this intake
  2027 entry

  PCE registration, extraordinary (September) call

  Hard deadline

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  Precedent for the 2026 cycle: "Convocatoria de septiembre 2026: Puedes solicitar examinarte de PCE del 1 de julio al 22 de julio de 2026", with 22 July also the last day to change subjects or exam centre. This is the realistic call for an IB student who will not sit PCE the week after the IB exams end - but read it against the public-university admission deadline, which for the 2026 cycle fell on 7 July, before this registration window had even closed. Sitting PCE in September means applying for admission in July on the strength of an accreditation that does not yet include a PCE mark. UNED's "Fechas clave 2026" page (https://unedasiss.uned.es/fechas_clave) covers only students starting in 2026/2027; the 2027/2028 dates had not been published on 23 September 2026.

  Source

• Not yet announced for this intake
  2027 entry

  PCE exams, extraordinary (September) call

  Hard deadline

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  Precedent for the 2026 cycle: "Convocatoria de septiembre de 2026: Los exámenes se realizarán del 2 al 8 de septiembre." UNED's "Fechas clave 2026" page (https://unedasiss.uned.es/fechas_clave) covers only students starting in 2026/2027; the 2027/2028 dates had not been published on 23 September 2026. A results date of 20 September is sometimes quoted for the September call, but it does not appear on UNED's pages, so treat it as unconfirmed.

  Source

• Not yet announced for this intake
  2027 entry

  Admission to Spanish public universities closes - the real deadline, and it is not a university’s

  Applies to: international applicants with a foreign qualification

  Hard deadline

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  The date most likely to be missed, because it is published by UNED rather than by the university you are applying to. For the 2026 cycle UNED put it plainly, in Spanish: "La fecha límite para solicitar la admisión en las universidades públicas por parte de los estudiantes internacionales que deseen iniciar estudios en el curso 2026/2027 es el 7 de julio de 2026." The surrounding sentence is the one to act on: "Si en esa fecha aún no dispones de tu acreditación, te recomendamos que presentes igualmente tu solicitud de admisión. Podrás aportar la documentación pendiente hasta el 31 de julio." So the application itself is the hard deadline and the paperwork can follow by roughly three weeks. UNED also warns that preinscripción is run by each university on its own calendar - "Las universidades públicas suelen cerrar su plazo de preinscripción en los primeros días del mes de julio, aunque algunas pueden tener plazos distintos" - so the regional system you actually apply through (Madrid, Catalunya, Andalucía and the rest each run their own) may close earlier than the national date. Ask the university for its own date rather than planning against this one. UNED's "Fechas clave 2026" page (https://unedasiss.uned.es/fechas_clave) covers only students starting in 2026/2027; the 2027/2028 dates had not been published on 23 September 2026.

  Source

• Not yet announced for this intake
  2027 entry

  Last date for late documents to change your admission grade

  Applies to: applicants whose documents are still being legalised

  Hard deadline

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  The end of the line for anything still in the post. For the 2026 cycle: "Los estudiantes que remitan esta documentación pendiente o la credencial de homologación con fecha límite el 31 de octubre, podrán obtener una nueva acreditación con la calificación de admisión modificada si procede. La documentación recibida con posterioridad a esa fecha, no modificará la calificación de admisión en esa convocatoria." In practice: if a grade or a legalised document arrives after the end of October, your admission mark for that intake is whatever UNED already has. An IB Diploma is a Swiss document and needs no apostille, so this bites mainly on the school transcripts that go with it. UNED's "Fechas clave 2026" page (https://unedasiss.uned.es/fechas_clave) covers only students starting in 2026/2027; the 2027/2028 dates had not been published on 23 September 2026.

  Source

English-taught bachelors

A real but concentrated offer. Most English-taught bachelors sit at a handful of universities — IE, Carlos III, Pompeu Fabra, Navarra, ESADE, Autònoma de Barcelona, Deusto, Comillas — rather than being spread across the system. No official national count is given here.

