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For a year and a half, one number has circulated: 35,000 Brazilian students are enrolled in Medicine programs in Paraguay, almost always read as proof that studying here is the "easy way in" for anyone who couldn't land a spot in Brazil. The number is real, but it's stale — it dates to March 2025 — and, more importantly, it leaves out the bigger story: when those graduates sit for the exam Brazil requires to practice with a foreign degree, graduates trained in Paraguay outperform every one of the 38 other countries that send candidates.
What the Revalida Is, and Why It's Hard for Everyone
The Revalida is a two-stage exam run by INEP (Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira), a Brazilian government body. It's mandatory for anyone who graduated from Medicine outside Brazil and wants to practice inside the country: without passing it, a foreign degree does not authorize someone to work as a doctor on Brazilian soil. It's demanding by design — historically, between 5% and 15% of everyone who sits the full exam passes. In the 2025/1 edition, the first stage, which filters out the bulk of candidates, passed 28.2% of those present: 4,503 out of 15,952.
The Number That Flips the Story
Against that backdrop of a hard exam for everyone, INEP data — reported by Prensa Mercosur and Estrategia Med — found that in the 2024 Revalida, graduates of Paraguayan universities posted the highest pass rate of all 39 countries candidates came from: 57.6%. That's not a marginal result: they accounted for 921 of the 1,946 doctors approved worldwide that year — 47.3% of the total. In the following edition, 2025/1, Paraguayan degrees were again the most-revalidated of all, with 2,336 approved. In other words: the common story is that Medicine in Paraguay is the low-effort route; the official data from the body that evaluates those very graduates says the opposite.
Why Students Migrate: It Comes Down to Cost
The underlying explanation isn't academic, it's financial. Monthly tuition for Medicine at a Paraguayan university runs R$1,000 to R$2,500 (roughly USD 180 to 450). At a private Brazilian university, the same degree costs R$8,000 to R$12,000 a month — four to eight times more. Two concrete examples: UCP (Universidad Católica de Asunción) charges between R$1,150 and R$1,950 depending on the year of the program, and at Universidad San Sebastián tuition runs around USD 1,000 a month. Beyond price, two other documented reasons matter: Paraguay has no competitive entrance exam equivalent to Brazil's ENEM or vestibular — the national tests that gate access to Medicine in Brazil and shut out the overwhelming majority of applicants every year — and seats are available. On top of that, there's geographic and cultural proximity: much of the academic offering sits right along the border.
How Many, and Where
The figure of 35,000 Brazilian students out of 47,000 enrolled in Medicine in Paraguay comes from the Registro Único de Estudiantes (the national student registry) as of March 2025 — by the time this was written, it's about a year and a half old. More recent measurements of the same population show different proportions: 77% in March 2025, 78% in another reading, and 70% according to ANEAES in April 2026. Taken together, the order of magnitude sits somewhere between 70% and 78% Brazilian enrollment, depending on the source and date.
Total enrollment — Paraguayans and Brazilians combined — is concentrated in departments that border Brazil: Alto Paraná has 15,000 enrolled students, Amambay has 10,000, Asunción has 8,500, Central has 7,500, and Canindeyú has roughly 1,250 more. These are total enrollment figures, not Brazilian students alone — which is why adding them up comes out well above 35,000, since Paraguayan students are included too. For readers unfamiliar with the map: Alto Paraná, Amambay, and Canindeyú are the three Paraguayan departments that border Brazil, along the country's eastern and northeastern edge. Pedro Juan Caballero, in Amambay, is the border city — adjoining Ponta Porã on the Brazilian side — where much of that academic offering is concentrated. Asunción, the capital, and Central, the department surrounding it, form the other cluster: more urban, and further from the border.
The Programs on Offer, and the Regulatory Framework
According to a May 2025 survey by La Nación, Paraguay had 43 authorized Medicine programs, of which 22 were accredited by ANEAES (Agencia Nacional de Evaluación y Acreditación de la Educación Superior), the Paraguayan body that certifies a university program's quality beyond its basic authorization to operate. In March 2026, Cones (Consejo Nacional de Educación Superior, the Paraguayan authority that authorizes new university programs) approved three more Medicine programs: at UNP, Unamis, and Interamericana, the last of those in Pedro Juan Caballero. There is no official statement yet consolidating today's full total, but it's, at minimum, higher than those 43. Those programs are taught across 25 universities: Amambay, Alto Paraná, and Canindeyú together account for 23 schools, while Asunción and Central together add 11.
Growth has been fast: registered Medicine degrees in Paraguay rose from 615 in 2014 to 6,232 in 2024, a jump of more than 900%. Over the full decade, Paraguay's Ministry of Education and Sciences (MEC) registered 23,680 Medicine degrees: 13,750 to Brazilian students and 9,700 to Paraguayans. That rapid growth is also the backdrop for Law 7324/2024, which requires foreign students who aren't native Spanish speakers to prove B1-level Spanish — intermediate proficiency, enough to follow classes and sit exams in the country's language — as regulated by Cones Resolutions 305/2024 and 14/2025.
The Economic Impact, Without an Official Figure
The sector is also discussed in terms of its economic weight, though here it's worth being precise about where the number comes from: the estimate that it moves USD 500 million a year through Paraguay's economy — calculated on roughly 37,000 students — belongs to Yan Speranza, of the organization Desarrollo en Democracia (Dende). Neither the Central Bank, nor the Ministry of Education, nor Cones publishes its own measurement on this — it's a private estimate from a non-governmental organization.
What It Means for Anyone Weighing Study, Living, or Investing Here
The pattern in this data is consistent: Paraguay offers a Medicine degree that's more accessible in both cost and admission than the Brazilian alternative, without that translating into a weaker result on the exam that actually measures training after graduation. For a Brazilian family weighing this path, or any professional who has already finished and is considering settling in the country, our Paraguay residency guide for Brazilians covers the specific immigration steps for that nationality. Anyone looking to study specifically in the capital can check the guide to studying in Asunción and surrounding areas, one of the country's hubs with the most authorized programs. And if the move means settling with family in the capital during the degree, the guide to Asunción neighborhoods helps narrow down an area by price and profile. For a broader look at residency steps by nationality, beyond Brazil, there's the guide to moving to Paraguay. If your plan is specific — a degree, a family move, an investment tied to this sector — you can reach us through contact.