MFHEA programme accreditation by level: what changes and what it costs

How much does MFHEA programme accreditation cost at each MQF level?

How the scale works is easier to see with one programme. Take a 90 ECTS master's degree at Level 7. Its first 10 credits are billed at 100 euro each. The next 20 are billed at 90 euro each, and the 60 credits left over at 30 euro each. That gives 1,000 plus 1,800 plus 1,800, so 4,600 euro. Because the cheap band only starts after credit 30, a short programme pays far more per credit than a long one does.

Source: MFHEA Fee Structure for Programme Accreditation, effective 1 September 2023. Checked 5 October 2026.

MFHEA attaches three conditions to the scale. No programme is charged less than 100 euro. Payment is made in advance and is not refunded. If the programme is delivered online or blended, 15 per cent is added to the total, which would take that master's degree to 5,290 euro.

We cannot give you a reliable figure for a doctorate. The Level 8 row of the published table contains one number, 8,000 euro, with the other two bands left empty and no note saying whether it is a flat fee. Get MFHEA to confirm it in writing before a Level 8 programme goes into your budget.

These are our calculations from MFHEA's published scale, not MFHEA quotations. Your invoice is the figure that counts.

Is my programme an award or a qualification?

The answer comes from the credit count. MFHEA publishes a minimum number of ECTS for each qualification type and states that programmes assigned fewer ECTS than indicated will be classified as awards. So a Level 5 programme of 20 ECTS is an award, and the same programme stretched to 30 ECTS can be an undergraduate certificate. The minimums for the levels most providers work at are in the table below.

Source: MFHEA, Malta Qualifications Framework page. Checked 5 October 2026.

The fee scale ignores the label. A 12 ECTS award at Level 5 is billed as 12 credits at Level 5, which is 800 euro for the first 10 and 140 euro for the other two.

Where the label matters is the evaluation. MFHEA engages one evaluator for an award, whatever its level. A full qualification at Levels 1 to 4 also gets one. At Level 5 two evaluators are engaged, and at Levels 6, 7 and 8 there are three. More readers means more comments to answer in each round, and that is where the months go on a degree.

Online delivery is treated differently too. MFHEA's online learning regulations, set out in its communication of 27 November 2025, apply to qualifications from Level 5 to Level 8 and not to awards. They require each ECTS to include at least 5 contact hours, 4 of them synchronous. MFHEA has named 2026 as the alignment period and 2027 as the year of compliance, so a new online qualification should be designed to that rule from the start.

How long does MFHEA programme accreditation take?

A programme application moves through fixed steps, and MFHEA publishes an estimate for each one in working days. It acknowledges the application in about 10 working days and issues the invoice in about two working weeks. Nothing starts until the payment is confirmed.

Then comes initial vetting by MFHEA's own staff, estimated at 50 days for an award and 75 days for a qualification. After vetting, evaluators are allocated, which can take up to 20 days. The evaluation itself runs in cycles of 20 days for an award and 40 days for a qualification, and a programme gets at most three cycles to pass.

If we add up those estimates for a qualification that passes in its first cycle, we get roughly 155 working days, which is about seven months. The same sum for an award is roughly 110 working days, or five months. These are our additions, not an MFHEA promise, and MFHEA warns that everything slows between mid-June and the end of September when it works summer hours.

The decision belongs to the Quality Assurance Committee and the MFHEA Board. Accreditation, once granted, lasts five years under regulation 43(6), and the programme then goes through the same process again.

What makes MFHEA programme accreditation cost more than the fee?

The fee is paid once per application, so the expensive outcome is having to apply twice. MFHEA's rules allow that to happen in two ways. A programme that has not passed after its third evaluation cycle fails, and a failed programme needs a fresh application and a fresh fee. An application also lapses if the provider goes three months without sending what MFHEA asked for.

Both are avoidable with preparation before the file goes in. Our page on what MFHEA programme accreditation assesses sets out what the evaluators look for, and it is worth reading before you write a single learning outcome.

Timing matters as well. If you file in May, the vetting and allocation steps run straight into MFHEA's summer hours between mid-June and the end of September. A new provider also cannot send a programme in on its own. The provider licence application has to go in with it, so the two timetables run together and the slower one sets the date.

Apollo Accreditation is a consultancy. It is not a regulator or an awarding organisation and does not award qualifications. Fees and rules change, so confirm them with the body named before you act on them.