MBBS in Italy: Medicine in English via the IMAT

There is no MBBS in Italy. The degree Indian students call an “MBBS in Italy” is the six-year Medicine and Surgery degree, in Italian the Laurea Magistrale a Ciclo Unico in Medicina e Chirurgia, an MD-level qualification worth 360 ECTS credits. A group of public Italian universities teach it entirely in English, and you get in through one national test, the IMAT.

Two things decide whether this route works for you, and neither is the fee. First, the seats set aside for non-EU students living abroad, the pool Indian applicants sit in, are few, so admission is a ranking contest on the IMAT and not an application you simply submit. Second, whether you can come home and practise depends on India’s medical regulator, the NMC, and its rules are ones Italy’s English-taught degree actually meets. This page covers both, with the real fees in rupees, the IMAT structure and 2026 date, and the universities that teach in English.

One thing to clear up first, because several Indian pages are getting it wrong. In 2025 Italy scrapped the entrance test for medicine taught in Italian and replaced it with an open first semester. That reform does not touch the English-taught courses. For those, the IMAT is still the way in, and the test is already fixed for 30 September 2026.

Is “MBBS in Italy” actually an MBBS?

No. Italy does not award an MBBS at all. What you earn is a single six-year Medicine and Surgery degree that leads straight to a doctor’s qualification. MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) is the British-pattern name India uses. Italy follows the continental European pattern, one continuous MD-level degree rather than a bachelor’s pair.

The degree is classed as LM-41 and runs 360 ECTS. ECTS is the European credit unit, and 360 credits is six full years, 60 a year. On finishing, the degree itself lets you practise as a doctor in Italy, because the state licensing exam is now built into the course rather than sat separately afterwards, per Sapienza University of Rome. The Catholic University in Rome states the same shape for its English course, a 6-year degree, 360 ECTS, taught entirely in English.

So the name is different, but the qualification is a full primary medical degree. Because the degree licenses you to practise in Italy, it can satisfy India’s rules for a foreign medical graduate, something an “MBBS” label alone would never tell you. Whether you can register that degree back home is the question the section on the NMC answers.

Which Italian universities teach medicine in English?

Around sixteen public Italian universities teach the six-year Medicine and Surgery degree in English and admit through the IMAT, from Pavia and Milan in the north to Bari and Messina in the south. These are the medical universities in Italy that an Indian applicant actually competes for.

There is a split you must know before you pick a target. The public state universities admit through the IMAT. The well-known private medical schools, Humanitas, Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Campus Bio-Medico, UniCamillus and the Catholic University’s Gemelli school, run their own separate entrance tests on their own calendars, so an IMAT score does not admit you to them. If a list puts Humanitas under “IMAT universities”, it is wrong.

As an Indian applicant you compete only for the seats a university sets aside for non-EU candidates living abroad, and that pool is small, often between ten and sixty seats at a given university. Here are the public universities, with the seat counts confirmed on their official 2025/26 admission notices, which are called bandi in Italian (a bando is the official call that fixes seats, dates and rules).

Others teach English medicine through the IMAT too, with seat numbers you confirm on each year’s bando. They include Sapienza in Rome (its “Course F”), Turin (taught in Orbassano), Messina, Milano-Bicocca (taught in Bergamo) and Cagliari. Watch the teaching city, because several courses do not run where you expect. Parma’s is in Piacenza, Bicocca’s in Bergamo, Turin’s in Orbassano, and Tor Vergata runs a second campus in Tirana.

Note: seat counts are the 2025/26 figures from each university’s official notice. The 2026/27 numbers publish alongside the ministry’s 2026 decree, usually in August, so treat these as the working picture and confirm your target’s number when the new bando appears.

What is the IMAT, and who runs it now?

The IMAT is the International Medical Admissions Test, the single exam that decides entry to English-taught medicine in Italy. The full form of IMAT is exactly that. It is now run by the Italian Ministry of University and Research, the MUR, which prepares the questions through its in-house consortium CINECA and takes registrations on the government’s Universitaly portal, the same portal you later use to pre-enrol before your visa.

This changed recently, which is why older guides are out of date. Until a few years ago the IMAT was delivered by Cambridge Assessment. Cambridge has since left admissions testing, and the current exam is a fully Italian, ministry-run test governed by an annual decree, Decreto Ministeriale 599 of 2025 for the latest cycle. If a coaching site still describes the IMAT as a Cambridge test, it is describing a version that no longer exists.

