International Schools in Valencia, Spain and the Costa Blanca: 2026/2027 Fees and Admissions

What the Spanish school stages are called, and who goes when

Spanish education has four stages, and every school in this article, public or private, is organized around them. Their names appear on every enrollment form and in every conversation you will have with a school, so they are worth learning before anything else.

One line in that table needs a footnote. The 0 to 3 stage carries no legal entitlement to a free place, and it has been paid for anyway. In July 2026 the Generalitat funded free 0 to 3 schooling for the third year running, 163 million euros covering municipal nursery schools and authorized private ones, worth up to 460 euros a month for a child under one, 350 for a one-year-old and 300 for a two-year-old. It is an annual grant that has to be renewed and applied for, not a right. The ordinary application window for 2026/2027 closed on July 30, 2026, but a family that moves to the region or starts work after that can still apply out of period, which opened on August 4.

A child of six starts in the first year of Primaria, a child of seven in the second, a child of nine in the fourth, and a child of fourteen in the third year of ESO. Placement follows age, not the level the child reached at their previous school.

British-curriculum schools here count year groups their own way, and the numbers do not line up with American grades. Reception comes before Year 1 and lines up with US pre-kindergarten, which makes Year 1 the equivalent of US kindergarten. From there the British number runs one ahead of the American grade: Year 7 is US sixth grade, Year 11 is tenth, Year 13 is twelfth. Sixth Form means the final two years, Years 12 and 13. Those labels appear in the fee tables below exactly as each school publishes them.

Compulsory education ends at sixteen, at the end of ESO. Bachillerato is the two years after that, and it is the normal route to a Spanish university. A teenager arriving at fourteen therefore has two years of ESO ahead of them, then a decision about whether to continue.

Three kinds of school, and what each actually costs

Spain runs three parallel school networks, and the middle one has no equivalent in most countries, which is where the confusion starts.

Pública is the public system, publicly funded and open to everyone. The state pays for everything, and both enrollment and tuition are free. Decree 48/2024 states explicitly that schools may not charge families for the free years. You pay only for the cafeteria and after-school activities.

Concertada is where foreign parents get lost. These schools are privately owned and privately run, usually by a religious order or a family, but the state funds the compulsory years. Legally, those years are just as free as they are at a public school, and charging for them is forbidden. In practice, a study by the ESADE business school reported in April 2024 that 82 percent of families at concertada schools in the Valencian Community pay a voluntary contribution, and those who pay average 597 euros a year. The contributions are genuinely voluntary in law. Whether they feel voluntary when everyone else in the class pays them is a different question.

My own daughter is at a concertada school, and it costs us 25 euros a month. We chose it deliberately. The teaching is a step above the local public school average, she is inside Spanish culture rather than beside it, and if she wants a Spanish university later, she is already on that track.

Privada means fully private, with no public funding. These schools set their own fees and their own admission rules, and they sit entirely outside the public admission process described later in this article. Every international school in this guide falls into this category.

The language question nobody explains properly

The Valencian Community has two official languages, Spanish and Valencian, and public schools teach in both. Law 1/2024 on educational freedom sets how the school day is divided, and the split depends first on where you live.

Law 4/1983 sorted every municipality in the region into one of two language zones, and that 1983 list still governs schooling today. Article 35 lists the Valencian-predominant towns, article 36 the Spanish-predominant ones. The result catches people out, because the split does not follow the coastline or the tourist map.

That Alicante city and Elche sit in the Valencian zone surprises most people, including many Spaniards. The 1983 classification was based on historical linguistic criteria, and the 2024 law did not revisit it.

The Spanish-zone towns cluster in the far south of Alicante province, and the list runs beyond Torrevieja, Orihuela and San Miguel de Salinas: Algorfa, Benijófar, Rojales and San Fulgencio are there too. If you are house-hunting around Torrevieja and the Orihuela Costa, check your specific town rather than assuming the coast behaves as one.

Now the actual timetable. In the Spanish-predominant zone, article 5 of the law gives Valencian 10 percent of teaching time in Infantil and English another 10 percent. The remaining 80 percent is in Spanish. Later stages follow the same logic with slightly different splits, and here too the school picks between a lighter and a heavier English model: 73 or 63 percent Spanish through primary, 75 or 65 percent in ESO, with Valencian holding 10 to 12 percent throughout and English taking the difference.

This is the lightest exposure to Valencian available anywhere in the region, and for a family already facing one new language it is a genuine argument for the south of Alicante province.

In the Valencian-predominant zone, which covers everywhere else in the table, the picture is different and the school gets a choice.

One term has to come first, because everything below depends on it. The base language, lengua base on the form you will fill in, is whichever of the two official languages a particular class is mainly taught in. A class with Valencian as its base language does most of its subjects in Valencian and a smaller share in Spanish, and a class with Spanish as its base language does the reverse. Both exist, often in the same school.

