How to Apply to Charles University for MBBS: Faculties, Deadlines, Fees and Entrance Exams

How to apply for Charles University starts with choosing one of its five medical faculties, since each admits separately. You apply online through the university information system, pay that faculty's application fee, and sit its own entrance exam in school level Biology, Chemistry and Physics. Application windows open in autumn, and the deadlines run from mid April to early September.

Most Indian students search for "Charles University" as though it were a single medical college with one form and one deadline. It is not. Charles University in Prague was founded in 1348, and today it teaches medicine in English at five separate faculties. Each one runs its own application, its own entrance exam, its own deadline and its own fee. Understanding that structure before you start is the single most useful thing you can do, because it changes how you plan the whole year.

Charles University has five medical faculties, and each one admits separately

All five award the MUDr., the Czech medical doctor qualification that Indian students and parents refer to as MBBS. The course runs six years of full time study taught entirely in English, and the shape of it is the same everywhere: preclinical sciences first, then paraclinical subjects, then clinical rotations in university teaching hospitals.

Dentistry in English is available at three faculties only. The Second and Third Faculties teach General Medicine in English and nothing else, so a student set on dentistry is choosing between the First Faculty, Pilsen and Hradec Králové from the start.

Now the part that changes how you plan, and it is worth reading twice. Four of the five faculties close within about three weeks of each other: the Third Faculty on 15 April 2026, then the Second Faculty, Pilsen and Hradec Králové all on 30 April 2026, with Hradec Králové holding a 7 May date open for its exam terms abroad. The First Faculty then stays open until 5 September 2026. That is the shape of the year. You get one clustered round in April, and then a single faculty still accepting applications almost five months later. A student who is not selected in the April round still has the First Faculty open in the same admission year, which is the difference between starting in September and waiting twelve months.

What Indian students need in place before applying

Three things decide whether your application is even valid, and two of them are Indian requirements rather than Czech ones.

• NEET UG: The National Medical Commission requires every Indian citizen and Overseas Citizen of India obtaining a primary medical qualification abroad, on or after May 2018, to qualify NEET. For those students the NEET result is itself treated as the Eligibility Certificate, so there is no separate certificate to obtain. The result stays valid for three years from the date it is declared, and that validity covers a pre-medical or language course followed by the medical course, which means a student who qualified NEET in 2026 can still use that result for a 2027 or 2028 intake.

• Class 12 with Physics, Chemistry and Biology. The faculties test school level science, so your board syllabus is the foundation the entrance exam is built on. Chemistry and Biology carry the most weight almost everywhere.

• A passport valid well beyond your course start. You need the first page for the application itself and the document for the visa appointment, so start the process early if you do not already hold one.
  

One more thing families should know. The National Medical Commission states plainly that it does not endorse any list of foreign medical institutions, and it directs students to obtain the fee structure and course details from the institution itself. Charles University publishes all of it on its faculty websites, which is why every figure in this article is linked to the faculty that set it.

How to apply for Charles University, step by step

1. Choose your faculty and your backup faculty. Compare fees, entrance exam subjects and deadlines before anything else. Pilsen and Hradec Králové cost considerably less than the First Faculty, and the exams are not interchangeable.

2. Create an account in the Charles University information system. All five faculties use the same online application portal. You register with an email address, verify it, and build a profile you can reuse for a second faculty.

3. Fill in the application and upload your school documents. You will need your Class 12 marksheet and school leaving certificate, a transcript showing subjects and hours, and a copy of the first page of your passport.

4. Pay the application fee. Card payment inside the portal is the simplest route for Indian applicants. Bank transfer works but takes longer, and the application counts as submitted only once the money reaches the faculty. The Second Faculty discards an application if the fee has not arrived by the third day after the deadline.

5. Book your entrance exam term. Each faculty publishes dates in Prague or at its own campus, plus terms run abroad through its official representatives, so pick your term while you apply rather than afterwards.

6. Sit the written test. This is multiple choice, taken under exam conditions, and it is the stage where most applicants are filtered out.

7. Sit the interview. Every faculty runs a second oral stage. At the First Faculty it is conducted online, which removes one flight from the process.

8. Complete the recognition of your school certificate. This is the nostrification step, covered in its own section below, and it carries a separate fee of CZK 990.

9. Accept your place and pay the first year tuition. At the Third Faculty tuition is due by 30 October and enrolment closes on 20 October, and missing either costs you the seat.

10. Apply for a long term study visa at the Embassy of the Czech Republic in New Delhi. Start this the day your letter of admission arrives.

11. Enrol in person in late September, with your passport and your health certificate. The Third Faculty also requires proof of Hepatitis B and measles vaccination before you begin clinical practice in the first year.

Application windows and deadlines

The dates below are the published 2026/2027 cycle. Charles University repeats this pattern closely from year to year, so use it to plan backwards from the faculty you want, and check the faculty's own page once the next cycle opens.

