Schools in Valencia 2026: The Guide for English-Speaking Parents

Arriving Now, With No School Place: What Actually Happens

If you are reading this in the second half of the year, the ordinary admission round is over. For the 2026-27 school year, applications for Infantil and Primaria ran from 7 to 18 May 2026, applications for ESO and Bachillerato from 21 May to 1 June 2026, and the second round, the fase extraordinaria, closed on 16 July 2026 for Infantil and Primaria and 20 July 2026 for ESO. All of it is finished.

That is not the end of the road, and it is worth knowing that there is a formal channel rather than a scramble. The 2026-27 admission resolution is explicit: once the school year has begun, anyone looking for a place outside the ordinary and extraordinary phases must apply to the Comisión Municipal de Escolarización, which then assigns the place according to the mechanisms it has in place. Where there are urgent or special reasons, that commission passes the case to the Education Inspectorate, which reports to the territorial directorate, which can issue an express reasoned resolution.

Decreto 48/2024 backs this up from the other side. It gives the schooling commissions the specific job of assigning a place to pupils who have none after the admission process, and to pupils who are enrolled de forma sobrevenida, meaning unexpectedly, during the school year. A municipal commission has to exist in every municipality with more than one publicly funded school teaching the same level, so Valencia has one.

Who to contact in the city of Valencia

The relevant office is the Oficina Municipal de Escolarización (OME), part of the Regidoria d'Educació at the Ajuntament de València.

Ringing round schools: useful, but it is not the application

Calling schools to ask about plazas vacantes is legitimate reconnaissance and we would do it. After enrolment closes, each school publishes on its own noticeboard the list of remaining vacancies it will offer to the waiting list, and those lists can also be requested from the head teacher. So a school can tell you what it has free.

What a school cannot do, once the year has started, is hand you the place. The assignment is made by the municipal commission. Use the calls to build a realistic shortlist, then apply through the OME with that shortlist in hand.

One thing we could not establish: how soon after the start of term the commission is actually able to place a child. Secondary sources suggest requests start moving from around mid-September, once updated vacancy data reaches the municipality, but no official text we could find gives a date. Ask the OME rather than planning around a number you read anywhere, including here.

Next July, if you are applying for the following school year and arrived too late for the ordinary round, the fase extraordinaria is your route. Its second priority group is defined as pupils who need a place unexpectedly in their municipality and were unable to apply during the ordinary phase, which is exactly the newcomer's case.

The Three Kinds of School, and What They Really Cost

Spanish education splits three ways, and the middle one is the word that confuses every newcomer.

Público

State schools, run by the regional education department. Tuition is free. Compulsory schooling covers Primaria (roughly ages 6 to 12) and ESO (roughly 12 to 16), with the second cycle of Infantil (3 to 6) also publicly funded and free, and Bachillerato (16 to 18) sitting after the compulsory stages.

Concertado

Privately run schools funded by the state under an agreement called a concierto. Legally, this is the important part, and it is unambiguous. Article 88.1 of the state education law says that public and concertado schools may not charge families for teaching that is free, may not oblige families to make contributions to foundations or associations, and may not set up obligatory paid services attached to the teaching. Extracurricular activities and school services such as lunch and transport sit outside that ban but must be genuinely voluntary. Decreto 48/2024 repeats the same rule for the Comunitat Valenciana almost word for word.

In practice, many concertados ask for a monthly payment anyway, presented as a voluntary contribution. The most recent evidence we could find is CICAE's tenth study of concertado fees, fieldwork carried out in March, April and May 2025 using mystery shoppers, with a sample of 29 schools in the Comunitat Valenciana. From that sample:

• 55 per cent of the schools visited charged a base monthly fee.
• 63 per cent did not explain during the visit that the payment is voluntary.
• Thirteen of the 29 schools charged no base fee at all.
• Among those that did charge, recorded base fees ran from 10 EUR a month to 450 EUR a month, the top figure being Colegio Gençana, where it includes lunch and school materials.