Article 10 sets Infantil at 65 percent in the base language, 25 percent in the other official language and 10 percent in English. From Primaria onward the school picks one of two models set out in the law's second annex. In the table below, the three figures are always in the same order: base language, then the other official language, then English.

Two things follow. English is a real part of a public school week here, between 15 and 25 percent of it. And from the third year of Primaria onward the gap between the two official languages is capped in this zone: articles 11.5 and 12.3 state that the difference may not exceed 20 percent of teaching time. There is no such cap in the Spanish-predominant zone, where the gap between Spanish and Valencian is the whole point of the model. The cap does not apply to the earlier stages either, which is why Infantil can run 65 against 25 and the first two years of Primaria 60 against 25.

So who decides the base language? Not the school, and not the regional government. Parents do, but collectively rather than individually, and the distinction matters. When you apply for a place you state which language you want. Those preferences are counted across everyone applying, and the totals decide how many classes at that school run in each language. You are adding a preference to a tally, not choosing an option for your own child, so a family in a minority at a given school may not get the language it asked for. Whatever a child starts with carries through the whole of Infantil and Primaria, and the count is redone each year, under article 9, for children entering Infantil, the first year of ESO and the first year of Bachillerato. In the first round, held for the 2025/2026 year, 339,411 families took part. If your child joins part way through a stage there is no fresh count to join: you are applying for a vacancy in a class that already has a base language, and the application form lets you list the same school twice, once under each language, in the order you prefer.

There is a right here that matters specifically to arriving families, and it is worth knowing before a principal tells you about it. Article 14 of the same law lets a child who enters the Valencian school system for the first time, coming from another Spanish region or from a foreign school system, be exempted from being graded in Valencian for the year of arrival and the following academic year. Two years, in effect, in which the language does not damage the child's record while they learn it.

One thing the law does not give you, despite what several relocation guides imply. There is no right to have your child taught in your family's own language. If you arrive speaking Ukrainian, German or English at home, that does not entitle your child to be taught in it.

The confusion comes from a real sentence in the law. Article 15.1 does talk about teaching a child in the language habitually spoken at home, and it is easy to read that as a general promise. It is not. It applies only to students with special educational needs, and even for them the choice on offer is between Valencian and Spanish, the two official languages, rather than any language in the world. What everyone else gets is article 15.3: adaptations for children with serious gaps in the language of instruction and for those entering the system late. That is support while your child learns the language. It is not an alternative to learning it.

The law is settled only in part. Fifty members of Congress (the Congreso de los Diputados, the lower house of Spain's parliament) challenged it before the Constitutional Court, which accepted the case in November 2024, and the law stayed in force meanwhile. Separately, five challenges to the parental consultation process reached the regional high court. Four were dismissed and the fifth was withdrawn by the union that had brought it, the last ruling coming on June 3, 2026. So the model is in force and has survived regional review, while the constitutional question is still open. Plan around the law as it stands, and treat a change as possible rather than imminent.

Private international schools sit outside all of this. They teach in English, add Spanish as a subject, and some add Valencian voluntarily.

International schools in Valencia, Spain and on the Costa Blanca: tuition fees and addresses

Thirteen schools are profiled below, split by area, because for a family buying property the geography matters as much as the curriculum. The list covers the schools teaching mainly in English that international families actually shortlist, plus the two Spanish-curriculum schools they shortlist anyway and then discover are a different proposition. It is not the whole set: British School of Alzira belongs to a group with two more British schools in the region, in Gandía and Xàtiva, and they are worth a call if you are buying in either town. Gandía runs only to Year 11 for now. Montessori and other alternative-method schools are a separate category and are not covered here. Every figure below comes from the school's own fee page for 2026/2027 unless flagged otherwise.

One note on currency before the numbers. Everything here is in euros, because that is what the schools charge. At the rate in the second half of August 2026, roughly 1.10 dollars to the euro, the published range of 4,500 to 15,650 euros a year works out at about 4,950 to 17,200 dollars, and the realistic all-in figure of 13,000 to 15,000 euros comes to about 14,300 to 16,500. Check the rate on the day: it moves, and the schools do not bill in dollars.

Here is the whole picture on one screen. Figures are exactly as each school publishes them, monthly or annual, without conversion, because converting them would introduce errors the schools themselves do not make. One thing you need in order to compare the rows: almost every school here that quotes a monthly fee bills it over ten payments, September to June, so multiply by ten and not by twelve. Elian's bills Years 11 to 13 over nine, and Iale does the same in the final year of Bachillerato, but the annual total is the same, so multiplying the published monthly figure by ten still gives you the year.

Five of the thirteen do not give you a usable 2026/2027 figure: three publish nothing at all, one publishes last year's table, and one publishes a sheet that would not open for us. That is more than a third of the market, and no comparison site will tell you so: they fill the gap with numbers nobody can source.

