How to Do a PhD in Spain: FPU Contracts and Doctoral Schools

Who can apply for a PhD in Spain

Most PhD candidates in Spain hold a bachelor's degree plus a master's degree. National rules set minimum academic credit requirements for access to a doctoral program, and the exact requirement depends on your degrees and when you earned them. Check the current access requirement on your target university's doctoral school page, such as the Doctoral School at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM).

If your degrees come from outside Spain, the university must check that they are equivalent to a Spanish master's degree and that they give access to a doctorate in your home country. Admission to a doctoral program does not mean your foreign degree is recognized (homologado) for other purposes, such as working as a regulated professional in Spain.

You apply to a doctoral program, not to "a PhD" in general. Each Spanish university organizes its doctoral programs inside a doctoral school (escuela de doctorado). The UAM Doctoral School, for example, groups its programs into five areas: Arts and Humanities, Sciences, Health Sciences, Social Sciences and Law, and Engineering. The doctoral school handles access and admission, enrollment, academic matters, and the deposit and defense of the thesis.

Tip: Apply to the doctoral program first, or in parallel with your funding application. Most funding schemes, including FPU, ask you to show that you are already admitted, pre-admitted, or enrolled in a program.

What a PhD pays: the FPU predoctoral contract

Spain funds most PhD students at public universities through a predoctoral contract, not a stipend. The main national scheme is FPU (Formación de Profesorado Universitario), run by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.

For the FPU 2025 call, the ministry approved 870 contracts, with 43 of them reserved for applicants with a disability of 33% or more. The contract pays a minimum of €25,116 a year, split into 12 monthly payments plus two extra payments. The contract normally lasts four years, or up to six years for a person with a disability. The program can separately fund a stay at a foreign research center during the contract, but this does not extend the four-year duration for applicants without a disability.

Check the current call before you plan around these numbers. The ministry publishes a new FPU call most years, and the number of contracts and the minimum pay can change.

To apply for FPU, you must already hold a degree and be enrolled in a doctoral program at a Spanish university, or hold a master's degree, or be enrolled in a master's that gives access to a doctorate. You cannot apply if you already held an FPU contract, or another predoctoral aid, for more than 24 months.

After you finish your thesis, FPU offers a postdoctoral orientation period (POP) of up to one year, if you get your doctor title before the last year of your FPU contract ends.

Spain also funds PhD students through other channels:

• CSIC (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas), the national research council, hosts more than 1,300 new researchers in training each year across its institutes. CSIC states that about 25% of its roughly 11,000 staff are researchers in training who are doing a PhD.
• Regional governments and individual research centers run their own predoctoral contracts, separate from FPU. Check your target university doctoral school page for local schemes.

Tip: A predoctoral contract in Spain is an employment contract, with social security contributions, not a scholarship. This matters for your residence permit and your tax status.

Deadlines and the application timeline

National calls such as FPU open once a year, usually in January, with a submission window of about six weeks. For the 2025 call, the ministry opened applications on 16 January 2026 and closed them on 27 February 2026, after an extension. Always check the current year's dates on the ministry's convocatorias page, because the window moves and can be extended.

University admission to a doctoral program follows its own calendar, set by each doctoral school, and is usually separate from the funding calendar. Start the admission process early. Some funding schemes require proof of admission, or pre-admission, before you can apply for the contract.

How to apply, step by step

1. Choose a doctoral program and a thesis director (supervisor) at a Spanish university. Contact the director before you apply. Most programs require the director's written agreement.
2. Check the doctoral school's admission requirements for your area, including any language test or interview.
3. Apply for admission, or pre-admission, to the doctoral program through the university doctoral school.
4. Once admitted or pre-admitted, apply for a predoctoral contract, such as FPU, through the funding body's electronic site. For FPU, this is the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities' sede electrónica.
5. Submit the required documents: your academic transcript, proof of your degree dates, your thesis director CV, and a short description of your research project. Exact documents vary by call.
6. If you are selected provisionally, accept the contract and submit your enrollment or admission proof by the stated deadline.
7. Formalize your enrollment in the doctoral program for the academic year the contract starts.

Common mistakes

• Applying for FPU before you have any contact with a potential thesis director. Most programs expect this contact in advance.
• Missing the enrollment deadline after a provisional selection. Funding bodies set a short window to accept and prove enrollment.
• Assuming your foreign masters degree gives automatic access. Ask the university to check your degree before you apply.
• Treating the predoctoral contract as a stipend for tax or visa purposes. It is an employment contract.

Where to find open positions

Check PhD positions in Spain on PhD Atlas for current openings, and funded PhD positions across countries. For general guidance on finding and applying to doctoral programs, see how to find a PhD position in Europe and how to write an academic CV for a PhD application.

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