We are deliberately not giving you a regional average. The figure that circulates in English, around 83 EUR a month, is the 2023-24 number from an earlier edition of the same study, and the current study contradicts itself on the Comunitat Valenciana within a single page, with press coverage adding two more numbers on top. The range and the distribution above are what we can stand behind. Ask the specific school what it asks for, in writing, and remember that for the free stages the answer is legally a request and not a bill.

The regional ombudsman, the Síndic de Greuges, has publicly asked the education department to make free schooling at concertados real and effective and to supervise fee charging more closely. We have that from press reporting rather than from the resolution text, so treat the detail as second-hand and the direction of travel as clear.

One exception worth knowing: Bachillerato is not a compulsory stage, and where a concertado teaches it under a concierto singular a different charging regime applies. What that costs in practice varies by school and we have no verified figures for it.

Privado and international

Fully private schools charge fees they set themselves and publish. Most of the international schools serving Valencia are in this category, and they sit outside the regional language rules entirely: the 2024 education freedom law binds public and concertado schools, while private non-concertado schools may opt in but are not obliged to. That is why an international school can teach in English all day and a concertado cannot.

Valencian or Spanish: The Question Nobody Answers Honestly

This is the single most misreported topic in English-language writing about schools here, so we are going to be careful.

The Comunitat Valenciana is split by law into a Spanish-predominance zone and a Valencian-predominance zone, and the rules differ between them. The city of València and its metropolitan belt are in the Valencian-predominance zone, so the rules below are the ones that apply to you. If you read an article quoting an 80 / 10 / 10 split of teaching time, it is describing the other zone and it does not apply here.

It is not a school-wide vote. It is an allocation of class groups.

Under Ley 1/2024, the language families choose determines, for each school, how many of that school's class groups run with Valencian as the base language and how many run with Spanish, according to a fixed table in the law. It is not winner takes all in a school of any size. A few rows from that table make the mechanism concrete:

So the useful question is not "what language does this school teach in". A big city school usually runs Spanish-base and Valencian-base groups side by side in the same year, and your child is placed in one of them. The question is whether the school has a group in the language you want, and whether there is room in it. The law says that where demand is enough to form a whole group and not enough places are offered in that language, the administration must take measures to meet the demand. Whether that translates into an actual class is another matter: the Conselleria's own FAQ answers a flat "no" when asked whether a divided single-group class will be split, and where places in one language run out, pupils are initially attached to places in the other language.

The small-school case is the harsh one. With a single group in a year, a simple majority takes it and there is no group in the other language at all. The percentage is calculated over the votes actually cast, with no minimum turnout, which the Conselleria confirms bluntly: asked whether one voting family would set the language for the whole level, its FAQ answers "yes".

When you choose, and how long the choice lasts

For a child entering the three-year-old Infantil year, there is no separate ballot. The base language of those groups is calculated from the language chosen as first option on each admission application, during the ordinary admission process. Your language choice and your school choice are made on the same form.

Then it sticks. The base language set for an Infantil group continues through the rest of that Infantil cycle and all of Primaria. The system only updates the language allocation annually at three entry points: starting Infantil, starting Year 1 of ESO, and starting Year 1 of Bachillerato. The box you tick on a three-year-old's application governs roughly nine years of schooling.

Two smaller mechanisms are worth knowing. A pupil already at a school can move to the other base language at their own school, subject to vacancies, by taking part in the admission process with their pupil identification number (NIA) and putting their own school as first option. And pupils confirming a place in Year 1 of ESO can choose the base language for the school they are moving up to, within the same procedure.

The region-wide consultation of families held from 25 February to 4 March 2025 was a one-off transitional exercise to sort pupils who were already enrolled. The Conselleria states in its FAQ that it will not be repeated annually, because from 2025-26 onwards the choice rides on the admission process instead.

How much of the day is in which language

For Infantil in the Valencian-predominance zone the law sets exact figures: 65 per cent of teaching time in the group's base language, 25 per cent in the other co-official language and 10 per cent in English. Early literacy work must be done exclusively in the base language.