When you do call one of those schools, four questions get you the real figure. What is the fee for the specific year my child would enter, rather than the current one? What one-off charges apply to a new family, and are any of them refundable? Are lunch and the bus optional or compulsory at that age? And is there a discount from the second child, or only from the third? That last one decides more family budgets than the headline fee does.

Two labels recur below and are worth decoding once. BSO, British Schools Overseas, is the inspection scheme run on behalf of the UK Department for Education, and a BSO rating is the closest thing to an official British school inspection grade that a school outside Britain can hold. NABSS is the National Association of British Schools in Spain, which accredits schools teaching the British curriculum here. A school holding both has been checked twice over, by two different bodies, against two different standards.

Valencia city and the northern belt

American School of Valencia

American School of Valencia sits in the Los Monasterios urbanization in Puçol, 20 to 25 minutes north of the city. American curriculum with the IB Diploma available in the final two years, accredited by the Middle States Association since 1980.

Tuition for 2026/2027 runs from 7,427 euros a year in Nursery and Kindergarten to 9,862 in grades 11 and 12, with grades 1 to 5 at 7,878, grades 6 to 8 at 9,291 and grades 9 and 10 at 9,516. Lunch is included, which is unusual and would add between 1,500 and a little over 2,000 euros a year to the bill at other schools in this guide. The extra charges are where it adds up: a 150 euro application fee, a capital fee of 1,500 euros for new families, an ASV share of 2,500 euros, and an enrollment fee of 1,250 euros. Read that last one twice, because the school calls it annual: it is invoiced every March to hold the place for the following year, not once on arrival. The capital fee goes toward buildings and equipment rather than teaching. The share is exactly what it sounds like: the school is structured so that families can hold a stake in it. It is bought once per student, up to two shares per family, and held for as long as the child is enrolled, and holders pay 289 euros a year instead of 1,250. That saves 961 euros a year, so the share pays for itself in the third year of that child's enrollment. The school's own labels are set more cautiously than that: it offers the share to families expecting more than four years and the plain enrollment fee to families expecting four or fewer. If you expect a third year, ask about the share anyway.

Around 920 students, 41 percent of them international, from 61 nationalities, according to a 2023 report in Las Provincias. Applications go through OpenApply and are accepted year round. In November 2024 the school opened admissions for two academic years at once, which tells you how far ahead the demand runs.

Caxton College

Caxton College is in the same town, a few minutes away. Family owned since 1987, fully British curriculum, and the only school in the region rated Excellent in every category by British Schools Overseas since 2019.

Fees are monthly and include lunch: 687 euros for Baby Caxton, 842 for Nursery and Reception, 888 for primary years 1 to 6, 948 for years 7 to 9, 981 for years 10 and 11, and 998 for Sixth Form. Enrollment is 900 euros once, classroom and technology resources 464 euros a year, and the Valencia city bus route 182 euros a month. It has around 1,590 students, which puts it among the largest British schools in the region alongside Cambridge House. Entrance testing starts at year 4. The school advises applying at least a full year ahead, and means it.

British School of Valencia

British School of Valencia is the only international school inside the city, on Avenida Peris y Valero in Russafa. No school bus needed, which for a family who wants to live in the center rather than a hillside urbanization is the whole argument.

Fees are monthly over ten payments: 760 euros for Pre-Nursery to Reception, 830 for years 1 to 6, 960 for years 7 to 11, 995 for years 12 and 13. The admission fee is the largest single charge of its kind in this guide at 3,250 euros, reduced to 1,600 for siblings and for entrants from year 7 upward, and there is a 445 euro renewal in later years. Materials are 242 euros a term, the cafeteria 210 euros a month and compulsory up to year 4, the bus another 210. British curriculum through to A-level, with no IB option. The 2023 NABSS inspection counted 932 students, mostly Spanish, with 40 other nationalities.

Cambridge House

Cambridge House in Rocafort was the first school in Spain to hold both BSO and NABSS accreditation, and has around 1,700 students. Alongside A-levels it offers BTEC and HND qualifications, which is unusual in this segment and useful for a teenager heading toward a vocational route. Its 2026/2027 fee sheet exists on the website but would not open for us, and the two comparison sites claiming to reproduce it disagree with each other, so I am not going to quote a number. Ask the school directly.

El Plantío International School

El Plantío, in La Cañada, Paterna, runs the British curriculum to year 11 and the IB Diploma after it, with over 650 students and more than half of them international. In 2025 it reported a 94.5 percent IB pass rate. It is one of only three schools in this guide with boarding. It does not publish fees, and the four aggregator sites that quote figures for it span 5,000 to 12,000 euros, which is not a range, it is a shrug.

