Comparing education consultancies in Nepal starts with one question that decides most of the outcome: is the firm licensed at all. The Department of Commerce found that of roughly 5,000 consultancies in Kathmandu Valley, only about 900 hold a Ministry of Education permit. This directory lists consultancies by city, by destination and by test-prep course, shows government licence status on every entry, and ranks on things you can check rather than on who paid us.
Rankings updated 9 August 2026. We re-verify licence status every quarter.
Students arrive at this directory from three different starting points, so we index it three ways. Choose the axis that matches how you are already thinking about the decision.
You already know the country. Compare the consultancies that actually file for it, with current refusal-rate context rather than marketing claims.
You want an office you can walk into. Applications need several visits, so proximity matters more than students expect.
You need IELTS, PTE, JLPT or TOPIK first. Compare course fees and the nearest official test centre together.
By destination
Destinations are ordered by official No Objection Certificate volume for FY 2080/81, so this list reflects where Nepali students actually went rather than which countries agents promote hardest. Japan leads by a wide margin. Australia, which led the year before with 33,991 certificates, fell to 14,372.
| Destination | NOCs | Compare |
|---|---|---|
| Japan | 34,731 | Japan consultancies → |
| Canada | 15,982 | Canada consultancies → |
| Australia | 14,372 | Australia consultancies → |
| United Kingdom | 13,339 | UK consultancies → |
| USA | 11,261 | USA consultancies → |
| South Korea | 6,889 | Korea consultancies → |
| India | 2,389 | India consultancies → |
| Dubai / UAE | 2,147 | UAE consultancies → |
| Denmark | 1,754 | Denmark consultancies → |
| Finland | 1,535 | Finland consultancies → |
| France | 1,489 | France consultancies → |
| New Zealand | 1,446 | NZ consultancies → |
NOC data: Ministry of Education, Science and Technology FY 2080/81, via The Annapurna Express and ICEF Monitor. A further 54 destinations were named with figures not individually published.
By city
Kathmandu dominates the market, but five other cities carry enough consultancy density and enough official test-centre infrastructure to be worth comparing locally. Inside Kathmandu we go down to the neighbourhood, because consultancies cluster in a handful of streets rather than spreading across the city.
Roughly 5,000 consultancies in the Valley, around 900 licensed. Neighbourhood pages for Putalisadak, Bagbazar, New Baneshwor and seven more.
Two Pearson PTE centres plus IDP and British Council IELTS venues.
Its own cluster around Pulchowk, Kumaripati and Jawlakhel.
British Council IELTS at Shahid Chowk plus a Pearson PTE centre.
IELTS centre plus a PTE centre at Shankarnagar.
IELTS centre at Mahendra Chowk. Eastern regional hub.
By test preparation
Test-prep providers are listed separately from visa consultancies because the decision turns on different facts: course fee, batch timing and the distance to an official test centre. Official centres are scarce, which constrains the choice more than most students realise.
Official venues in seven cities.
Eleven Pearson centres nationally.
Standard alternative to IELTS.
Cheapest English route, growing fast.
Also TOPIK, UBT and CBT formats.
One official exam centre nationally.
Kathmandu-concentrated.
Free tool
Checking a licence takes one search and costs nothing. We make the Ministry of Education’s register searchable, so you can confirm a firm is permitted to operate before you hand over money or original documents.
In May 2026 the Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office opened investigations into 69 consultancy operators. Source.
We rank on facts that can be checked, which means a consultancy cannot improve its position by spending money with us. Advertising buys a labelled placement and nothing else.
Disclosure. Some listings are sponsored. Sponsored listings carry a visible label, never appear above the top-ranked organic result, and sponsorship never changes a review score or an algorithmic position.
Nobody holds a complete count, and that is part of the problem. The Department of Commerce reported in July 2025 that roughly 5,000 consultancies operate in Kathmandu Valley alone, of which around 900 hold a Ministry of Education permit, and that more than 4,100 operate unregistered across the country. Our directory lists a growing number of and we state licence status on each one.
No. We are a directory. We do not recruit students, we do not place students with institutions, and we hold no representation agreements with any university. That independence is what lets us publish refusal rates and unverified-claim labels that a consultancy could not.
Compare four things in order: licence status, published service fee, recent filing record for your specific destination, and whether they issue receipts. Our side-by-side tool puts two or three listings against each other on those fields.
We re-verify licence status quarterly and update rankings continuously as reviews and fee disclosures come in. Every listing page carries the date it was last checked, so you never have to guess whether you are reading current information.