Spanish schools & education for expat children: the complete guide

For most families, the question that comes right after the visa is a simple one: where will the children go to school? It is also one of the most consequential decisions of the whole move, shaping your children's language, friendships and academic path — and, quietly, where you can realistically live, because school choice and neighbourhood are tightly linked in Spain. This is the pillar guide we point relocating parents to: it explains how Spanish education is built, the real differences between public, concertado and private or international schools, how enrolment and admissions actually work, the all-important language question, what things cost, and how a foreign school record or qualification is recognised so that your child does not lose a year.

"For a family, the school is often the first practical anchor of the whole move — the day the children start class is the day Spain stops being a plan and becomes home. Sort the school place, the empadronamiento and the recognition of records early, and the rest of the relocation tends to fall into line behind it."

How Spanish education is structured

Spanish education runs on a clear national framework, the same in every region even where the language of instruction differs. Understanding the stages is the first step, because your child will slot into one of them by age, and the point at which they arrive shapes both the paperwork and the choices ahead.

• Educación infantil (pre-school), ages 0–6. Split into a first cycle (0–3) and a second cycle (3–6). The second cycle is free and near-universal in public and concertado schools, though it is not legally compulsory. It is where many expat children begin, and the youngest arrivals typically pick up Spanish here with remarkable speed.
• Educación primaria (primary), ages 6–12. Six compulsory years, from first to sixth grade, delivered at a colegio. This is the foundation stage, covering language, mathematics, sciences, arts and physical education, and it is where the great majority of families make their first real school choice.
• Educación secundaria obligatoria — ESO, ages 12–16. Four compulsory years at an instituto (secondary school). ESO completes the compulsory phase of Spanish education; a student who finishes it earns the ESO title, the baseline qualification for further study or work.
• Bachillerato, ages 16–18. A two-year academic track after ESO, chosen by students heading towards university. It is organised into streams — sciences, humanities and social sciences, and arts — and culminates in the qualification that opens the door to the university entrance exam.
• Formación Profesional — FP (vocational training). The parallel post-16 route, offering practical, career-focused qualifications at basic, intermediate and higher levels. FP is well regarded in Spain, increasingly popular, and can itself lead on to university. For a child with a clear practical vocation, it is a genuine alternative to bachillerato rather than a lesser one.

Compulsory education runs from age 6 to 16 — that is, all of primaria and all of ESO. Everything before infantil's second cycle and everything after ESO is optional, but in practice the great majority of students continue to bachillerato or FP. Knowing which stage your child enters helps you anticipate the decisions: a six-year-old starting primaria has a very different path from a fifteen-year-old arriving mid-ESO with a foreign transcript to convert.

The three types of school

Spain has three broad categories of school, and the distinction between them is the single most important thing for a new family to grasp. They differ in who runs them, who pays, what language they teach in and which curriculum they follow.

Public schools — colegios e institutos públicos

State-run and free of tuition, public schools educate the majority of Spanish children. They follow the national curriculum and teach in Spanish, or in the region's co-official language where one applies — Catalan in Catalonia, Basque in the Basque Country, Valencian in the Valencian Community, Galician in Galicia. They are open to every child legally resident in Spain regardless of nationality, and admission is tied closely to where you live. For a family committed to integration, a public school is the most direct route into Spanish life: your children make local friends, absorb the language and become, quite quickly, part of the town.

Concertado schools — the state-subsidised middle ground

Concertado schools are privately run but publicly subsidised — a distinctively Spanish hybrid. Because the state funds much of their cost, they charge only low fees (often framed as a voluntary contribution) rather than full private tuition. Many are religious, historically Catholic, though their character varies widely. They follow the same national curriculum as public schools and teach in Spanish or the co-official language, and many now offer a strengthened English or bilingual programme. For families who want the affordability and integration of the public system with a particular ethos or a smaller, more traditional setting, the concertado is often the sweet spot — and these schools are frequently oversubscribed for exactly that reason.

Private & international schools

Fully private schools charge full fees and receive no state subsidy. Within this category sit two quite different things. There are Spanish private schools, which teach the national curriculum privately, and there are international schools, which teach a foreign curriculum — most commonly British (leading to IGCSEs and A-Levels), American, the International Baccalaureate (IB), or the national systems of France (the lycée français network) and Germany (the Deutsche Schule). International schools usually teach primarily in English or the relevant foreign language, keep smaller classes, and are concentrated in and around the big cities and the international coastal areas such as the Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca. They are the natural choice for families who want continuity with a home-country curriculum, who are unsure how long they will stay, or whose children are older and would struggle to complete ESO or bachillerato in Spanish from a standing start. Our dedicated page on international schools in Spain looks at this option in depth.

Public vs concertado vs private/international

The three categories are easiest to weigh side by side. This is a general orientation, not a scorecard — the right choice depends entirely on your child, your timescale and where you settle.

How to choose the right school

There is no single right answer — there is only the right answer for your family. A few questions usually settle it.