Two details in that table are easy to misread. Hradec Králové carries two dates: 30 April is the cut off to be added to the 13 May online test, and 7 May is the last date to submit and fully pay an application for one of its terms held abroad. At the Third Faculty, 2 July is not a second sitting you can simply choose. It is granted on request within three days of the original date, with a medical report, at the dean's discretion.

Hradec Králové also allows only one admission attempt in an academic year, and Pilsen applies the same rule, so a weak result at either cannot be repeated in the same cycle.

The entrance exam is different at every faculty

This is where students who prepare from a generic "Charles University entrance exam" guide lose marks. The subjects, the number of questions, the scoring and even the device you sit the test on change from faculty to faculty.

First Faculty of Medicine

Two rounds. The written round is a paper based multiple choice test in Biology, Chemistry and General Science, which covers data interpretation, graphs and mathematics. It runs 90 minutes and is worth 75 points, each subject carrying 25. The format is single best answer with no negative marking. The second round is a set of five consecutive Multiple Mini Interviews conducted online, ten minutes each, worth 20 points per station and 100 points in total. One detail here should reshape how you prepare: only the points from the second round decide admission. The faculty states outright that the written and oral scores are not combined. The written test is a gate, not a ranking.

Second Faculty of Medicine

A 90 minute written test covering Biology, Physics and Chemistry with 20 questions each, plus 15 logic questions, for a maximum of 225 points. The scoring on the three science sections is unforgiving. Three points are awarded only when every correct option is selected and every incorrect one left out, and any discrepancy scores zero. The 15 logic questions carry a single correct answer each. Top scorers go to an oral examination before a three member committee, where two topics are drawn at random, and the faculty gives the maximum for that round as 90 points. The faculty states a maximum of 90 admitted applicants, while the university's own programme record gives an expected minimum of 100, so treat the intake as being in the region of 90 to 100.

Third Faculty of Medicine

Sixty multiple choice questions, 30 in Biology and 30 in Chemistry, four options with one correct answer, one point each, answered electronically on your own laptop or device and scored from 0 to 60. The dean sets the minimum score for the oral stage once the written results are in. The oral round lasts ten minutes and is scored across eleven criteria, five on analysis of a scientific text and six on the interview itself, plus an individual recommendation from each evaluator, giving a range of 12 to 62 points. Around 90 students are admitted for 2026/2027. No Physics appears in the written test here, which makes it the shortest syllabus of the five.

There is also a route with no entrance exam at the Third Faculty. A maximum of 25 of the strongest applicants are admitted on qualifications alone, on A Levels of A, A and B in English, Chemistry and Biology, an IB score of 19 or above at Higher Level, an SAT result at the 85th percentile, or an equivalent, with documents due by 15 April 2026.

Faculty of Medicine in Pilsen

Biology, Chemistry and Physics. Pilsen does not prescribe set literature, because applicants arrive from very different school systems, and instead points to A Level study guides: Toole for Biology, Ramsden for Chemistry and Breithaupt for Physics. That is a fair warning for a student coming straight from a state board syllabus. Pilsen also runs a term in New Delhi, held on 8 June 2026 through futureDOCTOR, so an Indian applicant can sit it without flying to Europe.

Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Králové

A written multiple choice test worth 60 points, made up of 25 points of Biology, 25 of Chemistry and 10 of Physics or Mathematics, with one point for a correct answer and zero for a wrong or blank one. A scientific calculator is allowed, dictionaries and tables are not. The oral interview carries 40 points, split evenly between analysis of scientific and medical information and a personal profile covering ethics, communication and teamwork. The faculty takes 105 students into General Medicine and 25 into Dentistry. For 2026 the Czech Republic term was held online, proctored by Scio with the interview on MS Teams, alongside agency terms in Doha, Dubai, Tokyo, Istanbul and London. No India term is listed, so an Indian applicant to Hradec Králové is looking at the online route or a Gulf city.

What does Charles University cost for an Indian student?

Annual tuition for General Medicine in English runs from CZK 390,000 a year at Pilsen to EUR 24,250 at the First Faculty, a spread of more than sixty percent inside one university. Over six years that is roughly Rs. 1.07 crore to Rs. 1.61 crore before living costs.

Converted at the European Central Bank reference rates of 15 September 2026, which put the euro at Rs. 110.73 and the koruna at Rs. 4.56. Dentistry is priced separately where it is offered, at CZK 410,000 a year in Hradec Králové and at the same EUR 24,250 as General Medicine at the First Faculty.

Over six years that comes to close to Rs. 1.07 crore at Pilsen and around Rs. 1.61 crore at the First Faculty, before living costs. Families should look at that six year total early rather than at the first year figure alone, because it is the number an education loan has to cover.

The smaller fees add up too, and all of them are payable before you have a seat.

• Application fee: CZK 940 at the Third Faculty and at Pilsen for an online application, CZK 990 if Pilsen receives it on paper, CZK 2,500 at the Second Faculty and at Hradec Králové, and EUR 285 at the First Faculty, which is roughly Rs. 31,600.

• Recognition of your school certificate: CZK 990, paid through the online application. Hradec Králové waives it for applicants who already hold Czech nostrification, a European Baccalaureate, or an automatically equivalent certificate from Slovakia, Poland, Hungary or Slovenia.

