Unlike most German public universities, Freiburg is in Baden-Württemberg, the one German state that charges international students a state tuition fee. Since the 2017/18 winter semester, non-EU nationals (i.e. not citizens of an EU or EEA state — Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein) enrolling in a Bachelor's, consecutive Master's, or State Examination programme pay 1,500 EUR per semester in addition to the regular semester fee. EU/EEA students, Bildungsinländer, and students in continuing-education or part-time Master's programmes are exempt.

Everyone, EU and non-EU alike, also pays the regular semester fee, currently 190 EUR per semester. This is not a teaching fee: of the 190 EUR, 103 EUR goes to the Studierendenwerk Freiburg (including a 28 EUR base contribution for the regional public-transport semester ticket), 80 EUR is an administrative fee set by the state, and 7 EUR funds the student union. Freiburg's semester ticket covers only the regional Freiburg network (city, Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald and Emmendingen), not a nationwide Deutschlandticket.

No tuition outcome removes the proof-of-funds requirement for the student visa: you still need to show about 11,904 EUR for the year, usually in a blocked account, transferred months before the semester starts.

Freiburg publishes one application-deadline table that applies to all applicants, EU and non-EU alike, for Bachelor's, State Examination and Master of Education programmes. For other Master's and postgraduate programmes, deadlines are set per programme, so check the individual programme page in the degree programme finder. Applications open on 1 June for the winter semester and 1 December for the summer semester; deadlines are cut-off dates, meaning documents must arrive by the date shown.

Applications go through the university's own portal at campus.uni-freiburg.de (built on HISinOne), not through uni-assist.

Open the international applicants / "How do I apply?" page at uni-freiburg.de

Freiburg does not publish a running total of its English-taught programmes on one central page. 25 programmes are taught entirely in English, spanning arts, design & architecture, business & economics, engineering, humanities, medicine & health, natural sciences & mathematics, and social sciences. Most are Master's programmes; the one prominent all-English Bachelor's is the interdisciplinary Liberal Arts and Sciences programme at University College Freiburg. English-taught programmes can be studied without German, though everyday German still helps with housing, part-time work and the authorities.

Score requirements for English-taught programmes are set per programme rather than on one central page. IELTS Academic and TOEFL iBT are the most commonly requested tests.

The exact score is set per programme, so check your programme page before booking a test.

Work backwards from the lecture start rather than the semester start. The winter semester formally begins on 1 October, but lectures for winter 2026/27 do not start until 19 October 2026, and you want to be in Freiburg some weeks earlier for city registration, a bank account and a room.

Founded in 1457, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg is the fifth-oldest university in Germany and a member of the U15 group of German research universities, with Excellence Strategy status. Its 11 faculties span theology, law, medicine, the humanities, natural sciences and engineering.

Freiburg sits in the Dreiländereck where Germany, France and Switzerland meet, and the university runs a formal cross-border alliance, Eucor – The European Campus, together with the universities of Basel, Strasbourg and Haute-Alsace and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, letting students take classes across all five partner universities. As the state that introduced Germany's only non-EU tuition fee, Baden-Württemberg gives Freiburg a cost profile that is different from most of the other partner universities on this list.