For Primaria and ESO there is no single split. The law offers two models, and schools sit on one of them:

Alongside that: literacy is acquired in the base language and carries on into Year 1 of Primaria; throughout Primaria, maths or the natural, social and cultural world subject is taught in the base language; from Year 3 of Primaria and through ESO both co-official languages must be present, the base language always has the larger share, and the gap between the two may not exceed 20 per cent of teaching time. English, meaning the subject plus at least one non-language subject taught in English, takes between 15 and 25 per cent. Bachillerato works differently again, with no per-group base language: schools adjust the share of the timetable in each co-official language in proportion to what pupils chose on their Year 1 applications.

One entitlement that is rarely mentioned and often useful: pupils may sit exams and assessments in Valencian or in Spanish, at their own choice, whatever language the subject is taught in.

What families actually chose

In the 2025-26 consultation, in the city of València including its pedanías, 63,86 per cent of votes cast chose Spanish and 36,14 per cent chose Valencian. Those are shares of votes cast, not of all families: turnout across the region was 58,61 per cent.

The wider picture is the part that gets reported selectively. Across the whole Comunitat Valenciana the result went the other way by a hair, 50,53 per cent Valencian against 49,47 per cent Spanish, a margin of 3.609 votes out of 338.843. In the province of València as a whole, Valencian took 57,84 per cent. Any headline quoting only one of those three numbers is telling you a third of the story.

And it changes sharply between municipalities, which is a real input into where you decide to live:

Fifteen minutes up the same road changes the language mix of your child's likely class group substantially. Godella and Rocafort came out three-quarters Spanish; Bétera came out nearly two-thirds Valencian.

The Conselleria publishes these results school by school, in spreadsheets by province and stage, at portal.edu.gva.es/consulta/es/resultados. If you take one link from this guide, take that one. The caveat matters though: those files are the 2025-26 consultation results, not a live register of what each school runs today. Use them to see the direction a school leans, then ask the school.

Finally, for completeness: parts of Ley 1/2024, including the articles that set up this choice mechanism, are the subject of a constitutional challenge admitted for processing in November 2024. The law was never suspended and has governed the 2025-26 and 2026-27 school years normally. We are describing the rules as they currently stand and we are not going to speculate about the outcome.

Arriving With No Spanish and No Valencian

We are not going to tell you how quickly your child will adapt, because we have no data on that and neither does anybody else writing about it in English. What we can tell you is exactly what the system offers a child in that position, because it is written down.

• Exemption from assessment in Valencian, for late arrivals. A pupil schooled in the Comunitat Valenciana for the first time, coming from another autonomous community or from a foreign education system, may request exemption from the assessment and grading of Valencian for the school year in which they arrive and the school year immediately after. After that, an access adaptation in the subject is provided instead.
• Exemption on grounds of temporary residence. A family that can formally evidence temporary residence in a Valencian-predominance municipality may request exemption for a maximum of three consecutive school years.
• The exemption is from marks, not from the room. This is the part people get wrong. A pupil with a favourable exemption is still obliged to attend the lessons and take an active part in them.
• Changing school mid-stream. A pupil moving to a school where the same base language is not available is entitled to an individual linguistic adaptation, meaning an adjustment of the vehicular language in some subjects.

The application is a paper one, handed in at the school secretary's office with a stamped receipt, not online and not at a PROP office. It is procedure id_proc 235 on sede.gva.es. It is decided not by the head teacher but by the Dirección General de Ordenación Educativa, and administrative silence counts as a refusal. It applies at concertados too.

For the 2026-27 school year, exemption applications close on 22 December 2026. A pupil who enrols mid-year has three months from enrolling, with a hard stop of 15 June 2027. Those dates are reset every year by the July organisation resolution, so check the current ones rather than trusting a date you found online. Individual school websites are the worst source here: several still publish last year's deadlines and cite superseded rules.

