International Schools in Guatemala City for Expats (2026)

If you are relocating to Guatemala with school-age children, the international school question usually comes first. A sweep of MINEDUC’s register of authorised private schools for names carrying an international signal returns 177 schools across the departments we cover, 60 of them in the capital itself — but only a couple of dozen have a verifiable foreign curriculum, a named accreditor or an IB authorisation, and five schools in the whole country publish a price. This guide covers the Guatemala City options expat families ask about, and says plainly which facts are published and which are not.

The Landscape

Guatemala City’s international schools fall into three groups:

1. American-curriculum schools — a US-style K-12 curriculum, usually with AP courses and a US diploma alongside the Guatemalan one. Colegio Americano de Guatemala advertises “+22 AP courses, including the AP Capstone Diploma Program”; Colegio Interamericano’s own high school profile records 18 AP courses and “students in grades 9-12 took 254 AP exams in 21 different subject areas”; Colegio Maya is listed as AP: No and IB: No, with the American Diploma as Yes.
2. Bilingual Guatemalan schools — the Guatemalan national curriculum (MINEDUC) in Spanish with a strong English programme, used by Guatemalan and expat families alike (Colegio Monte María). It does not publish tuition.
3. International Baccalaureate (IB) schools — six schools in Guatemala are IB World Schools, and not one of them is CAG, Colegio Maya or Colegio Interamericano. Five offer the Diploma Programme and one the Primary Years Programme. The complete list is in the next section.

Village School sits across the first two groups. It lists its curriculum frameworks as “US Common Core, Next Generation Science Standards, C3 Social Studies Framework, Common European Framework of Reference, ISTE, and Curriculum Nacional Base”, teaches in Spanish and English with a third language chosen from German, French or Mandarin, and has been Cognia-accredited since 2006. It does not publish tuition.

Every IB World School in Guatemala

The IB publishes its own register of authorised schools. Filtered to Guatemala, it returns “Found 6 matching school(s)”, and the IB’s country page records that there has been an IB World School in Guatemala since 1997, with the Diploma Programme (DP) offered by 5 schools and the Primary Years Programme (PYP) by 1.

Source: the IB’s own Find an IB World School register, filtered to Guatemala, read 3 September 2026 and re-read on 2 October 2026, when it still returned the same six schools. Each school name links to our page on that school, with its IB subject list, MINEDUC codes, hours and what it does and does not publish. Languages of instruction are recorded as English and Spanish for all six except SEK, which the IB records as Spanish.

What the list means in practice:

• Five Diploma schools is less choice than it sounds. Four of them — El Roble, Campoalegre, Entrevalles and Solalto — belong to the same group, APDE (apde.edu.gt), and at least three of the five are single-sex: El Roble and Solalto are boys’ schools, Campoalegre is a girls’ school. The other APDE school, Entrevalles, is listed by the IB as coeducational, but its own FAQ calls it APDE’s school for girls and sends families with a son to Solalto.
• Not one of the six is in the Zona 14/15/16 belt where most expat families look. Two are in Zona 11, one is on Carretera a El Salvador, two are in Fraijanes and one is in Ciudad Vieja, Sacatepéquez.
• The exam session is a calendar tell. Antigua Montessori sits the May session, which goes with a northern school year; the other five sit November, which goes with the Guatemalan January-October year.
• Entrevalles’ address does not agree between sources. The IB and MINEDUC both record Km 16.8 Carretera a El Salvador; the school itself publishes Km 16.5. Ask when you visit.
• The only PYP school in the country is Colegio Internacional SEK Guatemala, authorised on 5 March 2026 — a very recent authorisation, so confirm the grade range it currently covers.