A second British school sits in the same suburb, British College La Cañada, which opened in 2008 and offers IGCSEs and A-levels without an IB option. I have left it without a profile because I could not verify its current fees, and I would rather name it than pretend the suburb has one school.

Mas Camarena

Mas Camarena in Bétera is the only school in the region authorized for all three IB programs, from primary through to diploma, running alongside the Spanish national curriculum. Around 3,000 students, 32 nationalities, boarding available, and first place in El Mundo's national school ranking in 2024, fourth in 2026. Fees are not published and are quoted only after a place is offered.

Iale International School

Iale, in L'Eliana, deserves a note of caution, because it is often listed alongside the others and it is a different animal. It follows the Spanish national curriculum with bilingual immersion rather than a British or American one, and 87 percent of its students are Spanish. If you want your child inside Spanish education with strong English, it is an excellent fit. If you want an English-speaking school, it is not the one.

It is also the cheapest school in this guide by a wide margin, which follows from the same fact. Its published 2026/2027 sheet gives 450 euros a month for Infantil, the youngest stage, 520 to 535 through Primaria, 602 to 627 in ESO, 660 for the Spanish Bachillerato and 840 for the International Baccalaureate. Read that sheet carefully, because every row on it carries two prices: the second column is the fee for a second child from the same family, five percent lower, and the two columns are easy to mix up. On top of tuition come a one-off registration fee of 790 euros and a one-off administrative fee of 475, an annual materials and insurance charge of 387 euros in the younger years and 482 later, meals at 177 to 192 a month and transport at 150 to 190. The sheet notes that the figures already include the Bono Infantil, a regional subsidy that offsets part of the cost for the youngest years, so ask the school whether a newly arrived family qualifies for it, whether it has to be applied for separately, and what the price becomes without it. Comparing that 450 against 750 at a British school is comparing two different products, not finding a bargain.

The northern Costa Blanca

Lady Elizabeth School

Lady Elizabeth School sits at Cumbre del Sol in Benitachell, between Xàbia and Moraira, and publishes the clearest fee table on this coast. Monthly, over ten payments: 658 euros for Pre-Nursery, rising through 889 for years 1 and 2, 949 for years 5 and 6, 1,307 for year 8, and 1,565 for year 13. Registration is 1,650 euros for new families. Lunch is 159 euros a month in the younger years and 179 later, the bus 185. Paying the year in full in advance takes 5 percent off, though the window for the 2026/2027 year closed on July 31, 2026. British curriculum with the International Primary Curriculum, an optional Spanish track, over 60 nationalities, and boarding.

Sierra Bernia School

Sierra Bernia, in Alfaz del Pi, between Altea and Benidorm, opened in 1973 and is the oldest British school on the Costa Blanca. It teaches the British curriculum through IGCSE and A-levels and is accredited by NABSS. It is fully independent, funded only by fees, and it does not publish them. Its coastal bus service runs between Calpe in the north and Benidorm in the south. Students come from further out than that, from Xàbia and Moraira to the north and Campello and Alicante to the south, but beyond those two ends of the route, Calpe and Benidorm, you are driving. The mix is 38 percent British, 32 percent Spanish, 30 percent other.

Elian's British School

Elian's, in La Nucía, belongs to the Dukes Education group, is authorized for the IB Diploma, and teaches the British curriculum alongside compulsory Spanish subjects plus German and Valencian. Just over half its students are international. Enrolling a new student costs 500 euros, dropping to 260 for a second child and 150 for a third. Its published fee table covers 2025/2026 rather than the coming year, so ask for the current one.

Alicante and the south

King's College Alicante

King's College is in the city itself, not in an outlying urbanization, which changes the kind of home you would be buying. British curriculum with IGCSE and A-levels, the school-leaving exams taken at sixteen and eighteen in the British system, plus the IB Diploma and the IB Career-related Programme, rated Outstanding by external inspectors, and ranked first in Spain for average IB Diploma score by ib-schools.com in 2025.

Fees are billed in three termly installments and include lunch, books, materials and the technology charge, which makes the headline number less alarming than it looks next to schools that bill those separately. For 2026/2027 the school publishes 6,385 euros a year in Pre-Nursery, 9,770 in year 1, 11,265 in year 6, 13,385 in year 11 and 14,580 in year 13. Registration is 1,650 euros, up from 1,550 last year. Buses run from Alicante at 198 euros a month, from Torrevieja at 222, and from the Altea and Benidorm corridor at 244.

ELIS Villamartín

ELIS Villamartín in San Miguel de Salinas serves the Orihuela Costa and Torrevieja area. It teaches the British curriculum with a Spanish track running alongside it, with about 80 percent of the day in English, belongs to the Cognita group and is accredited by NABSS. It also publishes the most complete fee table of any school here. Monthly: 562.50 euros for part-time Nursery, 750 for full-time Nursery and Reception, 805 for years 1 and 2, 880 to 985 through the middle years, and 999 for years 12 and 13. Registration is 1,500 euros, lunch 1,800 euros a year and compulsory to year 11, transport 150 to 190 a month. Sibling discounts run 10, 20 and 40 percent for the second, third and fourth child, which puts it among the few schools here that discount from the second child at all. Over 600 students and more than 35 nationalities.

