Official Ministerial Decree
Decreto Ministeriale n. 1005 — Allegati 1, 2 & 3
This article covers the three technical annexes: exam-day procedures (Allegato 1), registration and ranking rules (Allegato 2), and recognized language certifications (Allegato 3). For the seat numbers per university, see our separate breakdown of Tabella B.
Disclaimer
This article is a simplified summary for informational purposes, based on Allegati 1, 2 and 3 to Decreto Ministeriale n. 1005. It does not cover individual university bandi, which can add site-specific requirements within the rules set by the decree. The official decree and its annexes, published on mur.gov.it, and the Universitaly portal itself, are the only legally binding sources — always verify current requirements and deadlines there before applying.
What Are Allegati 1, 2 and 3?
Decreto Ministeriale n. 1005 is Italy's ministerial decree governing admission to the English-taught Medicine and Surgery, Dentistry and Prosthodontics, and Veterinary Medicine programmes for A.A. 2026/27. Its Tabella B — covered in our separate article — sets the number of seats each university has. This article covers the decree's three technical annexes, which set out everything else: how the exam itself is administered, how you register and how the national ranking works, and which language certifications MUR recognizes.
Allegato 1
Prova di ammissione. How CINECA prepares and seals exam materials, what happens in the exam room, and what causes an exam to be annulled.
Allegato 2
Iscrizione, risultati e graduatorie. How to register on Universitaly, when results come out, and exactly how the national ranking scroll-through works.
Allegato 3
Certificazioni linguistiche. The full list of English-language certificates MUR recognizes, and who's exempt from needing one.
How to Register
Registration for the IMAT is exclusively online, through the Universitaly portal (www.universitaly.it) — no other channel is accepted. The window runs from 26 August 2026 to 9 September 2026, and registration is only finalized once the participation fee is paid according to the instructions published on the portal.
At registration, you'll need to provide (all marked fields are mandatory): surname, first name, country/province/city of birth, date of birth, sex, citizenship, tax code (codice fiscale), email, ID document details and validity, full residential address, and — optionally — any language certification you hold. These are self-certified declarations under Italian law (art. 46, DPR 445/2000); false declarations carry legal consequences under artt. 75-76 of the same decree.
warning Site Preferences Are Irrevocable
At registration, every candidate must indicate their site preferences in order. These become irrevocable at 15:00 (GMT+2) on 9 September 2026 — whatever your last confirmed choice is at that moment is what counts. Non-EU candidates resident abroad compete only for the single local university where they submitted their pre-registration (preiscrizione); if you choose to sit the exam in Italy, your first preference automatically becomes your exam site too, with no exceptions.
All official communications about the procedure are sent to the email address you register with — it's your responsibility to keep it up to date and check it regularly.
Key Dates for A.A. 2026/2027
These are the dates written directly into the decree's annexes. Everything downstream of results publication (rankings, enrolment windows, confirmations) repeats on a predictable cycle, explained in detail further down.
| Date | What Happens |
|---|---|
| 26 August 2026 | Universitaly registration opens |
| ⚠️ 9 September 2026, 15:00 (GMT+2) | Registration closes; site preferences become irrevocable |
| 8 October 2026 | Scores published by label code only, on Universitaly's reserved area |
| 19 October 2026 | Candidates can view their elaborate, score and anagraphic card |
| 26 October 2026 | First national nominative merit ranking published (ASSEGNATO / PRENOTATO status) |
| +4 working days (excl. Sat/holidays) | Enrolment window for ASSEGNATI and PRENOTATI who choose to act on this scroll |
| +5 working days, by 12:00 | Universities report enrolled candidates to CINECA; everyone else must confirm interest in staying on the ranking or be excluded |
| 3 November 2026 | Second ranking scroll-through published |
| Subsequent rounds | Repeat the same 4-day enrolment / 5-day confirmation cycle above |
The decree's annexes don't specify the exam date itself within the pages covering registration and results — check your target university's own bando and the Universitaly portal for the confirmed test date.
Exam Day, Step by Step
The logistics behind the exam are tightly scripted, right down to how the sealed materials move from CINECA to your desk. Here's the sequence Allegato 1 lays out.
Before You Sit Down
CINECA prepares sealed packets ("plichi") for every university based on registered candidates as of the registration deadline, plus a 10% buffer. Universities collect sealed boxes ("colli") from CINECA in the presence of MUR representatives. On exam day, before the test starts, the room's president or supervisor draws four students by lot to witness the boxes being opened, verify their integrity, and countersign a declaration confirming how many packets were assigned and how many were left unused.
During the Exam
Each packet contains the exam questions (with two sheets for rough work), an answer module, and a cover sheet — all three carrying the same identifying code. If any single document in a packet needs replacing during the exam, the entire packet is replaced, since all its parts share that one code. Minor corrections you make on your own pre-filled anagraphic card don't require a replacement card; a full replacement only happens if a correction makes you difficult to identify, and even then, only the anagraphic card is swapped — never the exam packet itself.