• How long will you stay? If Spain is a permanent home, immersion in a public or concertado school gives your children fluent Spanish and deep local roots. If you may move again in a few years, an international school keeps their home-country curriculum intact and portable.
• How old are the children? Younger children absorb Spanish almost effortlessly and thrive in the public system. A teenager mid-way through ESO or bachillerato faces a much steeper climb in a second language, which often tilts older families towards an international or bilingual school.
• What language future do you want? Full immersion produces genuine bilingualism; a bilingual public or concertado programme balances Spanish with strong English; an international school keeps English (or French, or German) as the working language with Spanish as a subject.
• What is your budget? Public schooling is free and concertado is inexpensive; international schooling is a significant, recurring cost that belongs in your relocation budget from the outset.
• Where will you live? Because public and concertado places are zoned, your address effectively pre-selects your realistic options. Many families choose the neighbourhood around the school they want, rather than the other way round.

Visit if you possibly can, or speak to other expat parents in the area. Reputations travel fast in relocating communities, and a school that suits one family's child perfectly may be wrong for another's.

Enrolment, admissions & empadronamiento

Admission to public and concertado schools runs through your regional education authority on a points system, and the single heaviest factor is almost always the catchment zone — the zona escolar your home address falls into. This is where empadronamiento becomes decisive.

The empadronamiento is your registration on the local town-hall population register (the padrón). You obtain the certificate at the ayuntamiento covering your address, and it is the document that proves where you live for school-admissions purposes. Because catchment carries so many points, where you are registered directly shapes which schools you can realistically get into. Families who understand this register early and choose their address with the target school's zone in mind — not after the admissions round has closed. Other points typically come from having a sibling already at the school, proximity of a parent's workplace, family circumstances and, in some regions, income. International schools sit entirely outside this system: they set their own admissions criteria and take applications directly, year-round.

The admissions calendar & documents

The ordinary admissions round for public and concertado schools runs on a fixed annual calendar. In broad terms, applications open in the spring for entry the following September, places are allocated over the late spring, and enrolment is confirmed before the summer. The exact dates are set by each autonomous community and shift year to year, so the practical rule is to confirm your region's calendar the moment you know you are moving — missing the window pushes you into the harder mid-year process.

The documents typically required to apply and enrol include:

• The child's passport or residence document / NIE.
• The empadronamiento certificate proving your address.
• The libro de familia (family book) or the child's birth certificate.
• Vaccination records or the child's health card.
• Prior school reports or transcripts, often needed with an official translation, and — for entry into ESO or bachillerato from a foreign system — evidence that recognition of the foreign record is under way.
• A recent photograph and the school's own enrolment forms.

Because several of these documents come from your home country, gather and translate them well ahead. Requirements for translation, apostille and the recognition of foreign records are exactly the kind of detail that catches families out at the last minute.

Arriving mid-year

Not every family lands in time for the September intake, and moving in October or February is entirely normal. If you arrive mid-year, you apply directly to the regional education authority rather than through the ordinary admissions round. The authority then places your child in a nearby school that has available capacity — which means you have less choice than in the main round, and a popular school may simply be full. Registering your empadronamiento promptly still matters, because placement is organised around your address. International schools, by contrast, generally accept mid-year admissions whenever they have space, which is one practical reason relocating families with an urgent, off-cycle move sometimes start there and reassess at the next full admissions round.

The language question

Language is the heart of the schooling decision, and it helps to see the choices as a spectrum rather than a binary. Where your family sits on it depends on how much Spanish (or a co-official language) you want your children to acquire, and how quickly.

• Full immersion. A public or concertado school teaching entirely in Spanish (or the regional co-official language). Younger children typically become fluent within a year or two, and immersion produces the deepest integration and the most genuine bilingualism. It asks the most of an older child arriving cold.
• Bilingual programmes. Many public and concertado schools now run bilingual streams — commonly Spanish plus English — teaching some subjects in each language. This blends solid Spanish with maintained English and is a popular middle path for expat families who value integration but want their children's English to stay strong.
• International schools. Here the working language is English (or French, or German), the home-country curriculum is preserved, and Spanish is taught as a subject rather than the medium of instruction. Children keep academic continuity and strong English, but acquire less everyday Spanish than an immersed child, and integrate more within the international community than the local one.

There is no universally correct point on this spectrum. A five-year-old will flourish in immersion; a sixteen-year-old preparing for A-Levels usually should not be dropped into a Spanish bachillerato. Match the choice to the child.

Support for non-Spanish speakers

Parents naturally worry about a child who arrives with no Spanish at all, and the reassurance is real. Public schools are experienced with newcomers and commonly provide language-support programmes for students who do not yet speak the language of instruction — often known by names such as aulas de enlace, aulas de acogida or aulas de adaptación lingüística, depending on the region — where new arrivals get intensive, targeted language teaching alongside their regular classes until they can follow the mainstream curriculum. Provision varies by autonomous community and by school, so it is worth asking specifically what a given school offers. Younger children generally need little formal support and pick up the language through immersion; older children benefit most from these structured programmes. The combination of a welcoming school, dedicated language support and the sheer speed at which children absorb a new language is why so many immersion moves that look daunting on paper work out well in practice.

