EIR Spain Guide 2027: Nursing Specialty Exam, Places and Scoring

The EIR (Enfermero/a Interno/a Residente) is the national entrance exam for specialist nursing training in Spain. It is held on the same day as the MIR for doctors and follows the same rules, with its own question paper and its own ranking. If you pass well enough, you choose a training place as a resident nurse in one of the six nursing specialties and train in an accredited unit under a paid contract.

You do not need the EIR to work as a general nurse in Spain. You need it to train as a specialist nurse, for example as a midwife or a mental health nurse, through the official residency route.

This guide covers the call for training places starting in 2027. If you are a doctor, read our MIR guide instead.

EIR at a glance

The six nursing specialties

The EIR gives access to these specialties, all of which appear in the current catalogue of training places:

Family and community nursing has by far the largest number of teaching units in the catalogue, followed by midwifery and mental health. Geriatric nursing has the fewest. The exact number of places per specialty and region is published in the annex of each call, so check it before you set a target.

How many places are on offer

For 2027 the Ministry offers 2,341 nursing specialty places: 2,257 in public centres and 84 in privately owned centres. Inside that total:

• Disability quota: up to 234 places can go to candidates applying under the disability route.
• Non-resident quota: only 23 places can go to candidates who do not hold a Spanish residence permit.

The previous call, with the exam in January 2026, offered 2,279 nursing places, so the offer has grown. The very small non-resident quota is the single most important number for foreign nurses who do not live in Spain. Once those 23 places are taken, a non-resident candidate cannot choose any other place, whatever the rank.

Who can sit the EIR

All admission requirements must be met and documented by the end of the application window.

Nursing degree

You need a Spanish nursing degree, or a foreign nursing qualification that has been homologated or recognised in Spain. EU qualifications go through professional recognition; non-EU degrees go through homologation with the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. The decision, or the right to it, must exist before applications close. A pending application does not count.

Nationality and residence

Spanish and EU nationals and others covered by the rules for public employment apply on equal terms. Nationals of other countries can apply for Nursing if their home country has a cooperation agreement with Spain in force during the application period. This includes people in Spain on a short-stay or student permit. Without a residence permit, you compete only for the non-resident quota.

Spanish at C1

If Spanish is not an official language of your country, you must prove at least C1 level with an official certificate. The DELE C1 or higher is accepted, as are C1 certificates from Spain's official language schools and equivalent certificates within the international Spanish certification system. Note that B2, which is enough for degree homologation, is not enough for the EIR.

Current residents

If you already hold a residency place in any specialty, you must resign it before the application period ends in order to sit the exam again.

Applying

Applications are made online through the Ministry of Health's electronic office with form 790. For the 2027 intake, the window ran from 1 to 14 September 2026. The Nursing fee is €23.33 as of October 2026; paying less, or paying outside the window, means you are not admitted.

Upload proof of your degree or its homologation, your identity and nationality documents, your language certificate if needed, and your academic transcript. If the transcript is missing you are still admitted, but your academic average is set to 5.00 out of 10 by default.

Exam day rules

The EIR is held at the same time and in the same centres as the other specialty exams.

• Identity checks start at 13:00 (12:00 in the Canary Islands); the exam starts at 14:00 (13:00 in the Canary Islands).
• No one is admitted once the sealed booklets are opened.
• You may not leave in the first hour.
• Bring the original ID you registered with and a transparent blue or black pen. A small clear water bottle without a label is allowed.
• Phones, smartwatches, earbuds, earplugs and all electronic devices are forbidden. Only a simple analogue watch is allowed.

Breaking the device rules leads to cancellation of your exam and exclusion. Exam booklets are not taken home, but all versions are published on the Ministry's website afterwards.

What the EIR covers

The official content for Nursing is the set of competences a Spanish nursing degree must provide. In practice that means the full breadth of a nursing degree, from clinical and specialty care to community health, pharmacology, methodology, research and ethics. Questions follow Spanish clinical practice and nursing terminology, so preparation in Spanish is essential.

How the EIR is scored

The scoring rules are the same for every degree.

Exam score

A correct answer is worth 3 points, a wrong answer costs 1 point, and blanks score 0. The Ministry then takes the average raw score of the top 10% of nursing candidates and sets it to 90 points. Everyone else is scaled by the same factor. Your exam score is therefore relative to the strongest candidates in your year.

With four options, a random guess has an expected value of zero. If you can rule out two options, a guess between the remaining two is worth taking on average.

Academic score

Your degree average is scaled so that the top 10% of academic records among candidates who pass the minimum equals 10 points. The academic record can add at most about 10 points.

Minimum and ranking

You need an exam score above zero to take part in the choice of places; otherwise you are listed as eliminated. Your total, exam plus academic score, sets your rank. The answer key is published within five working days, followed by three working days for claims; provisional results then allow seven working days for objections before final results.

Choosing a place

Places are chosen in strict rank order. When your turn comes you pick a specialty and a teaching unit that still has a free place. Non-residents can only choose while the non-resident quota is open. You then join as a resident nurse on a training contract in an accredited unit for the length of your specialty programme.

How to prepare, in brief

The EIR rewards broad, accurate knowledge more than deep expertise in one area. A workable approach has three phases.

1. Foundation (first third of your time). Go through the whole curriculum topic by topic in Spanish, with short question sets after each topic so you find your gaps early.
2. Consolidation (middle third). Switch to mixed question blocks. Keep an error log: for each wrong answer, write down why you got it wrong, whether a knowledge gap, a misread question or a bad guess.
3. Simulation (final third). Sit full 200-question papers in four and a half hours, ideally starting at 14:00 like the real exam. Review every paper the same day or the next.

Use the official past papers from the Ministry as your core material. They show the exact question style, how long the stems are and which topics recur. Questions that were cancelled after the claims process had a flawed key, so do not learn from them.

Practise your answering strategy too. Decide in advance how you will handle questions where you can exclude one option, two options or none, and stick to that rule in every mock. Consistency matters more than any single clever guess.

A timeline for nurses trained abroad

Typical mistakes

• Applying before homologation is granted. Admission depends on it existing by the end of the application window.
• Relying on a B2 certificate. The EIR needs C1.
• Missing the transcript. You get a default 5.00 average.
• Over-guessing. Blind guesses have zero expected value; partial-knowledge guesses are worth it.
• Underestimating the non-resident quota. Only 23 places are available to candidates without residence.
• Studying in English only. The exam is in Spanish and follows Spanish nursing practice.

How MediFlow can help

Timed sets of four-option nursing questions build accuracy and stamina for a four-and-a-half-hour paper. Try the free questions on our EIR course page and keep practising daily in the MediFlow Exam Prep app.

Next steps

1. Confirm whether your degree needs homologation or recognition and apply early.
2. Book a C1 Spanish exam if you need one.
3. Download recent EIR papers and answer keys from the Ministry of Health website.
4. Decide which specialties interest you and check the number of places per region in the annex of the call.
5. Watch for the next call in late summer; applications usually open in September.