🇪🇸 Madrid · Schools

Schooling and childcare in Madrid

Three parallel systems — público, concertado and privado — plus a large international sector, with admission decided by a points formula in spring.

Get started in Madrid

The thing people get wrongConcertado schools are the option foreigners misread. They are privately run and state-subsidised, they charge modest fees for uniform, activities and a voluntary contribution, and in practice they are the mainstream middle-class choice — not a compromise between the other two.

Indicative figures

  • Admission window11 – 25 March2026/27 round, público and concertado alike.
  • Sibling at the school15 points30 for two or more; the decisive criterion.
  • Colegio públicoFreeBooks, meals and activities are not.
  • Concertado€100 – €400/monthContributions, activities and meals combined.
  • International school€5,000 – €24,000/year2026/27 tuition, from the early years at the British Council School to the senior years at the American School of Madrid.
  • Private escuela infantil€400 – €800/monthPublic-network places are free apart from meals.

Checked . Ranges, not quotes — your Insider confirms the current numbers in Madrid before you commit to anything.

How admission works

Público and concertado places are allocated through a single annual proceso de admisión. For 2026/27 applications ran from 11 to 25 March, the definitive lists came out on 27 May and enrolment ran from 11 June. Applications are scored on a baremo: a sibling already at the school is worth 15 points and two or more 30, with further points for low income, disability, large families, parents working at the school and former pupils. Madrid operates a single-district model, so proximity counts for far less than it does elsewhere in Spain and the sibling points decide most oversubscribed schools.

  • The window is in March and only March; missing it means applying for leftover places. Next year's dates come out in the winter.
  • Applications go in at your first-choice school or online on the Comunidad's website.
  • Proof of address comes from the padrón, so register before you apply.
  • Arriving mid-year is handled by the Comisión de Escolarización, which places children where there is room.

Language, and the bilingual programme

State schools teach in Spanish, and the Comunidad de Madrid runs an extensive bilingual programme where a substantial share of the timetable is delivered in English by qualified teachers. Younger children absorb the language within a year or so; a teenager arriving in the middle of secondary faces a much harder adjustment, particularly in the run-up to the Bachillerato and the university entrance exam.

  • Compulsory education runs to sixteen, then Bachillerato or vocational training.
  • Bilingual schools are designated separately and are heavily subscribed.
  • Ask what support exists for a child arriving with no Spanish — provision varies by school.

The international sector

Madrid has British, American, French, German and IB-curriculum schools, most of them ringed around the northern and western suburbs rather than in the centre. That geography drives where international families live, because the school run defines the day. Places at the established schools fill early and the sector is used both by expatriates on posting and by Spanish families.

  • Apply the winter before the September you are targeting.
  • Expect an assessment, an interview and reports from the previous two years.
  • Published 2026/27 tuition on the school-comparison sites runs from about €5,100 to €14,100 at the British Council School to about €11,600 to €23,900 at the American School of Madrid. Ask each school for its own schedule.
  • Registration fees, and sometimes a capital levy, sit on top of tuition.

Nursery and younger children

Escuelas infantiles cover nought to three. Schooling is free in the Comunidad de Madrid's public network, which includes regional escuelas infantiles, casas de niños and private centres funded by agreement, so families pay for meals and extras rather than tuition. Places are allocated in the same March window as the schools, with the 2026/27 lists out on 5 June, and are heavily oversubscribed. The Ayuntamiento's own municipal network runs a separate admission process with its own dates, so a family wanting a public place applies to both.