Two traps worth naming, because both are easy to fall into:

• Blue Valley School (Mixco) is not an IB World School. Its homepage carries a “BI / Bachillerato Internacional” badge, but its own bachillerato page explains that what it actually offers is the “Bachillerato Internacional Americano”, a US high school diploma track — and the school is absent from the IB register above. The ibo.org record that surfaces in a search for the name belongs to a Blue Valley School in Escazú, Costa Rica.
• There is no British international school in Guatemala. A whole-country search of MINEDUC’s register for BRITANICO returns seven establishments; the only open one is Liceo Mixto ‘Británico Guatemalteco’ in Zona 5, which is registered for básico only. The two Mixco registrations under “Colegio Real Británico de Guatemala” are CERRADA TEMPORALMENTE.

The Schools Expat Families Ask About

Only two of these publish a tuition figure. That is not a gap in our research — it is what the schools themselves do. Every “Not published” row below was checked on the institution’s own site on 3 September 2026.

Colegio Monte María’s street address is filed in MINEDUC’s register under the municipio of Villa Nueva rather than Guatemala City; the two records have not been reconciled, so we print both.

The two published figures, in full

Colegio Americano de Guatemala publishes total annual fees for 2026-2027 by grade band: Pre-Kinder to Grade 1 Q103,110 · Grades 2-5 Q105,200 · Grades 6-8 Q107,710 · Grades 9-12 Q111,050. Payable in full or in ten monthly installments from August to May, due on the 15th, with a 5% discount for paying the year before 15 August 2026. The enrollment fee is separate: US$5,000 (Lower School), US$5,300 (Middle School) or US$5,600 (High School) for new students; returning students pay Q5,779 by 15 May, Q6,410 between 16 and 29 May, or Q7,281 after 30 May. Add Q900 annual accident insurance. (CAG tuition page, read 3 September 2026. The school’s own page heads this table 2026-2027 Tuition while an inner header cell still reads 2025-2026.)

Colegio Maya does not publish tuition on its own site, but the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Overseas Schools does, from figures the school supplies: PreK US$12,101 · Elementary US$17,987 · Middle US$18,800 · High School US$19,037, current as of April 2026. The same sheet gives the school 314 students and 64 faculty. (Colegio Maya 2026 Fact Sheet, read 3 September 2026.)

Corrections we owe you. Until 2 October 2026 this page said three of the five Diploma schools belong to APDE; the group’s own site lists Solalto as an APDE school too, so it is four. An earlier version of this page said that no school on it could be confirmed to offer the IB Diploma. That was wrong in both directions: six Guatemalan schools are on the IB’s own register, listed above — and none of them is on this page’s table. The same page placed CAG in Zona 16; the school’s own site and the MINEDUC register both put it in Zona 15, at 11 Calle 15-79, Vista Hermosa III. Zona 16 is Colegio Interamericano. An older version also said Colegio Maya offers the IB Diploma: the State Department fact sheet lists IB: No and AP: No, with the American Diploma as Yes, and Maya’s campus is at Km 12.5 Carretera a El Salvador, Santa Catarina Pinula, not Zona 16.

Three names we removed from this page

• Colegio Metropolitano. All four of the Guatemala City registrations under that name (Zona 14, 10a Avenida 10-50 — párvulos, primaria, básico and diversificado) are CERRADA DEFINITIVAMENTE in MINEDUC’s register. The school that operates under the name today is at Km 16.5 Carretera a Piedra Parada, Cristo Rey, Santa Catarina Pinula (metro.edu.gt), founded September 1979, bilingual, on the Guatemalan January-October calendar, with all four levels open. Its site carries no IB, AP, Cambridge or accrediting-body claim of any kind, and it publishes no tuition — so it does not belong on a list of international schools in the city.
• CEP (Colegio Evangélico Protestante). Could not be confirmed to exist. There is no “Colegio Evangélico Protestante” in MINEDUC’s register for the capital; the only “C.E.P.” match is a pre-school stimulation centre in Zona 1.
• Colegio Montenegro. Could not be confirmed either: no private school of that name anywhere in the department of Guatemala.

