Free Catalan courses in Barcelona: which levels cost nothing and how to sign up with the CPNL

The free Catalan courses in Barcelona are the CPNL's: the Inicial level (A1) and Bàsic (A2) cost 0 €, as does the spoken course Ep! Escolta i parla. From Elemental onwards there is a fee. The next enrolment is in December 2026, for courses starting in January 2027.

Anyone who comes to live in Barcelona for a few months soon finds that Catalan is at school, at the doctor's, at the market and on the radio. The good news is that starting costs nothing: the first levels of the public courses are free. Here is what is genuinely free, what you pay for after that and how enrolment works, all taken from the official websites.

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Who runs the courses

The public Catalan courses for adults are run by the Consorci per a la Normalització Lingüística (CPNL), which has a network of centres across Catalonia, one of them the CNL de Barcelona. According to its website, the general courses are designed from the Catalan government's language programmes and are offered in person or online.

Barcelona International Welcome, the city council's website for people moving to the city, sums it up like this: the CPNL offers free and subsidised Catalan classes, from A1 to C2.

What costs 0 €

The CPNL's price table for the 2026-2027 year makes it clear what is free. The Inicial level (A1), 45 hours, costs 0 €. The Bàsic level, equivalent to A2, also costs 0 €, whether you take it as three 45-hour courses (Bàsic 1, 2 and 3) or as a single 120-hour course. And the spoken course Ep! Escolta i parla, 45 hours, is also 0 €.

In other words: the free courses take you up to A2, the level at which you can hold your own in a simple conversation. For someone here for a few months, that is exactly the stretch you notice most in daily life.

What you pay for after that

From the Elemental level (B1) the courses have a price. According to the same table, each 45-hour course costs 25,50 € at Elemental, 50,50 € at Intermedi (B2) and 98,50 € at Suficiència (C1). The Superior level (C2), 90 hours, costs 245,50 €. Conversation groups, 20 hours, cost 39,50 €. Prices checked in October 2026.

There are discounts. The 50 % one is for pensioners, members of large or single-parent families in the general category and people with a recognised disability of 33 % or more. The 70 % one is for unemployed people, large or single-parent families in the special category and people in precarious circumstances. You have to prove it with documents valid at the time of enrolment; for unemployment, for example, a report from the SOC or a certificate from the SEPE will do.

Before you enrol: your level

To enrol you must be 18 by the start date of the course, or over 16 if you did not complete compulsory schooling in Catalonia. If it is your first course with the CPNL, they first need to know your level: either you bring a Catalan certificate or you take a level test. If you are starting from scratch, the starting point is Inicial.

You can do this online, on the enrolment platform, or in person at your nearest centre. The CPNL warns that it is compulsory but does not guarantee a place, that the test result is not a certificate and that the test is valid for 2 years.

When enrolment opens

The CPNL opens enrolment three times a year: in September for first-term courses, in December for second-term courses and in March-April for third-term courses. The next one is in December 2026, from A1 to C2. Its website says that from 23 November the full course list will be on its search page, that the level test or certificate check can be done until 11 December if you want the result before enrolling, and that courses start in January 2027 (A1 to C1). The exact dates are published at least 15 days before enrolment opens. Checked in October 2026.

There are two rounds: a priority one, for people who completed a course or withdrew from one in the last 12 months, and a general one, for everyone. Within each round, applications are handled in order of arrival and each course closes when it is full, so it pays to have your level sorted beforehand. If the course has a fee, the payment document arrives once you are enrolled, and anyone who does not pay on time loses the place. If you need help, the CPNL points you to the 012 phone line.

What the classes are like

Most general courses are 45 hours and the most common last 3 months, with a minimum of between 4,5 and 5,5 hours a week. There is an in-person option, with a fixed timetable and a physical classroom; live in a virtual classroom; blended; and online with no fixed timetable. If you pass an end-of-level course, such as Inicial or Bàsic 3, the CPNL certificate is equivalent to the Catalan government's official A1 or A2 certificate.

Other free ways to practise

The Voluntariat per la llengua, promoted by the Catalan language policy department and run by the CPNL, sets up language pairs: someone who speaks Catalan fluently and someone who is learning it, who meet for an hour a week for at least 10 weeks, in person or by video call. You have to be an adult and have roughly the Bàsic 3 level. You sign up at vxl.cat or at your nearest language centre.

For studying on your own, Barcelona International Welcome points out that the Parla.cat portal is free and open to everyone, and that the city's library network has materials for learning the language. And if you have just arrived, before class it is worth registering on the padrón.

Checked

Checked on 17 October 2026 on the CPNL website (2026-2027 price table, fee discounts, enrolment periods, enrolment page, course length, formats, certification and FAQ), on the Voluntariat per la llengua website, on Parla.cat and on Barcelona International Welcome's languages page. Enrolment dates can change: confirm them at cpnl.cat before you go.