Some Italian universities accept a Medium of Instruction letter instead of IELTS, and some accept the Duolingo English Test. It is decided programme by programme, and no Italian ministry publishes a list of which ones do.
So this page does not hand you a list. It sets out every route that exists, how well each one is evidenced, and the page you have to open yourself to find the answer for your own course. Where nobody has published a figure, we say that instead of repeating one.
Last checked 31 August 2026. Every row below names the office or publisher it came from, or says plainly that there is not one.
What is actually accepted
A primary source sits on 2 of these rows. The rest describe decisions made one programme at a time and published nowhere central. That difference sits on every row, not in a footnote.
Most programmes ask for CEFR B2, in whichever language the course is taught: Italian for Italian-taught degrees, English for English-taught ones.
B2 recurs across university admissions pages. No Italian ministry sets it centrally, so there is no single page to link.
The Embassy of Italy in Islamabad's 2026 study-visa checklist lists a language certificate at B2 in Italian or English among the documents you submit.
Embassy of Italy, Islamabadchecked
The test most commonly named on Italian admissions pages. Accepted wherever a certificate is asked for.
Accepted programme by programme. The only page that binds is your own programme's admissions page or bando.
Commonly accepted alongside IELTS. Which score a programme wants is set by that programme, not nationally.
Same as IELTS: stated per programme, never centrally. Check the bando for your course and your intake year.
Commonly accepted. Cambridge certificates map directly onto the CEFR level a programme asks for, which is why they turn up often.
Corroborated across university admissions pages. No national list of which universities take it.
Accepted by many Italian universities for English-taught programmes. Duolingo's own 2026 post names Pisa, Luiss and Rome Business School as examples. That is evidence for those three institutions and for no others.
Duolingo English Testchecked
Some universities run their own English test, or an interview, instead of asking for an external certificate.
Announced per university, usually inside the admission call. There is no register of which universities do this.
A letter from your previous university stating that your degree was taught in English. Waivers on this basis exist, more often at Master's level, and are decided programme by programme.
No ministry, agency or national body publishes which programmes grant this waiver. Ask the admissions office and keep the written reply.
There is not one. No Italian ministry or national body publishes a list of institutions accepting Medium of Instruction letters or the Duolingo English Test.
We searched for it. Nothing official exists. Any site showing you a complete list built it from other people's lists.
These rows are requirement level, which is true for every programme and specific to none. Per-programme rows are added as each admission call is verified, with its own link and date. None of the 6 catalogue records is verified yet, checked 31 August 2026.
Three things you will read elsewhere
These three appear on most pages answering this question. Each one is either unsourced or untrue, and leaving them out costs us a more confident-looking page. Naming them is the more useful trade.
We will not publish
You will find this figure on a great many study-abroad sites. Every trail we followed ended at a consultancy blog quoting another consultancy blog. No ministry, no university association and no agency publishes it. We will not repeat a number whose origin we cannot show you.
We will not publish
Some universities publish an IELTS score on their admissions page. A published score is not the same as a rule with no exceptions, and we have not found admissions regulations that state one. So we describe what a page says, and we link the page.
We will not publish
It does not exist. That is not a gap in our research; it is a gap in what Italy publishes. A list circulating without a source is somebody's guess that has been copied enough times to look like a fact.
How this gets built
There is no feed, no ministry database and no export to copy. The only way to state an Italian programme's English requirement truthfully is to open that programme's own call for applications, read the language clause, and write down the link and the date.
Our content model refuses it. A programme record defaults to “not yet verified” and cannot be tagged with any English requirement until a source URL is filled in and resolves. A row we could not source stays visibly unverified rather than being quietly completed with a sensible guess.
Building this page is slow on purpose. Anyone can republish a percentage. Reading admission calls one intake at a time, and re-reading them when the next year’s call replaces them, has to be redone by whoever wants to claim it.
A partial table with links you can open beats a complete table nobody can check. If that trade seems obvious, compare this page with the others that answered your search.
Do it without us
This settles the question for your own course rather than for the average one. Nothing here needs an account, an agent or a payment.
The Embassy of Italy in Islamabad’s 2026 study-visa checklist includes a language certificate at B2 in Italian or English among the documents for the visa file. A waiver is a decision by the university about your admission. It does not remove a document from the embassy’s list. Check both before you book a test, and before you book anything else.
Embassy of Italy, Islamabadchecked
The full document set is on the student visa page.
Asked and answered
Short answers. Where the honest answer is that nobody knows, that is the answer given.
Often, yes. Italian universities accept TOEFL iBT, Cambridge certificates, the Duolingo English Test, their own internal test, and in some cases a Medium of Instruction letter instead of any test. It is decided programme by programme, and no Italian ministry publishes a list of which programmes accept what.
Nobody can answer this from a published source, because no Italian ministry or national body publishes such a list. Waivers exist and are more common at Master's level, but they are granted per programme. The only reliable answer for your course is the one in its own admission call, or in a written reply from its admissions office.
Many accept it for English-taught programmes. Duolingo's own 2026 post names the University of Pisa, Luiss and Rome Business School as examples. That is good evidence for those three institutions. It is not evidence about any other university, and we do not treat it as such.
B2 on the CEFR scale for most programmes, in the language the course is taught in. Some competitive and postgraduate courses ask for C1. The level is set by the programme, so check the figure on your own course's admission call rather than a general one.
We do not know, and neither does any site publishing that figure. Every source we followed for it ended at a consultancy blog quoting another consultancy blog, with no ministry, agency or university association behind it. We will not repeat a number we cannot trace.
Treat them as two separate lists. The Embassy of Italy in Islamabad's 2026 study-visa checklist includes a language certificate at B2 in Italian or English among the documents for the visa file. A university waiver is a decision by that university about admission; it does not remove a document from the embassy's list. Check both before you book anything.
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