The European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) is a tool of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) for making studies and courses more transparent and thus helping to enhance the quality of higher education. As a learner-centred system for credit accumulation and transfer, it is based on the principle of transparency of the learning, teaching and assessment processes. Its objective is to facilitate the planning, delivery and evaluation of study programmes and student mobility by recognising learning achievements and qualifications and periods of learning.

ECTS helps in the design, description and delivery of programmes, makes it possible to integrate different types of learning in a lifelong learning perspective, and facilitates the mobility of students by easing the process of recognising qualifications and periods of study. ECTS can be applied to all programmes, whatever the mode of delivery (classroom-based, work-based, distance learning) or the status of students (full-time, part-time), and to all kinds of learning contexts (formal, non-formal and informal).

The ECTS Users’ Guide offers guidelines for implementing ECTS and links to useful supporting documents. The Guide is addressed to students and other learners, academics and administrative staff in higher education institutions, as well as to employers, education providers and all other interested stakeholders.

ECTS Key Features: 

• ECTS Credits express the volume of learning based on the defined learning outcomes and their associated workload.
• Learning outcomes are statements of what the individual knows, understands and is able to do on completion of the learning process.
• Workload is an estimation of the time the individual typically needs to complete all learning activities such as lectures, seminars, projects, practical work, work placements and individual study required to achieve the defined learning outcomes in formal learning environments.
• Allocation of credits in ECTS is the process of assigning a number of credits to qualifications, degree programmes or single education components. Credits are allocated to entire qualifications or programmes according to national legislation or practice, where appropriate, and with reference to national and/or European qualifications frameworks.
• Awarding credits in ECTS is the act of formally granting students and other learners the credits that are assigned to the qualification and/or its components if they achieve the defined learning outcomes.
• Accumulation of credits in ECTS is the process of collecting credits awarded for achieving the learning outcomes of educational components in formal contexts and for other learning activities carried out in informal and non-formal contexts. A student can accumulate credits in order to:
- obtain qualifications, as required by the degree-awarding institution;
- document personal achievements for lifelong learning purposes.
• Transfer of credits is a process of having credits awarded in one context (programme, institution) recognised in another formal context for the purpose of obtaining a qualification.
• ECTS  documentation: The use of ECTS is facilitated and quality enhanced by the supporting documents: Course Catalogue, Learning Agreement, Transcript of Records, and Work-placement Certificate. ECTS also contributes to transparency in other documents such as the Diploma Supplement.

Establishment of the ECTS system

ECTS was instituted in 1989, within the Erasmus programme, as a way of transferring credits that students earned during their studies abroad into credits that counted towards their degree, on their return to studying in their home institution.

In 1998, the Sorbonne Joint Declaration referred to the use of ECTS by stating that "much of the originality and flexibility in this system (i.e. in which two main cycles, undergraduate and graduate, should be recognised for international comparison and equivalence), will be achieved through the use of credits and semesters”. One year later, The Bologna Declaration formally adopted the establishment of a system of credits – such as in the ECTS system – as a proper means of promoting the most widespread student mobility. It also stated that "credits could also be acquired in non-higher education contexts, including lifelong learning, provided they are recognised by receiving Universities concerned”.

In the Paris Ministerial Communiqué (2018), the ministers renewed their commitment to ensure full implementation of ECTS, based on the ECTS Users’ Guide 2015. At the same time, it was acknowledged that "ECTS-based short cycle qualifications play and increasingly important role in preparing students for employment and further studies as well as in improving social cohesion by facilitating access for many who would otherwise not have considered higher education”.

As the implementation of the ECTS system was one of the three EHEA key commitments established by ministers in Paris and reaffirmed in the 2020 Rome Ministerial Communiqué, following the Tirana Ministerial Conference (2024), ministers mandated the Bologna Follow-Up Group to review the ECTS Users’ Guide 2015 by 2027, to strengthen its key features and adapt it to current developments, including micro credentials, together with working on its future-proof development, dissemination and possible expansion.

For the period 2024-2027, the Ad-Hoc Advisory Group on the ECTS Users’ Guide addresses the revision of this topic based on the current developments in the European Higher Education Area.