Every school in our dataset, Guatemala City and the metro ring

The table below is built from our school-by-school dataset, not typed into this page: each row shows only what the school, its accrediting body or MINEDUC’s registry publishes, with the date we read it. The full directory, including Antigua, Lake Atitlán, Quetzaltenango, Cobán and the south coast, is on the education hub.

Which School Fits Which Expat Profile?

US corporate transfers with plans to return to the US → Colegio Americano (CAG) or Colegio Maya. Both run the northern calendar, and both hold US accreditation that is confirmable at the accrediting body, not just claimed on the school’s site: CAG appears in NEASC’s own directory file as accredited, first evaluated 2005 and last evaluated 2022; Maya is Cognia-accredited. CAG has AP; Maya is listed as offering neither AP nor IB. Tuition is the main decision factor between them, and it is the one pair on this page where you can actually compare prices.

Long-term expats who want children fluent in Spanish → Village School or Colegio Monte María. Village School teaches in Spanish and English and adds a third language chosen from German, French or Mandarin; it is Cognia-accredited and has been since 2006. Neither school publishes tuition, so the price conversation happens by email.

European or international expats who want the IB → Not on this list — go to the six IB World Schools above. If the Diploma is the requirement, that is five schools, four of them run by one group (APDE: El Roble, Campoalegre, Entrevalles and Solalto) and at least three of them single-sex. If your child is in primary, the country’s only PYP school is Colegio Internacional SEK Guatemala in Fraijanes, authorised in March 2026.

Budget-conscious expat families → There is no honest shortlist to give you here, and that absence is the finding: five schools in the entire country publish a tuition figure, and only three of them are in the capital. CAG’s fee page and the State Department’s Colegio Maya sheet are the two prices among the schools expat families ask about; the third is the Instituto Austriaco Guatemalteco (Zona 16), which publishes its 2026 fee sheet by level (it is in the dataset table above). Everything else quotes on request, which means pricing a shortlist takes one email per school and there is no way around it — so do not treat “cheaper” as established for any school here until you have the number in writing.

Families staying 6-12 months (temporary) → Start with the calendar, not the price. CAG, Colegio Maya and Colegio Interamericano all run August-to-June years, so a family landing in July starts with everyone else. A school on the Guatemalan January-October calendar means a mid-year entry, which is a different admissions conversation at every school.

Enrollment Process

The enrollment fee is separate from tuition and non-refundable. The only school on this page that publishes the figure is CAG: US$5,000-US$5,600 for new students by division, or Q5,779-Q7,281 for returning students depending on when you pay. Every other school here quotes on request, so ask for the number in writing.

Document requirements for a child arriving from abroad vary far more than the process does, and the difference is expensive. CAG’s published list for international students is a birth certificate, a passport copy, medical certificates (pediatrician, ophthalmic test, otoacoustic test) and previous school records, with no apostille and no equivalencia requirement stated. Colegio Interamericano publishes the opposite: the transcript must be legalized by the education ministry of the country the school is in, then authenticated at a Guatemalan consulate, then taken to the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores and MINEDUC after you arrive. Ask for the list in writing before you pack.

School Year Calendars

Northern calendar (August start). Colegio Americano de Guatemala takes monthly tuition payments from August to May. Colegio Maya runs “two semesters extending from August to December (Semester 1) and January to June (Semester 2)”. Colegio Interamericano’s year runs from August to June, divided into four quarters.

Guatemalan calendar (January start). The counter-intuitive part is which schools sit here. Both of the capital’s European national schools run the Guatemalan year: Colegio Alemán de Guatemala states that “Nuestro ciclo escolar va con año calendario, iniciando en enero y finalizando la primera semana de noviembre”, and the Instituto Austriaco Guatemalteco bills school transport for nine months, “de enero a mayo y de julio a octubre”. The French Lycée Jules Verne went the other way and publishes its calendar as “rythme nord”, with the rentrée on 1 September 2026.

