European Professional Card (EPC)

Despite the name, the EPC is not a physical card. Article 3(1)(k) of Directive 2005/36/EC defines it as an electronic certificate. The European Commission describes it as the first EU-wide fully online recognition procedure, built on the Internal Market Information System (IMI). It does not replace the ordinary recognition procedure; it is an optional, faster route for some professions.

The Commission's implementing regulation, Regulation (EU) 2015/983, introduced it for five professions from January 2016: general care nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists, mountain guides and real estate agents. Doctors, midwives and dentists are not covered.

The EPC is a procedure under the directive, so it is only open to people who can use the directive in the first place. Germany's recognition portal presents it as an option for people coming from the EU, the EEA or Switzerland. If your qualification is from outside the EU, you need national recognition first; see third-country qualification.

1. Apply through the Commission's online tool on the Your Europe website, which creates your IMI file. Your home country may also accept written applications.
2. Your home country authority acknowledges receipt within one week and lists missing documents (Article 4b).
3. It checks your documents within one month and passes the file to the host country (Article 4d).
4. The host country decides within one month where automatic recognition applies, such as nurses and pharmacists, or within two months where it may impose compensation measures, such as physiotherapists.

The host country can extend these deadlines by two weeks, and repeat that once only where strictly necessary. If it misses the deadline, the card is treated as issued and sent to you automatically through IMI.

• For permanent work, the card does not give an automatic right to practise where the host country already had registration requirements before the EPC was introduced (Article 4a(5)). You may still need to register with the regulator.
• Language checks can still be made after the card is issued (Article 53).
• Fees are set nationally. The directive only requires them to be reasonable and proportionate, and Spain's ministry states that the EPC is free for nurses there.

Delays usually come from missing documents or translations at the home country stage. The Commission's implementing rules set out the documents and translations required for each profession, so upload everything listed for yours and check that your diploma is the one listed for your country in the directive. If you apply again later, authorities may not ask you to resubmit documents already in your IMI file that are still valid (Article 4b(3)).

The Commission says the card might be extended to other professions in future. Under Article 4a(7) a profession qualifies only if it has significant mobility, sufficient stakeholder interest and is regulated in a significant number of member states. A 2014 consultation looked at seven professions, including doctors, but the card was introduced for five.