Studying Medicine and Dentistry in Italy: How the System Works and What It Costs

Last reviewed: August 2026.

Two Systems in One Country

Italy runs two quite different routes into medicine side by side, and which one applies to you depends simply on the language you study in.

Italian-language programmes at state universities changed fundamentally from the 2024/25 academic year. The classic entrance test was abolished and replaced by the so-called Semestre filtro: instead of being filtered out before the degree begins, students are filtered during it. English-language programmes at the same universities kept the older arrangement, where selection happens before teaching starts, through the IMAT.

Both arrangements apply to medicine, dentistry and several other health science programmes.

What the Semestre filtro Means in Practice

The Semestre filtro is often presented as a relief: the barrier at the door has gone. The barrier itself has not gone anywhere, though — it has moved inside the building. Students begin a first semester of foundational science, and only afterwards does it become clear who continues in medicine and who does not, based on how that semester went and on a nationwide ranking. The number of places in the second semester stays capped, set by national demand for doctors.

The consequence is worth thinking through honestly. By the time the decision arrives, you have moved country, paid rent in an Italian city, and spent half a year of your life. That is a very different kind of risk from a decision that lands before you pack a suitcase.

There is a genuine consolation built into the system: the credits earned in that first semester are not lost. They transfer to related programmes such as the healthcare professions, biotechnology or pharmacy. Nobody walks away with nothing. But nobody who set out to be a doctor gets there that way either.

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The English-Language Route and the IMAT

Alongside it, the English-language programmes at state universities continue to select through the IMAT, the International Medical Admission Test. This is the older and more familiar shape: one selection, before the degree starts.

The competition here is easy to underestimate, because the IMAT is less talked about in German-speaking countries than the MedAT in Austria. Roughly 919 places were last available at state universities for EU applicants and for non-EU applicants resident in Italy, and the pool competing for them is drawn from across Europe and beyond. Studying in English does not make the route easier; it makes it international.

Where Medicine Is Taught in Italy

Numerous state universities offer human medicine, and many of them run an English-language programme alongside the Italian one. Among the best known are Bologna, Milan (Statale), Padua, Parma, Rome (Sapienza and Tor Vergata), Turin and Naples — faculties with centuries of history in cities people genuinely want to live in.

Alongside them, Italy has a set of private medical universities running their own separate processes. They cost considerably more and are correspondingly less crowded.

What a Medical Degree in Italy Costs

This is where Italy is genuinely remarkable. Tuition at state universities is income-based, calculated from the family's ISEE assessment, and at the lower end it starts at around 156 euros per year. At higher income levels it rises substantially, but the ceiling still sits far below what most of Europe charges international students.

Private universities are a different order of magnitude, ranging from roughly 3,200 to 23,000 euros per year depending on the institution and, again, on income. Living costs vary enormously between Milan and a smaller university city in the south, and are worth budgeting separately from tuition.

On language: an English-language programme does not remove Italian from your life. It becomes indispensable by the clinical years, when patients are in front of you. Many universities offer accompanying language courses, and students who take them seriously from the first year have a far easier clinical phase than those who postpone it.

How Do You Find the Right University — and Get In?

You will not find a checklist of documents, a test breakdown or a calendar of dates on this page, and that is deliberate. Those details differ from country to country and from university to university, they change from year to year, and a list copied off the internet is one of the most reliable ways for a good candidate to lose a place.

We work the other way round. Send us your profile — your school-leaving certificate, any study you have already completed, and the countries you could genuinely see yourself living in — and we come back with the concrete answer: which university, in which country, we can place you at, and where we can get you in on a timetable you can plan around. Behind that answer sits the largest selection of official partner universities for medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing and veterinary medicine.

If you have already started a degree somewhere, we look for the highest possible point of entry; students frequently come in during the final two years of a programme rather than repeating what they have already passed.

Book a free consultation and we will tell you honestly where you fit — before you commit a year to finding out the hard way.