What it costs

Cost is often the pivot of the whole decision, and the range across the three school types is enormous. We deliberately avoid quoting specific euro figures — fees vary widely by school, city and year — but the qualitative picture is clear and consistent.

• Public schools charge no tuition. Families still cover books and materials, some activities and excursions, and typically a modest cost for the school canteen (comedor) and any transport. For many relocating families this is the single biggest saving of the move.
• Concertado schools are inexpensive relative to full private schooling, charging low monthly fees or a contribution, plus the usual materials and canteen costs. They occupy the affordable middle ground.
• Private and international schools carry full fees, and international schools sit at the top of the range, often with an enrolment or registration fee on top of annual tuition, plus uniforms, materials, meals, transport and sometimes a capital or building levy. For a family with more than one child, this is a substantial recurring commitment that belongs in the budget from day one.

Schooling costs interact with your overall cost of living, which varies sharply by region — our guide to the cost of living in Spain puts the wider picture in context.

University access: Selectividad & UNEDasiss

For families with older children, the route into Spanish university is a key part of the picture. After bachillerato, students sit the university entrance examination — long known as Selectividad and now formally the EvAU (or PEvAU / EBAU, depending on the region). The result, combined with the bachillerato average, produces the admission mark that governs entry to competitive degree courses. A student who completes bachillerato at a Spanish or Spanish-curriculum school takes this exam in the ordinary way.

The important thing for expat families is what happens when a child has studied a foreign curriculum — British A-Levels, the IB, an American high-school diploma, or a French or German qualification. Access to Spanish university for these students runs through UNEDasiss, a service of the national distance university (UNED) that assesses foreign qualifications and issues an accreditation used by Spanish universities for admission. UNEDasiss can, depending on the qualification, calculate an admission mark and certify which subjects and competences a foreign student has covered, sometimes with specific-subject exams to raise the mark for competitive courses. In short: a foreign qualification does not shut the door to Spanish university, but the route in runs through UNEDasiss rather than the standard EvAU, and it is worth understanding well before the final school years.

Recognising foreign school records

When a child transfers from a foreign school into the Spanish system part-way through their education, their prior studies usually need to be formally recognised so that they enter the correct grade and do not lose a year. This process is homologación (homologation) or convalidación of foreign studies, handled by the Spanish education ministry. In essence, the authorities assess the foreign school record against the equivalent point in the Spanish system and issue a recognition of the level attained.

A few practical points matter. The foreign documents typically need to be legalised or apostilled and accompanied by an official (sworn) translation into Spanish. There is often a mechanism for a child to enrol and start school while the recognition is being processed, on the strength of having applied — which is why starting the paperwork early is so important. And the finer detail — exactly which Spanish grade a foreign year maps to, and what evidence is needed — depends on the education system the child is coming from. Getting this right is one of the most valuable pieces of preparation a relocating family can do, because a mishandled record can cost a child an academic year.

Regional differences: Catalonia, Basque Country, Valencia

Education in Spain is run by the autonomous communities, so admissions calendars, funding and — most visibly — the language of instruction vary by region. For families choosing where to settle, the co-official-language regions deserve particular attention.

• Catalonia. The public system has historically used Catalan as the principal language of instruction, with Spanish (Castilian) and English taught alongside. A family moving to Barcelona or elsewhere in Catalonia should expect their children to be educated substantially in Catalan in the public system — a genuine asset for long-term integration, but a factor to weigh, especially for older children and for families who may not stay.
• Basque Country. Schooling here is organised around linguistic models that let families choose how much teaching is in Basque (Euskara) versus Spanish — ranging from mostly Spanish with Basque as a subject, through a balanced bilingual model, to teaching almost entirely in Basque. Basque is a famously distinctive language, so the model you choose has real implications for a newly arrived child.
• Valencian Community. The Valencian Community operates its own language programmes balancing Valencian and Spanish, with a growing English component, and the specific model can vary between schools. As in Catalonia and the Basque Country, the regional language is a normal part of public schooling rather than an optional extra.
• Galicia similarly uses Galician alongside Spanish in its schools, and other regions have their own arrangements.

None of this should deter a move to these wonderful regions — millions of children, expat and local alike, thrive in them. But the language model is a real variable in the school decision, and it is one reason families weighing Barcelona against, say, Málaga or Valencia should factor schooling into the choice of region, not just treat it as a detail to settle after arrival. Where the regional language weighs heavily on an older child, an international or bilingual school is often the pragmatic answer.

Schooling rarely travels alone in a relocation — it sits beside the visa, the tax position and the cost of daily life. If your move depends on a visa that allows dependent children to join you, our guide to the international schools in Spain and our cost of living guide are the natural next reads. For a one-parent household, pair the school plan with the single parent non-lucrative visa with children note, because school timing and custody consent should be solved together. A short consultation can join the school question to the immigration one.

One route through this guide is not open, and it is the one American families ask about most often. Educating a child at home instead of enrolling them does not satisfy the duty in article 4 of the Education Act, and the Constitutional Court settled the point in 2010 — though not on the ground most people cite. For a foreign family the sharper consequence is administrative rather than educational: homeschooling in Spain sets out the article of the immigration regulation that makes school enrolment a condition of renewing a residence permit.