MINEDUC treats the international calendar as its own legal category — “Centros Educativos Privados autorizados para trabajar con plan internacional” gets a separate Acuerdo Ministerial each year, apart from the public and private/cooperativa/municipal ones. The 2026-2027 instrument is Acuerdo Ministerial No. 3149-2026, published in the Diario de Centro América on 15 July 2026 and in force from 16 July 2026. Since September 2026 MINEDUC lists it on its own school-calendar page; we read it on 22 September 2026. It sets the start of the cycle on 3 August or 1 September 2026, depending on each school’s authorising resolution, and the last day of classes on 21 May or 18 June 2027.

If you are moving mid-year, the August-start schools are easier to enter in August. The January-start schools have a January cohort that is easier than mid-year entry.

What to Check Before Enrolling

• Accreditation, at the body and not just on the school’s website. CAG is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), and NEASC’s own directory file confirms it: accredited, initial evaluation 2005, last evaluated 2022, grades PS/PK-12. Colegio Maya and Colegio Interamericano are both accredited by Cognia (the body that absorbed SACS), and both appear in Cognia’s own registry. Ask any other school which body accredits it and whether it issues a Guatemalan diploma: the Christian Academy of Guatemala, for one, states plainly that it is not recognized by MINEDUC and does not issue one, so its graduates must validate transcripts to keep studying in Guatemala.
• MINEDUC registration, level by level. The ministry’s register of authorised establishments returns a separate record per level — párvulos, primaria, básico, diversificado — each with its own operating status (ABIERTA, CERRADA TEMPORALMENTE, CERRADA DEFINITIVAMENTE). A missing level is a real ceiling on what the school can legally offer, and a closed registration at the address you were given is worth knowing before you tour.
• University placement record — ask what percentage of graduates go to US, European, or Guatemalan universities, and which ones. Strong records = strong curriculum.
• Transportation — ask for the bus tariff in writing. Almost nobody publishes one; the Instituto Austriaco Guatemalteco in Zona 16 is the exception, printing Q9,562.20 for a full route and Q5,942.29 for a single leg on its 2026 fee sheet.
• Extra fees — enrollment, uniforms, technology, field trips, extracurriculars, and in CAG’s case a Q900 annual accident insurance charge. Only the enrollment and accident-insurance figures are published; for the rest you have to ask.
• Language exit level — if you want your child truly bilingual, ensure the school has enough Spanish hours per week. “Bilingual” varies widely in practice.

Neighborhoods and Schools

The schools on this page sit in Zona 15 (CAG), Zona 16 (Colegio Interamericano), Zona 12 (Colegio Monte María) and along Carretera a El Salvador — Colegio Maya at Km 12.5 in Santa Catarina Pinula and Village School at Km 25.5 in Villa Canales, with Village’s second campus at 11 calle 1-87 in Zona 14. The IB schools sit somewhere else again: two in Zona 11, one at Km 16.8 Carretera a El Salvador, two in Fraijanes and one in Ciudad Vieja, Sacatepéquez.

In other words, the metro school belt is really three highways — Carretera a El Salvador, Carretera a Fraijanes and Carretera a Lo de Diéguez — as much as it is the Zona 14/15/16 residential ring. Check the commute against the school run before you sign a lease.

Our Guatemala City neighborhood guide covers the best areas for expat families with kids, including safety data and proximity to schools.

Related Guides

• Education Hub — Guatemala education system overview
• Cost of Living in Guatemala — Full expat budget including school costs
• Guatemala City Neighborhoods — Where expat families live
• Safety Guide — Safety data by zone
• Is Guatemala Safe for Families? — the security question, answered for expat parents
• Moving to Guatemala — Complete relocation guide

Re-verified 3 September 2026 at the source; the six IB schools were re-read on 2 October 2026. The IB list comes from the IB’s own school register; CAG’s fees from its own tuition page; Colegio Maya’s from the U.S. State Department’s 2026 fact sheet; addresses, municipios and operating status from MINEDUC’s register of authorised establishments. Every other school on this page was checked on its own website the same day and publishes no annual tuition, so this page shows “Not published” rather than an estimate. Confirm directly with each school.