You trained at a French medical school or nursing institute, you have an offer in Barcelona or a life plan in Valencia, and you are wondering whether your qualification counts here. Good news: this time your instinct is right. Unlike a British or American graduate, you start from a far more favourable regime, precisely because France is in the European Union. It is worth understanding why, because the whole procedure — and in particular which documents you will need to translate — follows from it.
What being in the EU changes
Medicine and nursing (nurse responsible for general care) are among the professions covered by the automatic recognition set out in Directive 2005/36/EC. The idea is simple: member states harmonised the minimum training conditions for these qualifications. A medical degree issued in France meets, by design, the same requirements as a Spanish Grado en Medicina. The Spanish authorities therefore do not have to re-examine the content of your studies.
This is the opposite of the third-country case. A graduate from outside the EU must go through homologación: the administration compares the foreign qualification with the Spanish one and checks academic equivalence. You do not. You are not requesting a degree homologation but a recognition of your professional qualification, which is quicker and more predictable. Degree recognition in the sense of academic revalidation is for non-EU qualifications — your case follows a different route.
The right route: recognition, not revalidation
For a regulated health profession, recognition of the qualification falls to the Ministry of Health (sanidad.gob.es), which handles applications from professionals trained in the EU under Directive 2005/36/EC. That is where your right to practise is decided, not at the university desk reserved for third countries.
We describe the shape of the process, not the step by step: forms and timescales change, and the authoritative source is the ministry itself. Start there. Above all, keep the logic in mind: because your qualification is harmonised, the administration validates the qualification, and then you still face the final step — registering with the provincial professional body (Colegio de Médicos or Colegio de Enfermería) in the province where you intend to work. Without that registration, recognition alone does not let you practise. It is the last legal stage, not an optional formality.
The documents to gather
Even under this favourable regime, a recognition file rests on a few very specific pieces:
- The degree in medicine or nursing.
- A certificate of conformity issued by the competent French authority, confirming that your qualification complies with Directive 2005/36/EC and opens the door to automatic recognition.
- A certificate of registration and good professional standing — or, if you are leaving France, a certificate of removal (radiation) — from the Conseil national de l'Ordre des médecins or the Ordre des infirmiers. It proves you are or were registered and that nothing restricts your practice.
- Proof of nationality of a member state (a valid identity card or passport).
What needs a sworn translation, and what does not
This is where many people get it wrong, in one direction or the other. Not all your French documents receive the same treatment.
The academic and professional pieces — the degree, the certificate of conformity, the certificate from the Ordre — are aimed at a Spanish administration that works in Spanish. As a rule they require a sworn translation from French into Spanish, produced by a translator authorised by the MAEC. These documents are not covered by the European translation exemptions; plan for them.
Your civil-status documents (birth, marriage, proof of life), on the other hand, often fall under Regulation (EU) 2016/1191. Accompanied by the multilingual standard form issued by the French town hall, they are exempt from legalisation and, in principle, do not need to be translated for the Spanish administration. That is a genuine saving: do not pay for a translation the law spares you.
The clock on the good-standing certificate
One document behaves just as in the British case: the Ordre's good-standing or registration certificate has a short validity — often three months. Your degree, by contrast, does not expire. Request it at the end of the process, as close as possible to submission, and start its translation straight away. Let the most perishable document set the timetable.
Where Textualia fits in
For a health professional coming from France, the obstacle is not the substance of the law — the Directive works in your favour — but getting the paperwork right: translating cleanly, in the correct order, the pieces that require it, without translating those that Regulation 2016/1191 exempts. At Textualia we produce the sworn translation into Spanish of degrees, certificates of conformity and certificates from the Ordre with translators authorised by the MAEC, delivered as a signed PDF and, if a professional body or ministry asks for paper, as a physical copy. Once you are settled, keep the EU registration certificate in mind too — and let the translations be the part you do not have to worry about.