You studied medicine for six years. Practising in Spain should not cost you another six.

The current range runs from roughly 9 to 24 months, depending on the country that issued the degree, the university, how complete the file is, and how any requerimientos are answered. A well-prepared file tends towards the lower end of that range; one with errors tends towards the upper end, or beyond it.

Not to start. The procedure is conducted online and can be filed from your home country, so you do not need to be physically in Spain to begin the homologation. Legal residence becomes necessary later, when it is time to register with the medical association and actually practise — which is precisely why the two things are worth planning together rather than one after the other.

Yes. The credencial de homologación (RD 889/2022) qualifies you to sit the MIR, the national examination for specialty training, which has a specific quota for non-EU professionals without a residence permit. That quota is not set by RD 889/2022 — which governs the recognition, equivalence and convalidation of degrees — but by the Ministry of Health in its annual specialty-training call published in the BOE. Nationals of countries where Spanish is not an official language must also hold a Spanish C1 certificate (DELE or SIELE). The practical difficulty is rarely eligibility — it is arriving in time for the deadline, which is why the timing of the file matters as much as its content.

No, and this is where expectations most often go wrong. Homologation recognises your degree in Medicine as equivalent to the Spanish one. Recognition of a specialty — cardiology, paediatrics and so on — is a separate procedure and, in many cases, requires you to complete the MIR in Spain. A consultant of fifteen years standing elsewhere can find themselves eligible to practise as a doctor here while their specialty still needs to be earned through the Spanish system.

A requerimiento answered well saves the file; answered badly, it buries it. If one arrives, do not improvise: we review it with you and reply with the appropriate legal strategy. Against a refusal we assess an administrative appeal, judicial review, or a fresh submission correcting whatever failed — and we tell you honestly which of the three is worth your money.

It depends on your country and on what you want to do. In Spain, homologación means declaring your foreign degree equivalent to the corresponding Spanish one, and it is resolved by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades. Convalidación is the partial recognition of individual subjects or periods of study, not of the whole degree. What Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Argentina or Mexico call convalidación, revalidación or reválida corresponds, for the purpose of practising in Spain, to homologación. If your aim is to work as a doctor here, homologation of the degree is the procedure you need.

In essence: the medical degree apostilled under the Hague Convention, or legalised through consular channels if your country is not a signatory; the academic transcript with subjects and marks and, where applicable, the certificate of clinical practice, internship or rural social service; a sworn translation of anything not in Spanish; a valid passport; and, for nationals of countries where Spanish is not an official language, a Spanish C1 certificate. We check them one by one before touching the system, so that the Ministry has no reason to stop the file.

The cost combines the official Ministry fee, the expense of apostilles or legalisation and sworn translation of your documents, and our fees for preparing and defending the file. There is no single tariff: it depends on the country of origin, the state of your documentation, and whether you are carrying a requerimiento or an earlier refusal. Once we have studied your case we give you a fixed quotation, with no surprises. Official amounts are set by the rules in force at the time of filing.