Submitting Your Answers
At the end of the exam, you're directed to a dedicated station with a pen, a box for your anagraphic card (with a facsimile shown on the side), and pairs of matching adhesive barcode labels. You personally choose one matching pair, apply one label to your anagraphic card and the other to your answer module, verify the codes match, and sign a declaration confirming both the accuracy of your data and that the labels correspond. You then deposit your anagraphic card in a sealed container at that station — and go to a separate station to deposit your answer module, face-down, in a different sealed container.
Banned Items & Grounds for Exam Annulment
University bandi are required to spell out, word for word, what gets an exam annulled. CINECA doesn't score an annulled exam at all.
- Sitting in the wrong room — unless the exam commission authorized and documented the change in the exam-room report.
- Bringing or using banned devices/materials — phones, palmtops, smartphones, smartwatches, tablets, headphones, webcams or similar devices, plus any pens, pencils or stationery not supplied by the venue, and any textbooks, manuals, manuscripts, blank paper or consultation material.
- Marking or signing the answer module — on either the front or the back — beyond what's required.
- Interacting with other candidates — including any attempt to copy or to swap material, anagraphic cards, or answer modules.
- Using a pen, pencil, or any writing tool during the card/module submission procedure — specifically to alter, add to, or correct your answer module after the exam has ended.
The exam room president also fills out a formal report ("verbale d'aula") every day, using MUR's standard format, documenting any irregularities, packet substitutions, and their justifications.
Scoring & Results
Once the exam concludes, sealed containers of answer modules and anagraphic cards are counted, closed, and signed in front of the same four students drawn earlier (or four newly-drawn students, if the originals aren't available). Universities in Italy retain the exam question sheets, anagraphic cards, and packet control sheets for five years, for both the final ranking and any future access requests. Universities abroad send their exam-room reports and equivalent documents back to the relevant Italian university, which keeps them for the same five-year period.
MUR authorizes CINECA to run the automated scoring after verifying the process complied with the decree. Results are published by label code only — not by name — respecting personal data protection rules, on Universitaly's reserved candidate area. Only after this stage do universities send CINECA the personal data linked to each label code, together with scanned anagraphic cards, so that scores can be matched to candidates and made visible in each person's own reserved area, along with a downloadable image of their exam paper and anagraphic card.
How the National Ranking Actually Works
This is the part of the process that trips people up, because the terminology matters and the deadlines are unforgiving.
ASSEGNATO
You fall within the available seats for your first useful preference — the best-ranked choice on your list that your score and the seat count actually allow. You must enrol within the deadline, or you automatically forfeit the place, with no exceptions for the reason behind the delay.
PRENOTATO
You don't yet have a seat on your first preference, but you're positioned for a later preference on your list. You can enrol at that site now, or wait for a future scroll-through in case a seat opens up on a preference you ranked higher. Enrolling at your reserved site automatically cancels every other preference you listed.
The Scroll-Through Cycle
Every time the ranking updates ("scorrimento"), the same cycle repeats: ASSEGNATI and PRENOTATI who want to act get a 4-working-day window (excluding Saturdays and public holidays) to enrol. Within 5 working days of the ranking's publication, and by 12:00 on that 5th day, two things must happen: universities report their newly-enrolled candidates to CINECA, and — critically — every other candidate still in the running must actively confirm, via their Universitaly reserved area, that they want to stay on the ranking.
block Miss the Confirmation Window and You're Out
Confirming interest isn't optional — it's required "a pena di decadenza" (on pain of forfeiture). If you don't confirm within the 5-day window, you're automatically excluded from every future scroll-through and lose any right to enrolment, regardless of the reason. The decree is explicit that this is a short online procedure that can be delegated to someone you trust if you can't do it yourself — so no justification for missing it is accepted. If you are excluded, you can appeal to the Lazio Regional Administrative Court (TAR del Lazio) within 60 days, or file an extraordinary appeal within 120 days, from the date the exclusion notice appears in your reserved area.
The next scroll-through, incorporating the newly reported enrolments and any exclusions, is then published — for 2026/27, the second round lands on 3 November 2026 — and the whole 4-day / 5-day cycle repeats until seats are filled.
Enrolling Beyond Year One
Italy's national programming decrees set seats only for the first year of each course — there's no separate annual allocation for years two onward. Places in later years become available strictly through attrition: students withdrawing, transferring to the same course elsewhere, or switching to a different course altogether. When a place opens up, the university is required to publicize it through a public notice ("avviso" or "bando") and run a selection process to refill it, rather than simply admitting whoever asks.
A few rules apply specifically to this pathway: no prior admission test is required to apply for a later-year place, but you can only apply when a university actually publishes a notice — universities aren't obliged to consider applications submitted outside that window. Candidates with a certified invalidity of 66% or more, or a disability recognized under Law 104/1992 (art. 3, comma 3), get priority in the event two candidates end up tied after credit recognition. And regardless of any of this, no university may ever enrol more students than the cohort size fixed by that course's original first-year programming — "sovrannumero" enrolment is flatly not permitted.