Inland, south of Valencia

British School of Alzira

British School of Alzira sits in Ribera Alta, 35 to 40 kilometers south of Valencia, in a landscape of orange groves rather than coastline. Its price list for 2026/2027 is published in full. Monthly fees run from 570 euros in the early years to 803 in Sixth Form, the compulsory lunch is 223 euros a month and the bus 210. There is also an annual non-refundable place reservation, 698 euros in the early years rising to 837 in Sixth Form, and two charges that are easy to miss: a new student joining Year 12 or Year 13 pays 1,405 rather than 837, and a student whose parents are not residents of Spain pays a 1,500 euro deposit. If your residence permit is not yet in place on the day you enroll, that second one is yours.

One correction worth making

Agora International School appears on several lists of Valencia schools. There is no Agora campus in Valencia or on the Costa Blanca. The nearest is Agora Lledó in Castellón de la Plana, 65 to 75 kilometers north of the city. If you are choosing a home around a school, that distance is the entire decision.

What the fee does not include

Tuition is the number schools advertise. It is rarely the number you pay.

The one-off admission fee is the first surprise, because it lands before your child has attended a single day. As a single charge it ranges from 500 euros at Elian's to 3,250 at British School of Valencia. The largest sum of all is not called an admission fee at all. American School of Valencia charges 150 euros to apply and 1,500 as a capital fee for new families, then either a 1,250 euro enrollment fee or, for families who buy the school share at 2,500 euros, a reduced enrollment fee of 289. A new family therefore pays 2,900 euros before the first day without the share, or 4,439 with it, and the enrollment part comes round again every March: 1,250 euros without the share, 289 with it.

Lunch is included in the tuition at American School of Valencia, Caxton College and King's College Alicante, and at Elian's on its most recent published sheet. Almost everywhere else it is charged separately, mostly between 150 and 200 euros a month, though British School of Valencia charges 210 and British School of Alzira 223. Several schools make it compulsory in the younger years, ELIS Villamartín keeps it compulsory to Year 11 and Alzira throughout, so declining it is not really an option.

Transport runs 150 to 244 euros a month depending on distance. This is where the choice of neighborhood turns into a recurring bill: a family in central Valencia sending a child to Puçol pays 182 euros a month for the privilege, every month, for however many years.

Materials and technology appear under different names: 464 euros a year at Caxton, 242 a term at British School of Valencia.

A realistic total for one child in a mid-range international school, including lunch and bus, sits closer to 13,000 to 15,000 euros a year than to the headline tuition.

For two children, do not assume a sibling discount. Several schools advertise one and then start it at the third child, which is no help at all to a family with two.

The figures in the discount column run in order starting from the child named in the last column: at ELIS Villamartín that is the second, third and fourth, and at King's College Alicante the third, fourth and fifth. So a family with two children pays close to double at most schools on this list. On a realistic all-in figure that is 26,000 to 30,000 euros a year, and the three schools confirmed to discount from the second child take off 5 to 10 percent, which does not change that arithmetic much. Ask about sibling terms early: they are the difference between two children being affordable and being out of reach, and several schools do not publish them at all.

When to apply, and why the deadlines contradict each other

There are two calendars, and families routinely assume the wrong one applies to them.

Public and concertada schools follow a single regional calendar published every year in the official gazette. For 2026/2027 it was set by a resolution of February 25, 2026.

Each year there is a second, smaller round, and it is narrower than it sounds. It is not open to everyone who missed the first: it is for families who applied and were left with no place at all, for those whose need for a school arose after the ordinary round had closed, and for applicants thrown out for filing duplicate applications. Its dates differ by stage. For 2026/2027, applications ran July 13 to 16 for Infantil and Primaria, July 17 to 20 for ESO and July 23 to 27 for Bachillerato, with enrollment in late July for the first two and on September 1 to 3 for Bachillerato. The whole process is free, with no fees at any stage.

The calendar for 2027/2028 does not exist yet. It comes out in late February or March of the calendar year in which the school year starts, so expect it in the first months of 2027. And if you are reading this after the round has run, you are not out of options: the route for anyone arriving outside the ordinary process is the next section. As of early September 2026, both admission rounds for 2026/2027 have closed, so that is exactly the case you are in.

International schools ignore this calendar entirely. None of them follows it, because it applies only to public and concertada schools. They admit year round and manage demand with waiting lists instead of deadlines. That sounds more flexible, and for an unpopular year group it is. For a popular one it is worse, because there is no line you can join at a known date, only a list of unknown length.