You will also read that Italy abolished its medicine entrance test in 2025. That is true only for courses taught in Italian, which moved to an open first semester where everyone enrols and a set of exams after that first semester decides who continues. The ministry’s own reform decree says in plain words that these rules do not apply to courses delivered in English, “le disposizioni del presente decreto non si applicano ai corsi di studio erogati in lingua inglese”. For the English-taught medicine you want, the IMAT is still the route, and the ministry has already fixed the 2026 test date.

What is on the IMAT, and how is it scored?

The IMAT is 60 multiple-choice questions in 100 minutes, one sitting, with five options per question. Most of it is science. You score 1.5 for a right answer, lose 0.4 for a wrong one, and get nothing for a blank, out of a maximum of 90. All of this is set in the ministry’s 2025 decree.

This is the format from the 2024 revision onward, which is heavier on science than earlier versions. Any guide describing more logic questions and fewer biology questions is quoting the old layout. With 23 of the 60 questions, biology is the section that decides the test.

The negative marking changes how you should answer. A blind guess across five options costs you on average, because a wrong answer takes 0.4 while a skip takes nothing. Only guess once you can rule out two or three options first.

The IMAT syllabus is published each year as an annex to that decree, and the scope has been stable. In short:

• Biology (23 questions): the chemistry of living things, the cell and cell division, genetics from Mendel through DNA and protein synthesis, human anatomy and physiology, evolution, and bioenergetics.
• Chemistry (15): atomic structure and the periodic table, chemical bonding, reactions and stoichiometry, solutions and pH, acids and bases, and the basics of organic chemistry.
• Physics and Mathematics (13 combined): mechanics, thermodynamics and electromagnetism on the physics side, and algebra, functions, geometry and probability on the maths side.
• Logical reasoning (5): following a line of reasoning to the conclusion that is consistent with the stated premises.
• Reading and general knowledge (4): understanding English passages, plus general awareness of history, geography, and civic and institutional topics.

One point surprises people. There is no fixed pass mark that guarantees a seat. You need at least 20 out of 90 to be counted at all, but after that you are placed in a ranking against every other candidate for your seat category, and you are admitted only if you rank high enough for one of those few non-EU seats.

When is the IMAT 2026, and how do you register?

The IMAT 2026 is on Wednesday 30 September 2026, for entry in the 2026/2027 year. The ministry confirmed the date in July 2026, and the University of Catania restates it. The registration window on Universitaly has not been published yet. It usually opens in late August and closes in early September.

The 2025 cycle shows the pattern. The IMAT 2025 was sat on 17 September 2025, and registration ran from 26 August to 9 September 2025, closing at 3 pm Italian time with no extensions. Expect the 2026 window to look similar once the ministry issues this year’s decree, which is due around August. The registration itself runs entirely on Universitaly.

1. Create a Universitaly account and complete your profile.
2. Register for the IMAT, then choose your test location and rank your university preferences.
3. Pay the registration fee and submit before the deadline, since there are no late entries.
4. Sit the test on 30 September 2026, then watch each university’s ranking list for your result.

Here is how a full 2026 intake unfolds from where you stand today.

Is the IMAT difficult, and how should you prepare?

The IMAT is hard less because the science is advanced and more because you are ranked against thousands of others for a few dozen seats. The syllabus sits at roughly Indian Class 11 and 12 level, so the content is familiar ground for anyone who prepared for NEET. The difficulty is speed, accuracy under negative marking, and the ranking itself.

For a NEET-prepared Indian student, the biology and chemistry are largely known. The newer parts are the English reading section, the logic questions, and the discipline the negative marking demands. With 60 questions in 100 minutes, you have about 100 seconds per question, so pace is part of the test.

Past papers are the single best preparation, and they are free. The ministry and the universities release the real question papers and answer keys from previous years. Work through several full papers under a strict 100-minute clock, mark them with the real 1.5 and minus 0.4 scoring so your practice score means something, and study every question you got wrong until the mistake will not repeat. Because biology carries 23 of the 60 questions, weak biology hurts most, so weight your revision toward it.

There is no single official cutoff to aim for. Each university publishes its own ranking after the test, and the score of the last admitted candidate moves every year and differs between universities and between the EU and non-EU seat pools. Treat any fixed cutoff number on a coaching site as a rough guide, not a rule. It is also worth knowing that these rankings scroll. As higher-placed candidates accept seats elsewhere or drop out, places open up in later rounds, so a rank just below the first cutoff can still turn into an offer weeks later.

What does an “MBBS in Italy” cost for an Indian student?

Far less than most Indian families expect, because public tuition is scaled to family income rather than fixed. At a public Italian university a low-income Indian family can pay almost no tuition, from zero to about 500 euros a year, and the real cost is living expenses of about 7,000 to 10,000 euros a year. That is the honest answer to “MBBS in Italy fees for Indian students”.

