We present an experimental study of x-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) at L 2, 3, M 2, 3, and K edges of, respectively, Fe, Zr, and O in iron-doped zirconia (ZrO 2: Fe) for different Fe dopant concentrations x (from x∼ 6% to x∼ 25% at.) and make the comparison with ab initio simulations at the O K-edge. The x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) measurements show no evidence of ferromagnetic (FM) order for all the analyzed samples in agreement with our ab initio simulations, which show an antiferromagnetic (AFM) order. We found that substituting Zr with Fe atoms leads to a radical change in the O K-edge XANES spectrum, especially in the pre-edge region where a pre-edge peak appears. This pre-edge peak is ascribed to dipole transitions from O 1 s to O 2 p states that are hybridized with the unoccupied Fe 3 d states. Both theoretical and experimental results reveal that the intensity of the pre …