The practical guidance from the schools themselves is blunt. Caxton advises applying a full year ahead. American School of Valencia was accepting applications for two academic years simultaneously in late 2024. If you are moving in September and start looking in June, you are choosing from what is left.

If you arrive in the middle of the school year

This is the situation most relocating families are actually in, and the good news is that Spanish law anticipated it.

Article 44 of Decree 48/2024 covers schooling outside the ordinary admission process for urgent or special reasons. Once the ordinary process has closed, the provincial education authority must act on the spot to find a place for a child who needs one, and must put its decision in writing with the reasons for it.

Read that carefully, because it contains both a promise and a limit. The promise is a place. The limit is that the authority assigns it. You are not choosing between schools at that point, you are being allocated to one with a free desk, and it may not be the one you would have picked. It is an allocation for that school year, not a sentence: if it is not the school you wanted, you take part in the ordinary round the following spring like every other family.

Where to go: once the school year has started, the application goes to the Comisión Municipal de Escolarización, the town hall's schooling commission, and the nearest school in your assigned zone will point you to it. Where the reasons are urgent or special, the commission passes the case up to the Dirección Territorial de Educación for your province, and that is who signs the written decision. The papers are the same ones the ordinary round asks for, listed further down in the section on documents.

We arrived near the end of a school year ourselves. My daughter spent those first months in an adaptation program rather than a normal class, and joined the ordinary timetable properly the following September. In hindsight that was the better outcome. Dropping a child into the last two months of a school year in a language they do not speak helps nobody.

Arriving with a teenager

Moving a nine-year-old is mostly a question of language. Moving a fifteen-year-old is a question of qualifications, and it is the case parents ask me about most, usually with real anxiety, because the finish line is visible and the child cannot see how to reach it.

Start with placement. In the Valencian Community a child entering from a foreign school system is placed in ESO by age, and the mapping is published by the regional education authority: turning twelve in the calendar year puts a child in the first year of ESO, thirteen in the second, fourteen in the third, fifteen in the fourth. A sixteen or seventeen-year-old without a recognized leaving qualification is normally placed in the fourth year of ESO, the last compulsory one.

The legal basis is the reassuring part, and it is written down rather than customary. The implementing order of March 14, 1988 states that students joining compulsory schooling need not carry out any homologación procedure at all; today that rule is applied to Primaria and to ESO, and homologación itself is explained further down. The regional authority says the same in its own words: enrollment proceeds according to age, circumstances, knowledge and academic history. So the paperwork most families dread does not apply to the situation most families are in.

Two things complicate that picture, one about placement and one about paperwork.

A school may place a child one year below the year their age indicates, if assessment shows a curricular gap of more than two years. One year, not two: the older rule allowing a two-year drop no longer applies. This is a decision made by the school after testing, and it is about curriculum rather than language alone.

Bachillerato is different. Entering the two post-compulsory years from a foreign system does require recognition of the previous studies, or a provisional enrollment certificate while that recognition is processed. If your teenager is arriving at sixteen and heading straight into Bachillerato, start that paperwork early: the timings are further down, in the section on documents. If they are arriving at fourteen or fifteen, they will complete ESO here first and the question does not arise.

There is also one piece of arithmetic worth doing before you choose a public school for a teenager. The exemption from being graded in Valencian covers the year of arrival and the one after it. For a child arriving at fourteen that is the last two years of ESO, so Bachillerato is graded normally, in the base language of the class, and the Bachillerato average is 60 percent of the university entrance score. Two years is the whole runway.

Getting into a Spanish university afterward

This is the part that decides whether the move costs your child a year, and the answer depends on which school system they finish in.

A child who completes Spanish Bachillerato takes the PAU, the university entrance examination that replaced the older EBAU and Selectividad in June 2025. The final score combines both parts: 60 percent from the Bachillerato average and 40 percent from the exam, up to a maximum of 14 points with the optional section.

A child who finishes an international program takes a different route, through a body called UNEDasiss, run by Spain's distance-learning university. It converts foreign qualifications into the Spanish scale and issues an accreditation with an access score, which Spanish universities accept in place of the full PAU.

International Baccalaureate holders have the clearest legal footing of the two. Spanish education law names the IB diploma explicitly, in the thirty-third additional provision of the LOE, Spain's framework education act, and article 9.1 of Royal Decree 412/2014, and admits its holders to a university without an entrance examination, on the same footing as students from EU systems.

A-level holders are in a similar position for a more recent reason. A bilateral agreement between the United Kingdom and Spain, in force since 2023, admits A-level students on the same terms as EU applicants, with no homologación and no apostille. Grades convert through the UCAS tariff, the points system British universities use to compare qualifications.

