In Spain the podiatrist diagnoses, prescribes and operates. Homologating your degree is joining that league.
Homologación of your university podiatry degree before the Ministry, assessed by ANECA under Orden CIN/728/2009. We read your syllabus before anything is submitted and tell you plainly whether your training matches what the Spanish degree requires.
Podiatry is a regulated healthcare profession here. It is not a trade: it is a university degree with a white coat, clinical records and an operating theatre.
The question that decides your file: is your podiatry training a university degree?
This is the fork that catches most people out. In many countries podiatry or chiropody is a technical or vocational qualification; in Spain it is a university degree in a regulated healthcare profession, and homologation compares one against the other. On top of that, ANECA reads Orden CIN/728/2009 looking for specific things: clinical placement hours, and content on surgery and pharmacology. If your transcript does not evidence them, the assessment does not assume them — and where it finds gaps it can impose complementary training: placements, courses, a project or an aptitude test.
We do not file loose documents. We rebuild your syllabus in the language ANECA knows how to read.
You treat feet for a living, and here nobody can tell what your qualification is.
- You do not know whether your training counts as a university degree in Spanish terms.
- You have been waiting months for a decision and do not know whether your file is even complete.
- Your transcript never mentions surgery or pharmacology by name, though you studied both.
- You cannot evidence your clinical placement hours in a format anyone here can read.
- You have been handed complementary training requirements and do not know which option suits you.
- You were refused, and you think your career in Spain ended before it started.
The worst part is that almost every one of these blockages is avoidable before the file is submitted — if somebody reviews it properly first.
From your degree to the clinic: the stages
The prior question
Is your training a university degree in Spanish terms? Everything else depends on this answer, and finding it out now is free.
Auditing the file
Degree, transcript, syllabus, clinical hours, surgery and pharmacology content, apostilles and translations, read against Orden CIN/728/2009.
Application and assessment
Filed online with the Ministry. ANECA compares your training with the Spanish Grado en Podología. Currently 9 to 24 months depending on the file.
Credential and registration
With the credential you register with the professional council of your region. Without registration there is no lawful practice.
What almost nobody explains about homologating a podiatry degree
In podiatry the decisive issue is usually not the delay. It is whether the qualification you hold is the kind Spain can compare.
Worth knowing
- Why podiatry is a university healthcare profession here and a technical trade elsewhere.
- Why surgery and pharmacology content weighs so heavily in the assessment.
- Why clinical placement hours are the point where these files most often stall.
What you gain
- A straight answer on whether your qualification is comparable, before spending anything.
- A file aligned with Orden CIN/728/2009, competence by competence.
- Registration prepared in advance, ready the moment the credential arrives.
Mistakes that delay your case
- Filing a vocational qualification as though it were a university degree.
- Translating without a sworn translator recognised by the Foreign Ministry.
- Confusing a Hague Apostille with consular legalisation.
- Answering a requerimiento without a strategy, and burying the file.
What you need to know
- Exactly which documents the Ministry requires today.
- Whether your nationality means you need to evidence Spanish.
- That homologating is not practising: registration comes after.
Requirements for podiatry homologation in 2026
The file is submitted online to the Ministry, within the framework of RD 889/2022. These are the pillars.
Legalised university degree
The original, apostilled under the Hague Convention or legalised through consular channels if your country is not a signatory, scanned in the format the portal accepts.
Transcript and syllabus
Subjects, hours and content, with the clinical placement hours and the surgery and pharmacology content identifiable, as Orden CIN/728/2009 expects.
Sworn translation
Every document not in Spanish needs translating by a traductor jurado recognised by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Documents from Spanish-speaking countries do not.
Identity, fee and language
A valid passport, payment of the official fee and, for nationals of countries where Spanish is not an official language, the corresponding Spanish language certificate.
We audit your file, align it with Orden CIN/728/2009, and submit it without gaps.
We start with the question that decides everything — whether your qualification is a university degree in Spanish terms — and then read your syllabus the way ANECA is going to read it, looking for where the clinical hours, the surgery or the pharmacology content do not add up.