Two myths worth killing while we are here. No Valencian qualification is required to move up a year or to leave school with a certificate. The law works the other way round: passing Valencian earns a free language certification, A2 for all six years of Primaria, B1 for all four years of ESO, B2 for both years of Bachillerato, and C1 with a high enough average. The much-discussed C1 requirement applies to teachers, who need it to teach non-language subjects in Valencian, not to pupils. And note the trade-off in the other direction: pupils who do not take the exemption keep the entitlement to those free certifications.

The Points System, and the Thing Everyone Gets Wrong

When a school gets more applications than it has places, a points scale (the baremo) decides who gets in. Here is the correction that matters most, because English-language relocation content in Valencia gets it wrong constantly.

Proximity has exactly three values: 10 if your home or your workplace is inside the catchment area, 5 if it is in a bordering area, and 0 otherwise. A work address counts on equal terms with a home address, and bordering areas can cross municipal boundaries. The practical consequence for someone weighing up where to live: a family living outside the city and applying to a school inside it scores 5, not 10, and that gap is real. It is one of the few genuine school-related arguments for choosing one municipality over another, and it has nothing to do with the neighbourhood. If you are still deciding where to land, our where to live in Valencia quiz works through the city and metro options, and the city-versus-outside fork in it is exactly the fork that decides your points pool.

The main scores

Large-family and single-parent points stack. Income points and the inclusion-income points are mutually exclusive. For Bachillerato admission the previous grade average is added on top of the baremo score. And the circunstancia específica is worth a look school by school, because it is the one criterion each school sets for itself and publishes in advance.

Preferences run before points

This is structurally important and almost always left out of English write-ups. Before the points are compared at all, an ordered list of preferences applies: pupils already at the school, pupils from a linked feeder school confirming their place, pupils in foster care or pre-adoption guardianship, pupils in residential care, pupils relocating because of gender violence or terrorism, pupils relocating because of eviction or documented severe social exclusion, the music, dance and high-performance sport priority, and existing pupils moving up to Bachillerato at their own school. Points only order applicants within a preference band.

What this means if you have just arrived

Honestly: with one child and no sibling anywhere in the system, you start 15 points behind any applicant who has a sibling at the school, and because proximity is flat across the city there is no address that closes that gap. Sibling points are also the first tiebreak, so you lose the tie as well as the score. Applying only to heavily oversubscribed schools is therefore a poor bet for a newcomer, and building your list around that fact is more useful than building it around a catchment map that does not exist.

But it is not true that a newcomer can score nothing. If you are applying for two or more children at the same Infantil or Primaria school, for the first time in the Comunitat Valenciana or because you have moved locality, the baremo gives 15 points per sibling once one of them has obtained a place. That puts a two-child family on level terms with an incumbent family. The conditions are strict: same school, Infantil or Primaria only (this route does not exist for ESO or Bachillerato), and one child has to get a place first for the others to follow. Note also that this criterion is absent from the tiebreak list, so you can score the points but you cannot use them to win a tie.

Income points are the other thing new arrivals should not count on. The income assessed is the family's for the tax year two years before the application, and every family member over 16 has to expressly authorise the Spanish tax agency to confirm it, otherwise the criterion is not scored at all. A family that arrived in 2026 has no Spanish 2024 return for the agency to confirm. We could not find a source stating explicitly what happens in that case, but the practical reading is that the criterion scores nothing.

Ties, and a rule that matters to foreign families

Ties are broken by comparing criteria one after another in a fixed order, starting with siblings, then proximity, then per-capita income, and running through thirteen steps. Whatever is still tied after that goes to a public draw of letters, not numbers: two letters are drawn to order first surnames and two more for second surnames. For 2026-27 the draw was held on 21 April 2026 and produced Q-O for first surnames and N-W for second.

The Annual Cycle: When It All Happens

If you are planning for a future school year rather than scrambling for this one, this is the shape of it. The calendar is set annually by resolution of the Dirección General de Centros Docentes and published in the DOGV, the regional official gazette. In the last two rounds that publication landed in late February or March, with applications for Infantil and Primaria opening in the first half of May and for ESO and Bachillerato in the second half of May.