In both cases, students who want to raise their score beyond the base accreditation take PCE, subject examinations run by UNED at its own centers. Two subjects are enough for holders of IB, A-levels or EU qualifications to reach the maximum. The accreditation window for 2026 runs from February 4 to December 1, with PCE sessions in late May and early September. Costs are published on the UNEDasiss site and I would check them there rather than trust a figure quoted second hand, including mine.

The practical summary for a family with a teenager: neither route closes the door on a Spanish university, and neither is obviously better. Spanish Bachillerato is the simplest administratively and puts the child inside the system they are applying to. IB and A-levels keep international options open and still lead to Spanish universities through UNEDasiss. What matters more than the choice is starting it deliberately rather than discovering it in the final year.

The points system, and why proximity is overrated

When more families want a public or concertada school than it has places, the tie is broken by a points table set out in Decree 48/2024 and detailed in Order 8/2024. The full table is long. These are the lines that decide most cases.

The line every relocating parent should read twice is the first one. A sibling at the school is worth 15 points. Your address is worth 10. For two children at the same stage, the placement of the first decides the second, and moving later will not undo it. Choose the first school as though you were choosing both, because you probably are.

Check one structural fact, though, before you count those 15 points as yours. In the public system Primaria and secondary are usually separate institutions, a primary school formally linked to a secondary one rather than a single school running both. A seven-year-old and a fourteen-year-old are therefore normally not at the same school, and the sibling points do not connect them. Concertada and international schools more often run every stage on one site, which for a family with children at different stages is a bigger argument than it looks.

And one timing trap if you are still abroad in May. Every circumstance you claim has to be true on the day the application goes in, not on the day you move, so the address that earns those 10 points has to exist by then.

The income lines are calculated against the IPREM, a reference income figure set in the national budget and used across Spanish social policy to decide who qualifies for what. It is not a benefit and nobody receives it. It is simply the yardstick. Because the national budget for 2026 was not passed, the 2023 figure remains in force: 600 euros a month, 7,200 euros a year over twelve payments, 8,400 over fourteen. Admissions uses the fourteen-payment figure and looks at the tax year two years before you apply, so half the IPREM here means 4,200 euros a person, not 3,600.

One more wrinkle. Since 2024 each school may add a single point for a criterion it defines itself and agrees with the regional government. According to RTVE, a parents' confederation counted around 250 of the region's roughly 2,800 schools whose self-chosen criterion it considered discriminatory, from being born in the same town to the parents' own religious schooling. How many schools used the point at all is not published. It is one point, so it rarely decides anything on its own, and it matters in exactly the cases where everything else is level.

Documents, and which ones you must prepare before leaving

The list itself is short. The trap is timing.

For enrollment you will need proof of address, which normally means a certificado de empadronamiento from the town hall. If you are renting and cannot register, a tenancy agreement is accepted instead, but only where the deposit has been lodged with the regional housing register on form 805 or 806. The receipt for that is held by the landlord, not by you, so ask to see it before you sign. If there is no receipt, the contract will not do for a school: ask the landlord to register the deposit, or look for a place where you will be allowed to register with the town hall. You will need identification: a passport, or a NIE, the foreigner identification number Spain issues for anything official, and the child's birth certificate or family book to prove age.

This is the part that catches families packing in a hurry. Get your child's birth certificate apostilled and officially translated before you leave. Official has a narrow meaning here. The translation has to come from a translator sworn in Spain, from a Spanish consulate abroad, from your own country's consulate in Spain, or from an official translator at home whose signature is then legalized. A plain notarized translation is not one of those. Doing any of it from Spain is slow and awkward, and you will need it at a moment when you have thirty other things to arrange.

And check one thing before you sign a rental contract: whether the landlord will let you register at the address. Some refuse, usually out of a vague fear of tax or paperwork. If a landlord will not allow empadronamiento, walk away from that apartment. A family I worked with lost weeks to exactly this, with a school place waiting and no way to prove where they lived.

If it does go wrong, the situation is still not hopeless, and this is worth saying plainly. Every child in Spain has a constitutional right to education, regardless of immigration status or paperwork. Article 2 of Decree 48/2024 guarantees a free school place in the child's own municipality or assigned zone. A missing empadronamiento certificate, the padrón registration described above, delays you. It does not disqualify you.

Recognition of foreign qualifications, called homologación, is a separate matter and less often needed than families fear. For entry into Primaria or any year of ESO, children are placed by age and the procedure is not required in practice. It becomes relevant for a completed ESO or Bachillerato qualification, for instance a teenager arriving with a school-leaving certificate. That process takes three months from the moment the file is complete, recognition of the ESO certificate is free, and a child can enroll provisionally while it runs. Documents from the EU, the EEA and Switzerland need no legalization, documents from Hague Convention countries need an apostille, everything else goes through diplomatic legalization.

A child who speaks no Spanish

This is the fear that keeps parents awake, and it deserves a straight answer rather than reassurance.