Italian public universities do not charge one flat tuition. They scale the annual fee to the family’s economic bracket, measured by a number called the ISEE. A family whose income and property sit in India cannot use the standard Italian ISEE, so it files an ISEE parificato, an equivalent worked out from your Indian income and property documents, translated and legalised at the Italian consulate, as Italian universities set out. Below a set income line the tuition contribution falls to zero, and you pay only a regional study tax of about 140 euros and a 16-euro stamp.

Here is what that looks like at four public universities that teach medicine in English. Rupee figures use a rate of about 110 rupees to the euro as of July 2026, so treat them as close approximations.

Add living costs, and the all-in picture for a low-income Indian family looks like this.

The living figures are estimates, since Italy publishes no single national cost of living, and cities like Milan and Rome run higher than Pavia or Bologna. One more thing to note on tuition, Pavia’s zero-tuition income line rises to 32,000 euros for the 2026/27 year, so confirm the current threshold for your intake.

There is a second layer that can wipe out most of even the living cost. Each Italian region runs a right-to-study grant, called the DSU, open to international students on the same terms as Italians. In Piedmont, which covers Turin, the off-site grant for 2025/26 is worth up to 7,982 euros a year, and in Lazio, which covers Rome, it is about 6,472 to 7,442 euros plus free daily meals. Both come with a tuition waiver and often subsidised housing. Win one and a public medical degree in Italy can cost your family very little. Many Indian families weigh this against private medical seats at home that cost several times more in tuition alone.

Can you practise in India or the EU after an Italian medical degree?

Yes, if you plan for it from the start. An Italian medical degree can be registered in India, because it meets the conditions India’s National Medical Commission sets for a foreign degree, but only if you satisfy every one of them and then pass the Indian screening exam. Inside the European Union it is recognised automatically.

The NMC’s Foreign Medical Graduate Licentiate rules of 2021 set out what a degree earned abroad must look like for you to register and practise at home. The main conditions, as the NMC’s own guidance lays them out, are these:

• The course must run at least 54 months. Italy’s degree is six years, so this is met.
• The medium of instruction must be English. The English-taught courses meet this, and an Italian-taught course would not.
• Your 12-month internship must be at the same institution that awarded the degree, so plan to do it in Italy rather than split it back to India.
• You must be entitled to practise in the country where you studied, on the same footing as its own citizens.
• After returning, you must clear India’s screening exam and then complete a further year of supervised internship in India.

That fourth condition is the one that quietly rules out some countries, and it is where Italy is unusually clean. India will register you only if the country you trained in would let you practise there as one of its own doctors. In Italy the qualifying state exam is now built into the medical degree, so on graduating you are licensed to practise in Italy on the same terms as an Italian graduate, per Sapienza. That is precisely what the NMC’s fourth condition asks for.

India’s screening exam is currently the FMGE, the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination, and the National Exit Test, NExT, is being brought in to replace it. Check which one applies in your graduating year, because the transition is still settling and a hard cutover date is not fixed.

One honest caution. These conditions come from the NMC’s own published guidance, which itself says to confirm the fine print against the official gazette notification. Treat the outline above as the shape of the rule, and verify the exact clauses for your year before you commit six years to the plan.

If you would rather stay in Europe, an Italian medical degree is recognised automatically across the European Union under the bloc’s professional-qualifications directive, so you can register to practise in another EU country after meeting its local registration steps. That gives an Italian medical graduate three realistic options, practising in Italy, moving elsewhere in the EU, or returning to India.

Sources

• MUR, Decreto Ministeriale n. 599 del 07-08-2025 (IMAT structure, scoring, dates, seats)
• MUR, Decreto Ministeriale n. 418 del 30-05-2025 (filter-semester reform, English-course carve-out)
• MUR, admission-test dates announcement, July 2026 (IMAT 30 September 2026)
• University of Catania, English Medicine and Surgery (LM-41) admission
• Sapienza University of Rome, integrated medical licensing
• ISEE parificato for students with income and property abroad
• University of Pavia, tuition contribution notice 2025/26
• University of Bologna, maximum contribution table 2025/26
• University of Turin, fees regulation 2025/26
• EDISU Piemonte, right-to-study grant 2025/26
• DiSCo Lazio, right-to-study grant 2025/26
• India NMC, Foreign Medical Graduate Licentiate guidance
• European Commission, automatic recognition of medical qualifications

Related reading. Start with the guide to studying in Italy for the full picture, compare the wider public and private universities in Italy, walk through the Universitaly pre-enrolment and credential steps, and line up the Italy student visa once you have a seat.