Medicine in Poland vs Romania: The €36,636 Difference

Verified 2026-2027 annual tuition for English-taught medicine:

Read the bottom-right cell against the top-left one. Romania's most expensive verified medicine program costs €15,000 a year. Poland's median is €15,106. So the dearest thing Romania offers is, to within about a hundred euros, the middle of the Polish market.

Across a six-year degree the median difference is €6,106 a year, or €36,636 in total — more than four years of Romanian tuition, and enough on its own to fund the living costs of the entire degree in either country.

Dentistry follows the same shape. Poland runs €14,000 to €20,900 with a median of €17,000. Romania runs €6,500 to €13,500 with a median of €10,000. Poland is 70% more expensive at the median, and its cheapest dentistry program costs more than Romania's most expensive one.

Pharmacy cannot be compared honestly here. Poland has three English-taught pharmacy programs, two with verified fees at €5,700 and €9,812. Romania has one, and its fee is not confirmed for the current cycle. With one unverified program on one side there is no comparison to make, and this guide will not invent one. If pharmacy is your program, look wider than these two countries.

This is worth stating because the pattern of *what is verifiable* differs between the two. All 12 Romanian medicine programs publish a confirmable current-cycle fee. In Poland, 13 of 14 do. Both are good; neither is complete.

Being fair to the more expensive option, because price alone is a bad way to choose a six-year commitment.

Scale. Poland has 14 universities with English-taught programs against Romania's 12, and 25 programs against 22. More options means more chances of a fit on city, size and structure.

Depth of the English track. Polish medical universities have run English-language divisions for decades and the largest have very substantial international cohorts. That shows up in things that do not appear in a fee table: administrative staff who deal with international paperwork daily, established student communities, and predictable processes.

Verifiable pricing at the top end. The Medical University of Warsaw publishes not just its €18,800 annual fee but a €112,800 six-year total, which is the clearest statement of the full cost any university in this catalog makes.

What the premium does not buy is a different licensing outcome. Both countries are EU members, so both degrees sit inside the same EU/EEA recognition framework, and both are foreign medical degrees for USMLE and MCC purposes. The route home is identical.

Paperwork. Both require formal recognition of your school qualification, and both sit near the top of the list for it — 11 Polish programs and 14 Romanian ones name recognition or equivalency in their published requirements. Start it early in either case; it is the step that costs people a cycle.

Applying. Poland is the most fragmented application landscape in Europe: its programs use 17 different portals, so three Polish universities generally means three separate accounts and three fees. Romania uses 12. Neither has a national system like UCAS. The portal map is here.

Fee schedules that move. Several universities in both countries change the amount partway through the degree. In Poland, Łódź charges €15,100 in year one then €14,900; Warmia and Mazury PLN 49,000 then PLN 47,000; Poznań publishes a six-year total of PLN 485,000 with years 3-6 dearer than years 1-2. In Romania, Titu Maiorescu falls from €13,500 to €7,000. Multiplying year one by six is wrong in both directions — the schedules are listed separately.

If the budget is binding, Romania, clearly. €36,636 over the degree is not a rounding difference, and Romania's programs are EU-recognized on exactly the same terms as Poland's. Sibiu at €7,000 and the rest of the sub-€10,000 Romanian group are the cheapest EU-member medicine you will find in English.

If you want the largest choice and the most established English-language administration, Poland, and accept that you are paying roughly 68% more at the median for it.

If you are doing dentistry, the same logic applies more strongly — the Polish premium is 70% and its floor is above Romania's ceiling.

And in both cases, price the whole degree rather than the first year. Add living costs with the cost calculator, check whether your specific university changes its fee by year, and compare the total against the under €10,000 list. Romania holds 11 of its 38 places. Poland holds 2, and both are pharmacy — no Polish medicine or dentistry program comes in under €10,000.