Get Your Engineering Degree Recognized in Spain
The classic engineering disciplines are regulated professions in Spain: your degree needs homologación (official recognition by the Ministry) to practice with full professional powers. We prepare, file and track your entire case for €176, with the €166.50 official fee and the 6-month legal deadline on the table from day one.
What legally applies to your degree
Industrial, Civil, Telecommunications, Aeronautical, Agricultural, Mining, Forestry or Naval Engineering: all appear in the Annex of Royal Decree 889/2022 as regulated professions. That means the correct route to practice with full powers is homologación (official recognition for regulated professions), not a mere academic equivalency — and your file is assessed against the Spanish reference degree.
If your branch of engineering is one of the regulated ones, your route is homologación: it entitles you to practice the profession and sign off projects in Spain. If your programme does not match any regulated degree (for instance, some commercial or management engineering programmes), the correct route is the declaration of equivalency (equivalencia) to bachelor's level. We analyze your curriculum before filing anything and tell you which procedure fits your specific case — filing the wrong one means months lost and a non-refundable fee.
- Official 790-107 fee
- €166.50
- Legal deadline for a decision
- 6 months
- Fully online procedure
- 100%
Which documents your file requires
The Document Agent checks every piece against the requirements of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities before filing — a file that goes in right the first time is the best defense against extra months of corrections.
- Proof of identity and nationality (passport or Spanish NIE)
- Official degree certificate, legalized with the Apostille of The Hague (waived for EU/EEA/Switzerland)
- Academic transcript showing programme length, courses taken and workload or credits, stamped and signed by your university
- Sworn translation (traducción jurada) into Spanish of the degree and the transcript
- Proof of payment of the 790-107 fee
Official fee: €166.50 (form 790-107)
The procedure fee is €166.50, code 107, paid with form 790-107. It is the same for both homologación (official recognition) and the declaration of equivalency. Beware: the 790-079 fee quoted on many websites applies to NON-university studies — paying it by mistake freezes your case.
If you pay from outside Spain, the transfer goes to the Ministry's account (IBAN ES16 9000 0001 2002 5310 8022, BIC ESPBESMMXXX) and bank charges are on you: if less than €166.50 arrives, the case stalls. We verify the exact amount before filing.
The fee is non-refundable if the application is rejected, lapses or is denied — one more reason to file the case right the first time.
And the visa? We've got you covered too
Recognizing your degree is half the journey. When it's time for the visa — work, study or residence — the Visa Agent guides you and we manage it with trusted partners specialized in each destination, with your academic file already resolved. Immigration requirements depend on the receiving country.
Official sources
Everything on this page is based on current official regulations. Check the primary sources yourself:
You provide the documents. We do the rest.
We assemble your file
We gather your degree certificate, the academic transcript with courses and credits, and your ID document. Our Document Agent checks that every piece meets the format required by the Ministry's online portal.
Apostille and sworn translation
We coordinate the Apostille of The Hague in your home country and the sworn translation (traducción jurada) into Spanish of your degree and transcript. EU/EEA/Swiss citizens are exempt from the apostille.
Online filing
We file your application through the Ministry's electronic portal, pay the 790-107 fee (€166.50) and register the case. The entire procedure is handled online — no in-person appointments.
Follow-up until resolution
Our Regulator Agent monitors the status of your case and we respond to any request for corrections. The legal deadline for a decision is 6 months.
Start your recognition
- Upfront feasibility analysis of your file
- Apostille / legalization and sworn translation coordination
- Complete preparation and filing of your application
- File tracking until resolution
- Response to requirements and corrections
- Visa guidance with trusted partners
Official government fees (in Spain, €166.50 under form 790-107) are paid separately to the competent authority. Timelines depend on the receiving country.
Secure payment with Stripe. Right after paying you complete your profile and get straight into your Booka dashboard — the same account works in the mobile app.
Working as an engineer in Spain: who hires and what it pays
Engineering employment in Spain clusters around four poles: civil works and building (contractors, design firms, public bodies tendering infrastructure); manufacturing in the north and along the Mediterranean arc (automotive, machine tools, food, chemicals); utilities and renewables, where solar, wind and storage have created steady demand for project and O&M engineers; and telecommunications, absorbed by operators, integrators and equipment makers. The typical employer is not a large corporation: it is a mid-sized engineering or technical consultancy delivering projects for third parties, or an industrial company of 50 to 500 people, often outside the big capitals. Several technical occupations appear repeatedly in the hard-to-fill occupations list published quarterly by the Spanish public employment service (SEPE).
On money, honestly: there is no official rate per profession. The published reference is the Spanish statistics office (INE) Annual Structure of Earnings Survey — 2024 data, final in May 2026 — which puts average annual earnings at €29,540.26 and the median at €24,497.17 across all employees; university-qualified technical profiles sit clearly above that average, and the legal floor of any contract is the 2026 minimum wage of €1,221 a month over fourteen payments. What sets your actual band is the applicable collective agreement — your province's metal agreement, the one for engineering and technical design offices, or a company agreement — plus project-linked variable pay. Always ask for the agreement and your professional grade in writing before signing.
Beyond the degree, Spanish employers look at three things: demonstrable experience on real projects, English (and increasingly the ability to work with international teams), and command of your branch's tools, from CAD and BIM to structural calculation software or automation environments. Recognition is what lets you sign and join a professional association; the rest of your professional record is what sets the salary.
Market figures on this page are indicative and come from public sources cited in the text. They are not an offer, a guarantee or an earnings forecast. Booka manages credential recognition and professional registration — we are not a recruitment agency.
Which Spanish degree is your engineering degree compared against?