The 2026-27 round, now closed, ran like this:

For ESO and Bachillerato in the same round, initial vacancies were published on 21 May 2026 and applications ran from 21 May 09:00 to 1 June 10:59, with the extraordinary phase from 17 to 20 July 2026.

Note the closing times: 10:59 on the final day for the ordinary phase, not the end of the day. That detail has cost people places.

No 2027-28 dates exist yet, and we will not invent any. Expect the resolution in late February or March 2027, and expect the May pattern above to be the shape of it rather than the schedule itself.

Documents, and the Platform Nobody Warns You About

The whole admission process runs electronically through the regional platform at Adminova.gva.es. To use it you need an access key, obtained by verifying your identity through one of these:

• DNI number, plus the support number on the card, plus date of birth.
• NIE, foreigner's card or residence permit: the NIE, plus the support number (IXESP on older NIE cards), plus date of birth.
• EU citizen registration certificate: the NIE, plus the certificate number preceded by the letter C, plus date of birth.
• Or a digital certificate from the ACCV, the Cl@ve system, or an electronic DNI with a card reader.

What proves what

• Your address: the legal representative's DNI, plus a recent water, electricity or telephone bill, or a rental contract. A rental contract has to come with proof that the deposit was lodged with the regional tax authority (modelo 805 or 806). If the addresses on your documents disagree, the office may then ask for a residence certificate from the town hall.
• A work address: an employer certificate, or modelo 036 or 037 if you are self-employed.
• Income: express authorisation from every family member over 16 for the education administration to confirm the figures with the tax agency. No authorisation means the criterion is simply not scored.
• Large family, single-parent family, disability, inclusion income: the corresponding official Spanish recognition. A foreign disability certificate is not enough on its own; the assessment has to be recognised by the competent Spanish body.

Worth correcting a widespread belief: the padrón is not the primary proof of address for school admission. The procedure asks for a utility bill or a tenancy agreement first, and the padrón certificate comes in as a fallback where documents disagree. Be registered anyway, because half of Spanish administrative life runs on it, but do not assume it is the document the school wants.

One more, for older children: a pupil entering Bachillerato with foreign qualifications applies to the Subdelegación del Gobierno to have their previous studies recognised and presents the credential from the Ministerio de Educación. While that recognition is pending, they present the volante para la inscripción condicional, a provisional grade average of 5 points is applied, and admission is conditional until it is resolved.

International Schools: Where They Are and What They Charge

Most of the international provision sits outside the city, in a belt of towns to the north and west. That is the practical reason the "school belt" exists as a housing pattern at all: families choose Paterna, La Canyada or L'Eliana because of where the school is, then live with the commute into the city.

Four things that catch people out. British School of Valencia and British College La Cañada are different schools with confusable names, one in Ruzafa inside the city and one in Paterna. Iale is not a British or American school: it teaches the Spanish national curriculum bilingually, and families mis-file it constantly. Deutsche Schule Valencia is in the city, on C/ Jaime Roig, not out in the belt. And Cambridge House is the school formerly called Cambridge House Community College, now Cambridge House British International School and part of the Globeducate group, while the Lycée now brands itself Lycée Français International de Valencia.

Published fees, taken from each school's own site

These are the figures the schools themselves publish, with the school year they attach to them. They are not adjusted, averaged or converted, and they exclude the extras unless stated.

