An American family relocating to Spain, a teenager who wants to finish high school here, a student aiming for a Spanish university: they all hit the same question. What do I do with my High School Diploma? And what if what I hold is a GED? The answer depends on what you need it for, and it helps to separate two scenarios people routinely confuse.
Enrolling in a grade is not the same as validating a title
If the student is a minor and simply wants to keep studying at a Spanish secondary school, there is a fast lane. To join a grade in Primary Education or Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO), no validation procedure is needed at all: enrolment is resolved by age, directly at the school. The school places the student in the corresponding grade and that is that.
Things change when you want a recognised Spanish title —the Graduado en ESO or the Bachiller— or when the student has already finished high school in the United States and wants that qualification to count officially in Spain. That is where validation (homologación) comes in: a procedure run by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports that declares your foreign studies equivalent to a title in the Spanish education system.
Validating the High School Diploma: to ESO or to Bachiller?
The Ministry draws the line by how many grades of the US system you completed:
- Validation to the Graduado en ESO title: the route when you have covered the part equivalent to Spain's compulsory secondary education.
- Validation to the Bachiller title: requires having completed at least the last three grades of the foreign system. A single stray year of high school is not enough; the Ministry wants to see the full track leading to the diploma.
- Convalidación por 1.º de Bachillerato: an in-between option, also anchored to those last three grades, for someone who will continue studies at a Spanish school without fully validating the complete title.
A note on cost: validation to the Graduado en ESO is free; other levels carry a fee. We are not quoting figures because they change and you should check them on the official portal at the moment you apply.
What about the GED?
The GED (General Educational Development) is, in the United States, a secondary-school equivalency certificate earned by examination rather than by attending high school in person. The Spanish Ministry does not mention it by name in its validation guidance, so honesty is in order: it is processed through the same general route for foreign non-university studies, and its equivalence is assessed case by case according to what your record shows. If your situation hinges on the GED, the prudent move is to check directly with the Ministry before assuming anything.
The documents: apostille first, sworn translation after
Whichever route applies, the core of the file is always the same:
- The diploma or title (or the official certification of having passed the final exams).
- The academic transcript, showing the subjects taken, the grades obtained and the academic years.
Both must arrive duly legalised. For US documents that means the Hague Apostille, issued in the United States by the relevant state Secretary of State (and by the federal Department of State for certain documents). This step trips people up because there is no single office: it depends on who signed the document. We unpack it in our guide to the US apostille: federal vs state.
And any document not in Spanish must come with an official translation into Spanish —what Spanish practice calls a sworn translation by a translator accredited by the MAEC. One ordering detail that saves rework: the verified copy of the documents is made after the originals are legalised, and the translation is commissioned last, once the apostille is attached, because the apostille is translated too.
If your case is more about finishing secondary school in Spain than validating a complete title, see also our guide to the secondary school recognition procedure.
Access to a Spanish university
This is where most of the confusion lives. A student coming from a non-EU foreign education system, such as the American one, who wants to enter a Spanish university has to pass through two doors:
- Validate their studies to the Bachiller title through the Ministry of Education (the procedure described above).
- Then obtain UNEDasiss accreditation, the UNED service that manages international student admissions. The UNEDasiss credential is valid for two years from issuance.
On the exams: the PCE (Pruebas de Competencias Específicas) or the EBAU are not always required. Students sit them when they want to raise their admission mark or when the destination university requires them for the specific degree. We give no Ministry resolution timelines here, because they vary and we will not promise what is not published; check them on the electronic portal when you start the procedure.
If later on you want to bring completed university studies into Spain, the thread continues in validating a foreign university degree.
Where Textualia fits
Of the whole journey, the sworn translation is the part we handle. At Textualia we translate US secondary-school diplomas, transcripts and the accompanying apostille into Spanish, with a translator accredited by the MAEC, in the format the Ministry of Education accepts. We deliver as a digitally signed PDF and, if the school asks for paper, in a physical copy too. You take care of the apostille at origin; the translation is on us.