A master's in Spain with a foreign degree: which documents need translating

Almost nobody starts here. You get to this question halfway through, with the application half filled in, when a field asks for a "legalised and translated degree" and it is not clear whether that includes the transcript, whether the translation has to be sworn, or whether something needs recognising first.

The short answer is that it depends on your university and your master's — and that is not a dodge, it is literally how the system works. What can be put in order is the process, so you do not translate more than you need or find out what was missing three days before the deadline.

First: access, admission and enrolment are not the same thing

The three words get used interchangeably in conversation and mean different things in the paperwork.

Access is proving that your qualification lets you into a master's at all. Admission criteria are how the master's ranks you against other candidates: grades, motivation letter, language, experience. Enrolment is what you do once you have been admitted and there is a fee to pay.

This matters because each stage asks for different papers at different times. The heavy academic documents — degree and grades — belong to access. Confuse the stages and you may pay to translate something you would not have been asked for until two months later, or worse, arrive at the access stage holding what you prepared for admission.

The documents you will be asked for

To gain access with studies completed at a foreign institution, the core set is almost always the same:

• The degree certificate or diploma, official and issued by the competent authority in your country. This is what proves you finished.
• The academic transcript listing subjects and grades. This is what proves what you studied and how you did.
• Evidence that the degree gives access to postgraduate study in the country that issued it. For qualifications from the European Higher Education Area this is the standard route in, and it is sometimes evidenced by a specific certificate from your home university.

If translation is required, what you need is a sworn translation of your degree and, when it is part of the set, a translation of your academic transcript. Before you order either, check whether your home university issues a Diploma Supplement: it is a descriptive document that sometimes comes bilingual already and can save you part of the work, though it does not replace the degree itself. We go into it in when the Diploma Supplement is enough.

Which language your university accepts

This is where the most expensive mistake happens, and it is made in both directions.

Some people assume a document in English needs no translation. Others translate everything just in case. Both can go wrong, because the requirement is not universal: each university sets it, and sometimes each master's does.

The Universitat de València, for example, publishes that access with studies from a foreign institution requires two things of the official documentation: legalisation and official translation. It then adds programme-specific requirements: the Law practice master's demands a recognised Spanish law degree, the one in General Health Psychology points to a specific translation and legalisation procedure, and the secondary-school teaching master's requires evidence of a B1 in a foreign language. Three master's at the same university, three different sets of demands.

Hence the only rule worth keeping: read your master's own page, not just the university's general postgraduate rules. The general rules tell you which documents exist; the programme page tells you what will be demanded of you.

And read the wording closely. In Spain, "official translation" is satisfied by a sworn translation signed by a translator accredited by the MAEC — but check whether the call also allows other routes, such as a translation issued by your home university or by a diplomatic mission, because some do.

Legalisation and translation: the order matters

Legalisation and translation are independent steps, and they go badly together when done in the wrong order.

Legalisation gives a foreign public document validity in Spain: it verifies the signature and the authority behind it. If your degree comes from a country in the Hague Convention, the route is the apostille; if not, the diplomatic channel. For qualifications from outside the European Higher Education Area, the degree is normally required to be legalised or apostilled.

The order that saves money is this: get the final document, legalise or apostille it, then translate. An apostille is text, so if it arrives after the translation it will have to be translated separately or the work redone. The same applies to degrees issued first as a provisional certificate and months later as the final diploma: translate the provisional one when the university wanted the final one and you have paid twice.

What to gather before asking for a quote

A translation quote is only reliable if whoever prepares it can see the complete document. A loose page, a cropped photo or "the degree, it's two sheets" produce numbers that change later. Before you ask, pull together this:

An example of how it looks filled in, fictional and shown only as a sample: University of Salamanca, Master's in English Studies; bachelor's degree and transcript from a Polish university, 1 and 3 sides; the call requires official translation into Spanish; Hague Convention country, so an apostille is needed; deadline 30 June. Five lines, and both the quote and the order of the steps are settled.

One last check that costs nothing: re-read the call for applications on the day you order the translation. Requirements and deadlines are updated each academic year, and the version you read in January may not be the one applied to you.

Send us the complete document, the name of the university it is going to and your deadline, and we will give you the exact price and turnaround.

→ Get a quote for my sworn translation