Document Recognition for Malta: UM Evaluation, MQRIC and Apostilles

Fee figures: catalogue of 6 October 2026.

In Malta, three different bodies look at your foreign documents for three different purposes. The university decides whether your school qualification gets you in, the national recognition centre places your qualification on the Maltese framework, and the immigration agency wants your public documents legalised. This guide separates them. It reflects official pages checked in October 2026.

The university assesses your certificate itself

The University of Malta (UM) says it recognises qualifications from all over the world. You do not send your certificate to a recognition office first. You apply online, select Overseas Qualifications, upload your documents, and UM's Admissions Board compares them with its general entry requirements.

UM accepts qualifications that give access to recognised universities in your home country, if they are of comparable breadth and standard and the course has no special requirements.
UM publishes an A to Z list of country-specific qualification pages. If your country is not listed, it asks you to write to info@um.edu.mt.
UM evaluates home-country qualifications against your national framework levels.
Grade comparisons exist for common systems. For example, MATSEC Advanced Level grades A to E correspond to GCE A Level grades A-star to D, and MATSEC Intermediate Level grades A to E correspond to A Level grades A to E.

Qualifications that UM treats as local, the IB Diploma and the European Baccalaureate, have their own comparison pages: see IB Diploma admission in Malta.

Documents to upload

UM's admissions FAQ lists the following for overseas applicants:

certified copies of qualifications and transcripts, with certified English translations where needed;
an English test result, or a declaration from a test centre of when you will sit it;
a detailed CV covering education and work after secondary school;
any extra documents the course asks for.

Upload them as jpeg, gif or pdf files. If the upload fails, email the documents within ten days of submitting your application.

Original documents on arrival

An offer is based on the scans you upload. Before you enrol, you must show the originals to UM's International Admissions Office: passport or ID, school diploma and transcript, any degree certificate, and English test results. In 2026 this was done in person at the Help Hub on set days between 14 September and 9 October, and later arrivals went to the administration building. The page says nothing about translations at this stage, so ask the office if unsure. For some courses UM also requires a police conduct certificate issued within the last six months.

MQRIC: when you need a statement

MQRIC is the Malta Qualifications Recognition Information Centre, part of the Malta Further and Higher Education Authority (MFHEA) and the country's ENIC-NARIC centre. It places qualifications on the Malta Qualifications Framework (MQF). For a student the cases that matter are these, and private colleges set their own rules:

MCAST: it asks every applicant with non-Maltese qualifications for an MQRIC statement for each one.
Residence permit: Identità requires that the course you will study is recognised by MQRIC, which is a matter for your institution, not for you.

MQRIC's contact email is mqric@mfhea.mt and its phone is +356 2598 1450. The centre says it does not authenticate documents or offer verification, so any verification question goes to the school that issued the paper. We could not open the MFHEA's application page from our checks (it blocks automated access), so read it on the MFHEA site for the current process and price.

Apostilles and translations

Identità asks that documents be in English or officially translated, and that foreign public documents be apostilled or legalised. This applies to the permit application. See apostille and legalisation of documents for how the process works and student visa for Malta for the full document list.

If your school education does not match

UM runs a one-year Foundation Studies programme for international students whose schooling was not comparable to Malta's in curriculum or years of study. You need a school certificate issued abroad and proof of English. Completing it gives the Certificate in Foundation Studies, which opens undergraduate courses at UM and other universities. The streams include engineering, medicine and business-related fields. See also studienkolleg and foundation years in Europe.

Where to look next

Official sources

Always check current information on the official website of the university before you apply.