Nothing in tuition for Bachelor's and consecutive Master's programmes, for EU and non-EU students alike, because North Rhine-Westphalia funds the university. FH Dortmund also runs a set of continuing-education (weiterbildend) Master's programmes, which under NRW rules can charge fees even at a public university.

What every student pays is the semester contribution, and it is not a fee for teaching. Most of it is the Deutschlandticket, which covers public transport across the whole country. The amount is set each semester, so it changes: for winter 2026/27 it is 346.80 EUR, of which 226.80 EUR is the Deutschlandticket.

No tuition does not mean no proof of funds. For the student visa you still need to show about 11,904 EUR for the year, usually in a blocked account, and that money has to be transferred months before the semester starts.

These are the deadlines FH Dortmund publishes for applicants who are not EU/EEA nationals and did not earn a German-recognised entrance qualification, and they fall earlier than dates you may see on general application pages. Whichever route applies to you, uni-assist or FH Dortmund's own portal, the deadline for the winter semester is 15 June and for the summer semester is 15 January.

Which portal you use depends on where you earned your university entrance qualification. If it was not earned in Germany, the EU/EEA, or at a school following German Abitur rules, you apply through uni-assist for a processing fee of about 75 EUR for your first choice of programme and 30 EUR for each further one. Almost everyone else, including nearly all Master's applicants (the Master in International Management is the one exception, which also goes through uni-assist), applies directly through FH Dortmund's own online portal.

Open the international applicants page at fh-dortmund.de

FH Dortmund runs 12 degree programmes fully in English, out of roughly 70 Bachelor's and Master's programmes in total, concentrated in business management, engineering (embedded systems, digital transformation) and design (scenography). Most of them are Master's programmes, so a Bachelor applicant will find only a few English-taught options, mainly International Business Management and Serious Games & Digital Knowledge. You can study the English-taught programmes without German, though everyday German still helps with housing, part-time work and the authorities.

IELTS Academic and TOEFL iBT are the certificates FH Dortmund's English-taught programmes ask for.

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 usually start in mid-October.

A public university of applied sciences founded in 1971, with roots going back to a mechanical-engineering school opened in 1890, and one of the ten largest Fachhochschulen in Germany. Its strengths are engineering, computer science, business studies, design and applied social sciences, spread across three campuses in Dortmund.

Dortmund itself is North Rhine-Westphalia's third-largest city and part of the Ruhr area, one of Europe's largest urban regions, which puts students close to a dense industrial and business network for internships and working student jobs.