Val Escolar in Catalonia.

2026-05-25

In Catalonia, since the 2023-2024 school year, the Generalitat de Catalunya has offered aid to all primary and compulsory secondary students in public, publicly funded private, or special education schools for the purchase of school supplies. In the 2026-2027 school year, this aid is once again EUR 60 per student, received as two EUR 30 vouchers to be redeemed at retailers participating in the program.

As with the vast majority of public aid in Spain for buying school supplies, non-compulsory education such as Bachillerato is excluded.

The Val Escolar leaves the purchase of materials in the hands of families, so comparing prices remains important. It can be used to buy textbooks, stationery, dictionaries, calculators, small musical instruments, educational games, headphones, keyboards, mice, backpacks, and pencil cases.

The voucher amount can fully or partially cover the purchase for a primary school student, but it is clearly insufficient for an ESO student, whose average spending can be EUR 200 to EUR 300.

In lolalist's price comparator you will find a button to incorporate the Val Escolar into the comparator logic. It will reserve at least EUR 60 to redeem the voucher at a participating physical store (available in lolalist: Abacus, Carrefour, and FNAC). The proposal will optimize the best price by combining online purchasing and physical-store purchasing.

This combined strategy of online shopping and physical-store shopping allows us to save approximately between 10% and 20%, because it automatically reserves the best physical-store prices to cover with the Val Escolar while also letting us benefit from the best prices at other online stores.

An even sharper strategy is to activate both the "Include used books" and "Val Escolar" buttons, which can take savings to 30-40%, because used books will be combined where possible with well-priced new books from online stores and physical-store purchases to redeem the Val Escolar.

If you are looking for ways to save on your list, you can find more options here: How to save money on school books