Recognized Language Certifications (Allegato 3)
You don't need an English certificate to sit the IMAT, but if you have one, you can declare it at registration. Allegato 3 lists exactly which certifications MUR recognizes, and at which CEFR level.
| Certifying Body | Level | Certification |
|---|---|---|
| Cambridge English Language Assessment | C2 | Cambridge English: Proficiency (CPE) |
| C1 | Cambridge English: Advanced (CAE) / Business Higher (BEC Higher) | |
| B2 | Cambridge English: First (FCE) / Business Vantage (BEC Vantage) | |
| City and Guilds (Pitman) | C2 | Level 3 Certificate in International ESOL Diploma Mastery |
| C1 | Level 2 Certificate in International ESOL Diploma Expert | |
| B2 | Level 1 Certificate in International ESOL Diploma Communicator | |
| Edexcel / Pearson Ltd | C2 | PTE General Level 5 Proficient |
| C1 | PTE General Level 4 Advanced | |
| B2 | PTE General Level 3 Upper Intermediate | |
| EDI (LCCIEB) | C1 | JETSET Level 6 / English for Business Level 4 |
| B2 | JETSET Level 5 / English for Business Level 3 / English for Commerce Level 3 | |
| IELTS | C2 | Band 8.5 – 9.0 |
| C1 | Band 7.0 – 8.0 | |
| B2 | Band 5.5 – 6.5 | |
| TCL Trinity College London | C2 | Integrated Skills in English (ISE) IV |
| C1 | Integrated Skills in English (ISE) III | |
| B2 | Integrated Skills in English (ISE) II | |
| TOEFL ETS | C1 | TOEFL score 110-120 |
| B2 | TOEFL score 87-109 |
school Automatic Recognition for English-Medium Schooling
If you attended at least one full school year at an institution where teaching was delivered in English, you're automatically recognized as holding a valid language certification — no separate certificate needs to be submitted.
Data Retention & Privacy
Your personal data is used exclusively for the selection procedure and subsequent enrolment, and is retained for five years from the date of your online registration, subject to the separate privacy notice covering historical and statistical use. Once that period ends, your personal data is anonymized. Scores are published by label code, never by name, specifically to comply with personal data protection rules — your identity is only linked to your result once universities transmit your anagraphic data to CINECA after results are out.
IMAT 2026/2027 Procedures — FAQ
When do IMAT 2026/27 registrations open and close? expand_more
Registration opens on Universitaly (www.universitaly.it) on 26 August 2026 and closes at 15:00 (GMT+2) on 9 September 2026. Site preferences become irrevocable at that same deadline — the last confirmation you submit before 15:00 on 9 September 2026 is binding.
What items are banned in the IMAT exam room? expand_more
Phones, palmtops, smartphones, smartwatches, tablets, headphones/earphones and webcams are all banned, as are any pens, pencils or stationery not supplied by the university, plus textbooks, manuals, manuscripts, blank paper and any consultation material. Introducing or using any of these is explicit grounds for exam annulment.
What's the difference between ASSEGNATO and PRENOTATO? expand_more
ASSEGNATO means you fall within the available seats for your first useful preference and must enrol within the deadline or automatically forfeit the place. PRENOTATO means you're in line for a later preference on your list; you can enrol at that site immediately or wait for a later scroll-through in case a seat opens up on a preference you ranked higher.
What happens if I don't confirm my interest during a scroll-through? expand_more
Every candidate who hasn't enrolled, renounced, or reached "posti esauriti" status must actively confirm interest in staying on the ranking within 5 days of each scroll (by 12:00 on the 5th working day), through their Universitaly reserved area. Missing this confirmation excludes you from all further scroll-throughs, with no right to enrolment — no justification is accepted, since the procedure can be delegated to someone else within the window.
Do I need an English language certificate to take the IMAT? expand_more
No, a certificate isn't required to sit the exam, but Allegato 3 of the decree lists the English certifications MUR recognizes (from bodies like Cambridge, IELTS, TOEFL, Trinity College London and Pearson, at B2/C1/C2 level) which candidates can declare at registration. Candidates who completed at least one school year in English-medium instruction are automatically recognized as having the certification, without needing to submit one.
When are scores and rankings published? expand_more
Scores are published by label code only on 8 October 2026. Candidates can view their full elaborate, score and anagraphic card from 19 October 2026. The first national nominative merit ranking, showing ASSEGNATO/PRENOTATO status, is published on 26 October 2026, with further scroll-throughs following roughly every two weeks — the second is scheduled for 3 November 2026.
Locomotive Resource
Which University Should Be Your First Preference?
Before you lock in irrevocable site preferences, see exactly how many seats each public university has for 2026/27 — and how that compares to last year.
Getting Ready for the IMAT?
Locomotive's IMAT Starter Pack walks you through prep strategy, university shortlisting, and the full application timeline — everything this article covers, plus how to actually act on it.
Official links: universitaly.it · mur.gov.it