If a requerimiento has already arrived, or a decision imposing complementary training, or a refusal, we take the case over from wherever it is, and stay to the registration.
We are not the administration and we do not act on its behalf: we are the ones who prepare your case so the administration has nowhere to stop it.
The questions people ask before they start
My podiatry qualification is not a university degree. Can I still homologate?
This is the first thing to establish, and it is worth doing before anything else. Homologation compares your qualification with the Spanish university degree in podiatry; if what you hold is a technical or vocational qualification, the comparison is a different one and the outcome may be too. That does not automatically mean no — but it does mean the answer is different, and finding it out now costs nothing while finding it out in a resolution costs a year.
How long does it take?
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-built file tends to the lower end; one with gaps, to the upper.
Why do surgery and pharmacology matter so much?
Because in Spain the podiatrist diagnoses, prescribes within their scope and operates. The Spanish degree reflects that, and Orden CIN/728/2009 sets it out. A training that treated podiatry as primarily chiropodial care will show a gap in exactly those areas, and that gap is what complementary training requirements are made of. Where you did study them, the job is making the transcript say so.
What are complementary training requirements?
When the assessment finds gaps between your training and the Spanish degree, the decision can recognise the homologation conditional on your completing complementary training — placements, courses, a project or an aptitude test. Choosing between the options offered is not trivial, and some decisions of this kind are worth arguing rather than accepting.
What does it cost?
The cost combines the official Ministry fee, the expense of apostilles or legalisation and sworn translation, 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. Official amounts are set by the rules in force at the time of filing.
Not a doctor? We homologate all twelve regulated healthcare professions.
Each has its own ministerial order, its own professional body and its own traps. Pick yours and we will tell you how yours actually works, not “homologation” in the abstract.
Medicine
Medical degree homologation, plus work permit, colegiación and the MIR.
See detailsNursing
Nursing degree homologation, registration, and access to the EIR.
See detailsDentistry
Dental degree homologation and the registration you need to practise.
See detailsPhysiotherapy
Physiotherapy degree homologation and professional registration.
See detailsPsychology
Careful: the degree itself is not homologated. What is, is the Psicólogo General Sanitario.
See detailsPharmacy
Five years and 3,000 hours of clinical training: the two numbers ANECA looks at.
See detailsVeterinary medicine
Clinical work, yes. But also animal health and food safety.
See detailsSpeech and language therapy
If your country called it fonoaudiología, this is it: the same profession.
See detailsOptics and optometry
An optometrist is not an ophthalmologist: two different homologations.
See detailsPodiatry
In Spain this is a university healthcare profession, not a technical trade.
You are hereOccupational therapy
Four years and 1,000 placement hours. Plenty of demand, little competition.
See detailsNutrition and dietetics
Only the university degree is homologated. Nutrition courses are not.
See detailsEvery month of delay is a month of a podiatrist doing something else.
We tell you first whether your qualification is comparable, then align the file with Orden CIN/728/2009, submit it complete, and stay with you through to registration.
+34 667 77 02 19·+34 667 78 20 85
infoglobalextranjeria@gmail.com
Camino de Coín 14, 29640 Fuengirola (Málaga)
P.S. like the tracker in the story, you can know more about feet than anyone in the valley and still not appear in the report. Knowledge is not what gets rewarded here: evidence is. And evidence has rules, deadlines and a ministerial order that decides. That is what we read for you.
Content reviewed by a lawyer
Reviewed by Alberto García López
Immigration lawyer · bar number 11.441 · ICA Málaga
We review every page against the rules currently in force. This information does not replace an individual assessment of your case.
The content of this page is for information only and does not constitute individual legal advice. Every immigration case requires its own assessment.
Globalium is an independent law firm: we are not a public administration and we are not affiliated with one. Homologation, equivalence and the recognition of qualifications are granted exclusively by the competent Ministry, and you may apply to it directly yourself. Our fees pay for legal advice and representation, and are separate from official fees and public charges.