• Visa fee: CZK 2,500 for the long term visa application, which the Embassy of the Czech Republic in New Delhi publishes as Rs. 11,400.

Tuition does not cover accommodation, textbooks, meals or health insurance at any of the faculties, so budget for those separately from day one. Our MBBS in Czech Republic guide breaks down monthly living costs city by city.

What is nostrification, and do you need it?

Czech universities cannot admit you on an Indian school certificate alone. Your Class 12 qualification has to be formally recognised, a process Czechs call nostrification. The faculties handle it in one of two ways, a faculty level assessment costing CZK 990 or full nostrification through the regional authority, and the difference matters.

Each faculty runs its own assessment of foreign secondary education, in which the study department checks your Indian certificate against its curriculum requirements. It is faster, it costs CZK 990, and it is valid only for the admission procedure at that faculty, which means it does not transfer if you later switch faculties or universities. The alternative is full nostrification through the regional authority, which is slower but carries wider validity.

Whichever route applies, the documents look the same. You send an officially verified copy of your school leaving certificate carrying an Apostille from India, an official transcript listing subjects, grades and hours, translations into Czech or English, and the recognition fee. The deadlines are earlier than students expect: the First Faculty requires the documents by 31 August, and Hradec Králové closes the process at the end of August. Send them as early as you can rather than at enrolment, because the certificate is also what your visa file needs.

How does the Czech student visa work?

Indian students apply for a long term study visa at the Embassy of the Czech Republic in New Delhi, in person and by appointment. The embassy states that study applications are decided by the Czech Ministry of the Interior within 60 days, against a general statutory deadline of 90 days.

The embassy notes that a case can run to that longer period, and appointment slots are limited, so the letter of admission should trigger the visa work the day it arrives.

The file includes your completed application form, your passport, one photograph, proof of accommodation in the Czech Republic, your original enrolment letter from the university as the document confirming purpose of stay, proof of funds, an extract from the penal register, and parental consent if you are under 18. Every document in a foreign language needs an officially certified translation into Czech, and nothing in the file except the passport may be older than 180 days. Before the visa is affixed to your passport you must show medical travel insurance covering at least EUR 60,000, including emergency care and repatriation, for the whole stay. The long term study visa is issued for a maximum of one year and is then extended from inside the country at the relevant branch of the Ministry of the Interior.

Can you practise in India after graduating?

An MUDr. from Charles University is a primary medical qualification obtained outside India, so the Indian rules that follow are the same ones that apply to any foreign medical graduate. Charles University is listed in the World Directory of Medical Schools, which records the MUDr. as a six year qualification taught in English and Czech.

To register with the National Medical Commission or a State Medical Council, you must qualify the screening test, currently the FMGE conducted by the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences. NBEMS allows only candidates who hold both the Eligibility Certificate, where applicable, and the degree or provisional pass certificate to sit it. The qualification must also be confirmed by the Indian Embassy concerned as recognised for enrolment as a medical practitioner in the country that awarded it, which for the Czech Republic means the MUDr. must entitle you to practise there.

The screening test is due to be replaced by NExT, but the National Medical Commission deferred NExT in July 2023 and has not notified it since, so FMGE remains the live exam as of September 2026. Either way, that exam is the gate between a foreign degree and an Indian licence, and it is worth planning for from your first year rather than your last. Students who treat the six years abroad as preparation for it, rather than as something to worry about later, clear it far more comfortably.

What to do next

• Check your NEET validity. Work out which intakes your current result still covers, using the three year window from the date the result was declared.

• Shortlist two faculties, not one. Pick a first choice in the April round and pair it with the First Faculty, whose September deadline is your second chance inside the same admission year.

• Apply for or renew your passport now if it expires within the next three years.

• Start the Apostille on your Class 12 documents before applications open, because the recognition deadlines fall at the end of August and this is the step that most often runs late.

• Build your exam preparation around the faculty you chose, not around a generic syllabus. Biology and Chemistry carry every faculty, Physics carries three of them, and logic appears only at the Second Faculty.

Where futureMBBS fits in

We partner with medical universities across the European Union, Charles University among them, and futureDOCTOR hosts the Pilsen entrance exam term in New Delhi. Families who ask us how to apply for Charles University get walked through exactly the sequence above: choosing the right faculty for a student's marks and budget, getting the application and the Apostille through before the end of August deadlines, preparing for the specific entrance exam that faculty sets, and getting through the visa without losing weeks. If you are weighing up which faculty to target, talk to us before you start applying.

Sources

• First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, Admissions 2026/2027

• Second Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, Entrance Examination

• Third Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, Entrance Exam

• Third Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, When Admitted

• Faculty of Medicine in Pilsen, Charles University, Admission Procedure

• Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Králové, Charles University, Admission Process

• National Medical Commission, For Students to Study Abroad

• National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences, FMGE

• Embassy of the Czech Republic in New Delhi, Long Term Visa

• Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic, Long Term Visa for Studies

• European Central Bank, Euro Reference Exchange Rates