Dentistry and Veterinary Admissions in Europe: Numerus Clausus Beyond Medicine

Why these fields are capped separately from medicine

Dentistry and veterinary medicine both need expensive, hands-on clinical training. Dentistry needs dental clinics, and veterinary medicine needs veterinary hospitals and animal-handling facilities. Countries treat them as distinct workforce-planning problems from medicine, so they set separate quotas and often separate selection processes, even in countries that group all three under one general numerus clausus framework.

Belgium: one exam, two separate rankings

Belgium's French-speaking universities run a single national concours covering both medicine and dentistry, organized by ARES and held once a year in Brussels. You choose your field, medicine or dentistry, and your university before the exam, and that choice is final. Candidates are ranked separately within each field, so a strong dentistry-track result does not carry over into the medicine ranking, according to ARES exam guidance .

Germany: parallel NC tracks

Germany runs dentistry through Hochschulstart using the same grade-quota and additional-criteria structure as medicine, so a similar Abitur average and aptitude-test strategy applies. Veterinary medicine also carries a national NC and runs through Hochschulstart , with its own separate ranking and cutoff, since far fewer veterinary faculties exist in Germany than medical or dental faculties.

Italy: from entrance tests to a filter period

English-taught dentistry and veterinary medicine programs at Italian public universities use IMAT, the same national entrance test used for English-taught medicine. Italian-taught dentistry followed medicine's 2025-26 reform: the upfront TOLC-style entrance test is gone for dentistry too, replaced with an open filter semester where all interested students enroll and sit qualifying exams at the end of the term, according to university reform guidance . Veterinary medicine in Italy still uses its own dedicated entrance test.

Netherlands: numerus fixus for both fields

Dutch universities treat both dentistry and veterinary medicine as numerus fixus programs, selected through Studielink rather than open enrollment. You apply by the numerus fixus deadline, and the university you applied to runs its own selection using grades, tests, or a mix of both, following the same process it uses for capped medicine places, per Studielink guidance . The Netherlands has only one veterinary faculty nationwide, at Utrecht University, which makes competition for those places intense regardless of your grade profile.

Why veterinary medicine is often harder to get into than dentistry

Most European countries run only a handful of veterinary faculties, sometimes only one, while dentistry faculties are more numerous. Fewer total places against a similarly large applicant pool pushes veterinary medicine's effective competition ratio above dentistry's in most countries, even where both fields sit under the same general admission framework.

Timing: when to register

Belgium's national concours for medicine and dentistry runs on a fixed annual calendar. For the 2026-2027 academic year, registration opens 18 May and closes 5 July 2026, and the exam itself takes place on 27 August 2026 in Brussels, according to ARES exam guidance . Other countries run on their own separate calendars, so build a personal timeline that tracks every country you apply to rather than assume one shared schedule.

Study length and cost alongside admission difficulty

Dentistry and veterinary medicine both run longer than most bachelor's degrees, typically five to six years including clinical training. Public university tuition in Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands stays low and government-set even for these capped fields, while private or self-funded routes in some countries cost significantly more. Weigh the full program length and total cost against your admission chances before committing years of preparation to one country's entrance route.

Applying to dentistry and veterinary programs alongside medicine

Some students treat dentistry or veterinary medicine as a second option alongside a medicine application, since the underlying science requirements overlap closely. Confirm whether your target country lets you register for more than one field in the same cycle. Belgium's concours forces a single, final choice between medicine and dentistry at registration, so you cannot hedge between the two there, while countries with separate entrance tests or grade-quota systems for each field allow parallel applications.

Choosing where to apply

If your school grades sit closer to strong than exceptional, an exam-based system such as Belgium's concours or Italy's IMAT often suits you better than a pure grade-ranking system, since a good exam day does not depend on years of school grading. If you already have an outstanding final grade average, Germany's grade-quota route plays to that strength directly. Wherever you apply, check the field's total national place count for the year you plan to enter, since veterinary numbers especially shift when a country opens or expands a faculty.

After graduation: EU-wide recognition

Once you qualify and register as a dentist or veterinarian in one EU or EEA country, EU professional-qualification rules give you a route to automatic recognition of your qualification in other member states, so your training stays portable across most of Europe after you graduate.