• Deutsche Schule Valencia, labelled 2026/2027: 6.103,00 EUR a year for Infantil and Cursos 1 to 4, 5.541,00 EUR for Cursos 5 to 8, 6.051,00 EUR for Cursos 9 to 10, 6.103,00 EUR for Cursos 11 and 12. Matrícula from 1.400,00 to 1.750,00 EUR by birth order, plus a refundable 1.000,00 EUR deposit. Spanish as a foreign language is charged separately at 805,00 or 1.035,00 EUR a year. The cheapest of the schools here that publish fees.
• Lycée Français International de Valencia, labelled 2026-2027: 5.809 EUR a year for PS to CM2, 6.549 EUR for 6ème to 3ème, 7.442 EUR for 2de to Terminale, billed monthly. First registration 1.500,00 EUR. Half-pension 889 or 1.112 EUR a year. Sibling discounts from the third child.
• Iale International School, labelled 2026/27, monthly September to June: 450 EUR for ages 3 to 6, 520 to 535 EUR for Primary, 602 to 627 EUR for Secondary, 660 EUR for the National Bachillerato and 840 EUR for the International Bachillerato. Registration 790 EUR, or 550 EUR for a sibling. Spanish support for foreign pupils is 90 EUR a month on top.
• British College La Cañada, labelled 2025-2026 and so a year behind the rest of this list: 5.750 EUR a year for Nursery to Y1, rising to 7.560 EUR for Y12 to Y13. Enrolment 925 EUR non-refundable, education fee 217 EUR a term, lunch 202 to 208 EUR a month, transport 1.910 to 2.010 EUR a year.
• Cambridge House British International School, labelled 2026-27: 7.700 EUR a year for Nursery and Reception, 8.250 EUR for Y1 to Y6, 9.400 EUR for Y7 to Y11, 9.950 EUR for Y12 to Y13. Registration and initial matrícula 380 EUR each. Tuition includes lunch, insurance, a nurse and university counselling. The school's own document states the prices do not include taxes.
• American School of Valencia, labelled 2026-2027: 7.427 EUR a year for Early Childhood, 7.878 EUR for Elementary, 9.291 EUR for Middle School, 9.516 to 9.862 EUR for High School. Application fee 150 EUR, annual enrolment fee 289 EUR for shareholders or 1.250 EUR otherwise, plus a 1.500 EUR one-off capital fee for new students.
• British School of Valencia, labelled 2026-2027: 760 EUR a month for EYFS, 830 EUR for Primary, 960 EUR for Secondary, 995 EUR for Sixth Form, over ten payments. Initial admission fee 3.250 EUR, or 1.600 EUR for a sibling or for entry at Y7 to Y13, and 445 EUR a year to renew. Materials 242 EUR a term, transport 210 EUR a month, dining 210 EUR a month and compulsory for ages 2 to 9.
• Caxton College: 687 EUR a month for Baby Caxton, 842 EUR for Nursery and Reception, 888 EUR for Primary Years 1 to 6, 948 to 981 EUR for Secondary, 998 EUR for Sixth Form, with dining included from Nursery upwards. Enrolment 900 EUR one-off, classroom and technology resources 464 EUR a year, transport from the city 182 EUR a month. The school does not label these with an academic year, so we are not attaching one.
• El Plantío International School does not publish fees on its own site, so we are not quoting any. It does operate a boarding residence, which is unusual on this list.

Two of these towns hold a pair of options in the same place, which is worth knowing if you are house-hunting around a school: La Cañada has both El Plantío and British College La Cañada, and Puçol has both Caxton College and the American School of Valencia, in different urbanisations.

What It Costs Beyond Tuition

At a público or a concertado, the tuition line is the easy part. The rest is where families get surprised, and it is also where we have to be careful about what we can actually evidence.

• The concertado monthly contribution. Covered above: legally voluntary for the free stages, commonly asked for anyway, and in a 2025 sample of 29 regional schools it ranged from nothing to 450 EUR a month. Ask, in writing, before you commit.
• Comedor, the school lunch service. Legally voluntary at concertados. The Conselleria's school-meal aid scheme for 2025-26 works to a daily module of up to 4,35 EUR per pupil, raised by 30 per cent in some circumstances. That is the figure the aid is calculated on, and we could not establish that it caps what a school may charge, so treat it as an order of magnitude and ask the school for its actual price.
• Extracurriculars and out-of-hours clubs. Legal, and they must be voluntary.
• Uniforms, books and materials. We could not find a reliable published figure for Valencia, so we are not going to make one up. Ask each school for its list and its supplier, and ask early: it is one of the costs families most often discover in September.

Complementary activities are a separate category worth understanding. Where they are considered necessary for the curriculum, they may exist, but they have to be organised so that they do not discriminate on economic grounds, and if they are permanent they may not sit inside the school timetable. If you are being told that a paid activity inside school hours is compulsory, that is the rule to read back.

