Medicine in Latvia vs Lithuania: Nine Programs, Four Universities

This comparison is small enough to publish in full rather than summarize:

There is no median worth quoting anywhere in that table, because no country has more than two programs in any subject. Two numbers are not a distribution, and treating them as one is how comparisons start lying. What you have instead is nine specific prices, which is more useful.

On medicine the four programs interleave: €11,850 in Latvia, €12,800 in Lithuania, €13,500 in Latvia, €14,100 in Lithuania. Neither country is cheaper than the other as a country. The University of Latvia is simply the cheapest of the four, by €950 a year over its nearest rival — about €5,700 across a six-year degree.

Dentistry runs the other way. Latvia's only option is €15,500; Lithuania's cheaper option is €13,600. That is €1,900 a year and €9,500 across five years, and it is the largest dentistry gap available in the region because there are only three dentistry programs in it.

The Lithuanian University of Health Sciences charges €5,600 a year for pharmacy. That is one of the lowest verified pharmacy fees anywhere in Europe, and across a five-year degree it comes to €28,000 — less than two years of dentistry at Riga Stradins.

Latvia's single pharmacy program, at Riga Stradins University, has no confirmed current-cycle fee on this site. It may be competitive and we cannot say so; it is one of the programs where we hold no published price, and until the university publishes one there is nothing to compare.

So if pharmacy is the degree, this comparison resolves itself. One country has a confirmed, unusually low price and the other has an unknown.

One thing the low fee does not change: a Lithuanian pharmacy degree goes through standard PEBC document evaluation for Canada rather than the streamlined route open to British and Irish graduates. It clears the American five-year duration threshold on its face, like every non-British program in Europe. The two North American systems want different things, and €5,600 buys you the American side of that trade, not both.

Latvia's published admission requirements name an interview and do not name an entrance examination. Lithuania's name an entrance examination at three programs and an interview at two.

That is a genuine fork. If your transcript is strong and you present well, Latvia's process rewards what you already have. If you would rather be tested on biology and chemistry than judged on a conversation, Lithuania gives you that and gives you more than one chance at it.

Vilnius University publishes six online examination dates for medicine — 22 January, 26 February, 19 March, 16 April, 14 May and 18 June 2026 — with an important restriction: non-EU applicants must test no later than 14 May, which leaves five of the six. That is still five chances, and it is the kind of schedule that turns a bad exam day into a bad month rather than a lost year.

The Lithuanian University of Health Sciences also runs one of the longest application windows in Europe: open from 1 November 2025, closing 6 July 2026 at 00:00. Read that closing time carefully — midnight means the sixth of July is a day you have already lost, not a day you have.

For medicine, pick the program rather than the country. The University of Latvia at €11,850 is the cheapest, the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences at €12,800 is second, and the €950 between them is small enough that city, teaching hospital and selection method should decide it.

For dentistry, Lithuania, unless you specifically want Riga. €9,500 across the degree for a program a hundred kilometres away is a straightforward saving.

For pharmacy, Lithuania, because it is the only one of the two with a published price and that price is remarkable.

For how you want to be assessed, Latvia if you would rather interview and Lithuania if you would rather sit an exam — and if that is genuinely your deciding factor, Lithuania also gives you the retakes.

Both are EU member states, both require the local language for clinical patient contact, and both are foreign medical degrees for US and Canadian purposes on identical terms. If neither convinces you, the wider Baltic picture includes Estonia, and Poland is next door with fourteen medicine programs at comparable prices.