Proving your English

UNEDasiss offers a language-accreditation service, and universities generally accept IB English A or B; the accepted grade or IELTS/TOEFL alternative varies by university, so check each one.

Local language needed?

Not for English-taught programmes

• Even on an English-taught degree, Spanish matters for everything outside the lecture theatre, and many 'English-taught' degrees are partly bilingual.
• In Catalonia and the Basque Country, Catalan or Basque may appear in parts of a supposedly Spanish-language degree. Ask which language each module is actually delivered in.

Tuition, EU/EEA

Public universities charge per credit and the price is set regionally. Universidad Carlos III de Madrid 2026/27: €16.92 per credit for social sciences and law (€1,015.20 for a 60-credit year), €19.43 for engineering and maths (€1,165.80), €20.68 for biomedical engineering and neuroscience (€1,240.80), plus small administrative and insurance fees. Private universities are far higher and set their own fees. (2026/27)

Tuition, non-EU

Set by each region and university. Universidad Carlos III de Madrid 2026/27, for non-EU students without Spanish resident status: €113.71–€136.44 per credit, €6,822.60–€8,186.40 for a 60-credit year. A study permit does not count as residence for this purpose. (2026/27)

Application fee

UNEDasiss charges per service. As published on its price page: access grade (Calificación de Acceso) €70; opening a file €30.30 and secretarial fee €15.15, never refunded; PCE exams €35 for one subject, rising to €140 for six; each Bachillerato 'modalidad' €25; language accreditation €25 per language. Fees are payable even if a service is refused. Private universities charge their own application fees.

• The UC3M prices apply to EU students, Spanish nationals and residents. Its non-EU prices (above) are about seven times higher; other regions set their own.
• Private universities publish their own fees, typically many times the public rate. Esade's BBA is €21,300 for 2027/28. Check IE, Navarra, Deusto and Comillas fees on their own pages.
• Repeating a course costs more: Spanish public universities charge a higher price per credit on second and later enrolments in the same subject.

Funding you could actually get

• Danish SU can follow you here if you can claim it (Danish citizens, or EU/EEA citizens with equal status under EU rules) and meet the ties-to-Denmark requirement. The programme must be SU-approved, and outside the Nordics SU is capped at four years (48 klip). If you cannot claim SU, look first at your own country's student finance: several EU/EEA systems fund a full degree in another country.
• Spanish state 'becas generales' from the Ministerio de Educación are means-tested and generally open to EU students meeting residence conditions; check the conditions with the ministry.
• Regional grants from the autonomous communities, which vary a lot between Madrid, Catalonia, Navarre and the Basque Country.
• Private universities run their own substantial merit scholarships; IE, Navarra and ESADE all publish scholarship schemes tied to academic record and, at some, the IB score.
• Erasmus+ for an exchange year inside the degree.

Residency

As an EU/EEA citizen you travel on your passport or national ID card. If you stay more than three months you register in the Registro Central de Extranjeros and receive a green EU registration certificate with a NIE number. You need the NIE for a bank account, a phone contract and usually for enrolment itself, so apply for an appointment as soon as you arrive. You will also normally register on the local padrón at the town hall.

Working

EU/EEA citizens have full labour-market access in Spain with no permit. Non-EU students hold a study residence permit that allows limited part-time work, so check the current hour limit on the permit.

Housing

Spain relies heavily on the private rental market and shared flats (piso compartido). University halls (colegios mayores and residencias) exist and are mostly private, catered and expensive. Madrid and Barcelona are tight and pricey; Segovia, Pamplona and Bilbao are far easier. Start looking in June or July, and expect to be asked for a deposit plus one or two months in advance.

Healthcare

Bring a European Health Insurance Card, which covers you as a visiting EU citizen. Once you register as a resident you can normally be enrolled with a local health centre and assigned a doctor; private universities often bundle or require private insurance instead.

Your IB is still a foreign qualification here, so the IB entry rules still apply to you.