Schools in Valencia: FAQ

We have just arrived and the admission deadline has passed. What do we do?

Once the school year has started, applications made outside the ordinary and extraordinary phases go to the Comisión Municipal de Escolarización, which assigns the place. In the city of Valencia that is the Oficina Municipal de Escolarización at the Ajuntament, which publishes escolarizacionsobrevenida@valencia.es as the channel for unexpected mid-year enrolment. Schools can tell you what they have free, but they do not assign the place themselves.

Does living near a school in Valencia help us get in?

No. The city of Valencia is a single catchment zone for admission purposes, confirmed by a resolution of the territorial education directorate dated 13 May 2024. Every family living anywhere in the municipality scores the same 10 proximity points at every city school, so your street makes no difference. What matters is the municipality: a family living outside Valencia scores 5 points at a city school, not 10.

What is a concertado school?

A privately run school funded by the state under an agreement called a concierto. Teaching in the compulsory stages is legally free and schools may not charge for it, nor make contributions or associated services obligatory. In practice many concertados ask for a monthly payment that is legally voluntary. In a 2025 mystery-shopper study of 29 concertados in the Comunitat Valenciana, 55 per cent charged a base monthly fee and 13 of the schools visited charged nothing at all.

Will my child be taught in Valencian or in Spanish?

In the city of Valencia, both. Under Ley 1/2024 the language choices families make on their admission forms decide how many of a school's class groups run with Valencian as the base language and how many run with Spanish, so a large school usually has groups in both languages in the same year. A school with only one group per year is winner takes all. In the base language group, roughly 65 per cent of Infantil teaching time is in that language, 25 per cent in the other co-official language and 10 per cent in English.

How do I keep both language options open when I apply?

You list the school twice on the application form, once with Spanish as the base language and once with Valencian, in the order you prefer. The 2026-27 admission resolution states this explicitly. A family that lists a school only under Spanish, at a school that ends up configuring all its groups in Valencian, does not get a place there at all.

Can my child be excused from Valencian?

There is an exemption, but it is an exemption from assessment and grading, not from attending. A pupil schooled in the Comunitat Valenciana for the first time, coming from another region or a foreign education system, may request it for the year of arrival and the following school year. Families who can evidence temporary residence may request it for up to three consecutive school years, and that route is proved with employment documentation, not with a padrón certificate. Applications are handed in at the school secretary's office.

When does the ordinary admission process happen?

The calendar is set each year by resolution and published in the DOGV. In the last two rounds that happened in late February or March, with applications for Infantil and Primaria opening in the first half of May and for ESO and Bachillerato in the second half of May. For 2026-27, applications ran from 7 to 18 May 2026 for Infantil and Primaria and from 21 May to 1 June 2026 for ESO and Bachillerato. No 2027-28 dates have been published yet.

What documents do we need to apply?

For the address, the legal representative's ID plus a recent water, electricity or telephone bill or a rental contract with proof that the deposit was lodged. A work address is proved with an employer certificate, or modelo 036 or 037 for the self-employed. Income points require every family member over 16 to authorise the tax agency check expressly. Recognitions such as large-family or disability status must be the official Spanish ones.

Can I apply online with only a passport?

No. The access key for the admission platform is issued against a DNI, an NIE, a foreigner's card, a residence permit or an EU citizen registration certificate, or a digital certificate. Applicants who hold only a passport must go in person to the school they are putting as their first choice, which is set up as a user support point and generates the access key for them.

How much do international schools in Valencia cost?

It depends on the school and the stage, and every figure in the section above is the school's own published one. The schools that bill annually publish between about 5.541 and 9.950 EUR a year, and the schools that bill monthly publish between 450 and just under 1.000 EUR a month, in both cases before enrolment fees, materials, transport and lunch. Deutsche Schule Valencia is the cheapest of those that publish fees. Most international schools sit outside the city, in Puçol, Rocafort, Paterna, La Canyada and L'Eliana.