The first year is about language and belonging rather than academic performance. Schools here do not put a newly arrived child on the spot in front of a class in a language they cannot speak. Many schools run reception programs where a child spends part of the day in the ordinary class and part in a small group of five to ten children from other countries, learning Spanish and catching up on content. Availability varies. Larger towns and schools with more migrant children are more likely to have one, and if the school has nothing, a private language academy runs around 200 euros a month.

The legal backstop is article 14 of Law 1/2024, described earlier: exemption from grading in Valencian for the year of arrival and the following year.

If your town is in the Valencian zone, be ready for more than one new language at once. In class your child will hear Valencian and Spanish, and under the second model English for a quarter of the time as well. The exemption from grading takes the risk off the school record, but it does not make the first months any easier. So ask the school about its reception group before you file the application, not after.

What actually made the difference for us was smaller than any program. In the first weeks my daughter's teacher sent us a message at the end of every single day. Who she had talked to, who she had sat with, how she seemed, whether she had eaten. It sounds like a small thing. It meant we stopped guessing, and my wife stopped lying awake. She also made a friend early on, a girl from Kyiv who shared her home language, and having one person to compare notes with carried her through the first months more than any program did.

She is in secondary school now, speaks Spanish and Valencian fluently, and says she cannot imagine living anywhere else.

And a child who speaks no English

Everything above describes the public and concertada system. Families who plan to pay often assume the language problem disappears at a private school, and for Spanish it largely does. English replaces it.

International schools teach in English, and several of them will not admit an older child who does not already have it. This is the point at which a plan can fail, so it is worth checking before you fall in love with a school.

EAL, which appears in the table below, stands for English as an Additional Language: the support a British school gives a child learning the language it teaches in.

Five of the thirteen schools are missing from this table: Iale, British School of Alzira, Elian's, Mas Camarena and Sierra Bernia publish nothing about English support, and that is a question for the school itself. Read the last two columns together before you shortlist. A fourteen-year-old arriving without English can be admitted at ELIS Villamartín and would face an explicit barrier at King's College Alicante, and both are excellent schools. It bites younger than parents expect, too: at King's College a child with no English is taken at three or four, and from seven a high level is required, so a seven-year-old is already on the wrong side of that door. The difference is not quality, it is admissions policy, and no comparison site will tell you.

How schools should shape where you buy

This is where the two decisions meet, and most families make them in the wrong order: they choose a neighborhood, then discover which schools it puts in reach.

Three things fall out of that table.

Two of the most searched-for schools in the region, American School of Valencia and Caxton College, are in the same town, minutes apart. If either is your target, you are looking at Puçol and its surrounding urbanizations, and the property market there is priced accordingly.

Choosing the city over the northern belt narrows your school list to one, British School of Valencia, but removes the school bus from your life and your budget. For families who moved to Spain partly to stop driving children around, that trade is often worth more than the extra choice.

And on the Costa Blanca, the school effectively picks the stretch of coast. Lady Elizabeth anchors the Xàbia and Moraira area, Sierra Bernia and Elian's the Altea to Benidorm corridor, ELIS Villamartín the south around Orihuela Costa. These are different property markets with different prices, different rental yields and different communities.

Choosing the area. When we handle a purchase for a family with school-age children, the school question comes before the property search, not after it. That means checking which schools have places in the year groups you actually need, what the commute looks like at eight in the morning rather than on a map, and whether the town sits in the Valencian or Spanish language zone if a public school is your plan. If you would like that checked for a specific area, message us on WhatsApp at +34 664 02 87 80 or see our relocation and legal support page. If you are still deciding between regions, save this article and come back to it when you have a shortlist of towns.

What to do with all this

If you are choosing between the public system and an international school, the honest summary is that both work, and the deciding factor is usually how long you plan to stay. A family here for three years wants continuity with the curriculum the child will return to. A family staying indefinitely often benefits more from having the child inside Spanish education: they speak the language of the country they live in, and they are eligible for Spanish universities on the same terms as everyone else.

If you are going private, apply earlier than feels necessary, and budget the admission fee, lunch and transport as part of the real cost rather than extras.

If you are going public, the two things that matter most are which language zone your town sits in and where your first child gets a place.

And there is a middle route, the one we took ourselves. A concertada school is privately run and state funded, costs a fraction of an international school, and puts a child inside Spanish education rather than beside it. It is not the obvious choice for a family that arrives speaking no Spanish, and it was the right one for us.

And if you are still at the stage of deciding which part of the coast to live on, decide the school first. It is far easier to choose a home around a school than to find a school around a home.

More on this

I made a video about moving to Spain with a child, covering schools, the padrón trap described above, and what the first year actually looks like: Как переехать в Испанию с ребенком и не облажаться? Мой опыт и чек-лист 2026. It is in Russian, and it is where most of the first-hand detail in this article comes from.

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