Recognition is never resolved against “engineering” in the abstract: it is resolved against a specific Spanish qualification in the Engineering and Architecture field of knowledge. The usual reference points are the Bachelor's in Civil Engineering plus the Master's in Civil Engineering (Caminos, Canales y Puertos); the bachelor's degrees in Mechanical, Electrical, Industrial Electronics and Automation or Industrial Chemical Engineering, with the Master's in Industrial Engineering when your training is long-cycle; the bachelor's and master's in Telecommunications Engineering; and the agricultural, mining, forestry and naval branches with their bachelor's/master's pairs.
The detail that decides your case is level. A Latin American degree of five or six years with a final project usually maps to the qualifying master's, while a four-year one tends towards bachelor's level. That reading does not come from the name of your degree but from the workload and content shown in your academic transcript.
What your degree is called back home
Names change from country to country, and that alone confuses the first search. In Colombia and Peru the standard titles are Ingeniería Civil, Ingeniería Industrial and Ingeniería Electrónica, over ten semesters. In Mexico you find Ingeniería Civil, Ingeniería Mecánica Eléctrica (IME) and Ingeniería Química, often with the professional title “Ingeniero” and an associated cédula profesional. Venezuela issues Ingeniero Civil, Ingeniero Industrial and Ingeniero de Petróleo. In Argentina the classic qualification is Ingeniero Civil or Ingeniero en Construcciones, five to six years, with the certificado analítico as the academic document.
The label does not matter: the case is decided on content. What does matter is which document your university issues, and there getting it right counts.
Training gaps and the aptitude test: what usually happens in engineering
Because this is a regulated profession, your curriculum is compared with the Spanish one and the Ministry can decide in three ways: straight recognition, recognition conditional on additional requirements, or refusal. The middle path is the most frequent for Latin American degrees, and the gaps that recur are recognizable: branch-specific technology modules, structural and building services calculation where the original degree had a very general core, health and safety, and the final degree project when your programme did not include one with the workload the Spanish qualification requires.
When the Ministry attaches conditions, you can choose between sitting an aptitude test (prueba de conjunto) at a Spanish university or taking the additional coursework indicated. It is not a failure: it is the normal way to close curriculum differences. What is worth doing is anticipating it, because it changes your calendar and your budget. That is why we analyze your transcript subject by subject before filing and tell you the likely scenario, instead of discovering it six months later.
After recognition: professional association and signing off projects
With the credential in hand, the next step towards signing authority is membership of the official association (colegio) for your branch — civil engineers, industrial engineers in your region, telecommunications engineers, and their counterparts in agronomy, mining, forestry and naval engineering. Membership is what enables project certification and the functions reserved by law to a competent technician.
If your goal is public employment, recognition opens competitive exams for technical corps of the State, the regions and municipalities, whose pay is set annually in the State Budget Act by subgroup (A1 for master's-level qualifications, A2 for bachelor's). And if you work in the private sector, the credential is simply the document that ends any discussion about your qualification in a selection process.
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Frequently asked questions
Does recognition let me sign off projects as an engineer in Spain?
Homologación to the corresponding regulated degree entitles you to practice the profession with its full powers. To officially certify projects you will also need membership of the engineering association (colegio) for your branch — a subsequent step that is done with the recognition credential in hand.
My engineering degree has no exact equivalent in Spain — what happens?
That is the most common scenario for Latin American degrees. The Ministry compares your curriculum with the Spanish reference degree; if training gaps are found, it can make recognition conditional on additional requirements (an aptitude test or coursework). Our prior curriculum analysis tells you the likely scenario before you pay the fee.
How much does an engineer earn in Spain?
There is no official rate per profession. The public reference is the INE Annual Structure of Earnings Survey (2024): average annual earnings of €29,540.26 and a median of €24,497.17 across all employees, with qualified technical profiles above that average. Your actual band is set by the applicable collective agreement (provincial metal agreement, technical design offices, or a company agreement), your professional grade and documented experience. Always ask for the agreement and grade in writing before signing.
Do I need my degree recognized to be hired as an engineer?
For project work without signing authority, many private companies hire before recognition. But any role that involves signing, certifying or taking responsibility as a competent technician, and any public post, requires the recognized degree. In practice, having the case already filed improves your position in a selection process.
Can I look for work while my case is pending?
Yes, and we recommend it. The legal deadline for a decision is 6 months, so waiting idle means losing half a year. Many clients join engineering firms and technical consultancies in project-support roles and move up to a signing role as soon as the credential arrives.
How long does the procedure take in Spain?
The legal deadline for a decision is 6 months from the moment the file is complete (Royal Decree 889/2022). Applicants' experience suggests longer real timelines depending on caseload; the Ministry publishes no official averages. A well-prepared file with no requests for corrections is the best way to avoid extra months.
Do I need the Apostille of The Hague and a sworn translation?
Yes, with limited exceptions. Your degree must be legalized with the Apostille of The Hague from your home country (EU, EEA and Swiss citizens are exempt), and both the degree and the academic transcript require a sworn translation (traducción jurada) into Spanish. We coordinate both as part of the service.
Can I start the process from my home country, without being in Spain?
Yes. The procedure runs entirely online through the Ministry's electronic portal, and the fee can be paid by international transfer. You never need to be in Spain or attend any in-person appointment.
What exactly does Booka do, and what do I do?
You hand us your documents; we do the rest: we verify the file at source with our Verifier Agent, coordinate the apostille and sworn translation, file the online application, pay the fee and track the case through to resolution, answering any request from the Ministry.
Other degrees we recognize in Spain
Your degree, recognized in Spain
Engineering · full management for €176. You hand us the documents; we handle the file, the fees and the tracking until resolution.
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