Learning Valencian in Valencia: Do You Need It, and Where to Study It for Free (2026)

Is Valencian a language or a dialect, who actually needs it, and which courses in València cost nothing or close to it — with dates for the 2026–27 year.

You get added to the WhatsApp group for your son's class. The first message is about l'eixida de dimecres — Wednesday's school trip — and the twelve replies under it are in Valencian too. You catch dimecres, because it looks like miércoles, and nothing else.

So do you need Valencian to live here? For the bakery, the doctor and the gestor (the agency that does your paperwork) — no. In the city of València and its metropolitan area 69.2% of people speak only Spanish at home, according to the Generalitat's 2021 survey of language use. But 80.7% understand Valencian and half (51.1%) speak it, so you hear it around you all the time: at the next table, in the letter from the Ajuntament (the city council).

Is Valencian a language or a dialect of Catalan?

Say "Valencian" while you live here. Whether it is "really Catalan" is a political argument with a forty-year history, and dinner with new neighbours is a bad place to reopen it.

The Statute of Autonomy, article 6, calls Valencian la lengua propia de la Comunitat Valenciana — the region's own language — and makes it co-official with Spanish. The same article names the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua (AVL) as the body that sets its norms, and in 2005 the AVL ruled that, from the point of view of philology, the speech of the Valencian Community, Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Andorra is one language. Here it is officially called valencià, and the AVL publishes its own dictionary and grammar.

The city's name is part of the same story. Since a 2017 regional decree (Decret 16/2017) the only official form has been València, with the accent. In 2025 the city council voted to make the name bilingual, Valencia/València, and in February 2026 the AVL advised against it. The procedure isn't finished, so you will see both spellings this year.

When does Valencian stop being optional?

Both languages are official, so you can deal with any public office in Spanish, and in València Spanish is what you will hear at most counters. The 2021 Enquesta de coneixement i ús social del valencià — the Generalitat's survey of who knows and uses the language — shows where the line runs:

At home, only 11.2% of people in València speak Valencian always or mostly.

The 1983 language law (Llei d'Ús i Ensenyament del Valencià) splits the region into Valencian-speaking and Spanish-speaking areas. València is in the first. Requena, Utiel, Buñol, Chiva, Ayora, Orihuela, Torrevieja, Elda, Villena and Segorbe are in the second, and there, by the same survey, only 24.2% of people speak Valencian. If you live in one of those towns, most of what follows matters much less.

Your children go to a public or concertado school (a privately run school paid for by the region). Since Llei 1/2024 de llibertat educativa the family chooses the base language of teaching, Valencian or Spanish, from infant school up to Bachillerato, the last two years before university. Valencian stays a subject either way. A child new to the region's schools, from abroad or from another part of Spain, gets no Valencian grade for the first two school years; after that it counts. In the Spanish-speaking municipalities the exemption can be indefinite. If you are moving with children, start with our guide to enrolling in a Spanish school. The language question comes right after the padrón, the town hall register.

You want a job in the regional public sector. Since the May 2025 reform (Llei 5/2025), Valencian is a requirement only for the regional posts whose rules say so; everywhere else it earns you extra points in the selection.

Then there is everything that isn't a rule: the falla (the neighbourhood commission that builds and burns a monument every March), and the neighbour who switches to Spanish only for you. Our advice: Spanish first, until B2, when everyday conversation stops feeling like work. After that, a year of Valencian aimed at understanding — enough to follow the school notices and the falla meeting — gives you more than the same year spent polishing Spanish from B2 to C1, unless your work needs that C1.

Where to learn Valencian for free or cheaply in València

What is open for 2026–27. We checked the official pages in October 2026. Most enrolments ran in June–September, so look at the last column first.

If you already speak some Spanish, start with Voluntariat pel Valencià. Escola Valenciana pairs you with a Valencian speaker for an hour a week over ten weeks, usually over a coffee or on a walk, and it costs nothing. It has run since 2005, there is an online format, and it is the only option on the list where you speak from the first week.

The Universitat de València page says La matrícula és gratuïta (enrolment is free) but doesn't say whether people outside the university can enrol, so ask the Servei de Llengües before you count on a place.

Valencian has no A1 exam. The A1 certificate comes from authorised courses for over-18s, run by the adult education centres — in València, at centres such as CFPA Natzaret, L'Alguer, Serrano Morales and Parc de l'Oest.

The EOI is the most structured route, and it charges the same €90 a year for Valencian as for any other language; we compared EOI fees with the price of a DELE in our guide to measuring your Spanish level. Valencian exams there are cheaper, though: sitting the B1 or B2 exam on its own costs €20.79, against €67.28 for the other languages.

Short version: to speak now, Voluntariat; for a certificate later, the EOI or the JQCV.

How do Valencian certificates work?

The official certificates come from the Junta Qualificadora de Coneixements del Valencià (JQCV), levels A2 to C2. There is one session a year, spread over several dates: in 2026 the A2 and B1 exams were on 6 June and the B2 and C1 written papers on 3 October; enrolment ran in spring and early summer, by appointment (cita prèvia) on provesjqcv.gva.es. Reading this in autumn, the next enrolment opens in spring 2027, with exams from June.

Which other diplomas count as equivalent, EOI ones included, is set out in a regional order, Orde 7/2017. Outside a public-sector application, nobody is likely to ask you for a certificate.

Check yourself: can you read the street?

Frequently asked questions

What to do this autumn

Sign up for Voluntariat pel Valencià before 16 October, and put the JQCV spring 2027 enrolment in your calendar now.