Baden-Württemberg is the only German state that charges tuition to students from outside the EU and EEA. Because of this state rule, Heilbronn University charges non-EU/EEA students 1,500 EUR per semester, for both Bachelor's and consecutive Master's programmes. EU/EEA students, and international students holding a German university entrance qualification, pay no tuition.

What every student pays, regardless of nationality, is the semester fee, currently 188 EUR. Unlike many German universities, this does not bundle in a nationwide transport ticket: the Deutschlandticket (about 49 EUR a month) or the discounted D-Ticket YouthBW (about 30 EUR a month for students under 27) is bought separately.

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

Heilbronn University does not publish a separate, earlier deadline for non-EU applicants: the same date applies to EU and non-EU applicants for the same intake. Programmes with restricted admission (local NC) must be submitted by 15 July for the winter semester and 15 January for the summer semester; programmes without an admission restriction run later, until the end of September (winter) or the beginning of March (summer). Applicants whose degree needs recognition through Studienkolleg Konstanz should aim to have documents in by around 1 June, well ahead of the university's own deadline, since recognition takes 3 to 4 weeks.

Through the university's own portal, eCampus, and through Hochschulstart.de if your programme has restricted admission (local NC). Heilbronn University does not use uni-assist for the application itself and charges no separate application handling fee.

International applicants pages: hs-heilbronn.de/en/bachelor-application and hs-heilbronn.de/en/master-application

Heilbronn University teaches 13 degree programmes entirely in English, 6 at Bachelor's level and 7 at Master's level, out of more than 50 Bachelor's and Master's programmes overall, concentrated in engineering, business and international management, and computer science. Several further Bachelor's programmes teach only their first year in English before switching to German. These fully English-taught programmes can be studied without German, though everyday German still helps with housing, part-time work and the authorities.

IELTS and TOEFL are the two most requested, but Heilbronn University's accepted list is broader than most: it also recognises TOEIC, Cambridge CAE and the Oxford Test of English. The native-speaker exemption is limited to applicants raised and educated in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK or the USA; an English-taught degree earned anywhere else does not exempt you from the test.

The exact score can still vary by 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 runs from 1 September to 28 February, but lectures begin later, toward the end of September or the start of October, and you want to be in Heilbronn a few weeks before that for city registration, a bank account and a room.

Heilbronn is a far smaller student city than Cologne or Munich. Heilbronn University's roughly 7,000 students compete for just 445 rooms across three Studierendenwerk halls, so only about 4% of students get a hall place. Around 100 to 150 rooms free up at each semester change, against roughly twice as many applications, so apply for a hall place as soon as you are able, up to nine months ahead of your start date, and search the private market in parallel.

The monthly payout from your blocked account is transferred to a German current account, which you open after you arrive.

Founded in 1961, Heilbronn University of Applied Sciences is one of the largest universities of applied sciences in Baden-Württemberg, spread across four campuses in Heilbronn, Künzelsau and Schwäbisch Hall. Its focus is engineering, business and computer science, taught with a strong practical orientation and close ties to regional employers, including several global market leaders based in the Heilbronn-Franconia business region, which makes internships and working-student jobs easy to find. As a Baden-Württemberg institution, it is also one of the universities where non-EU applicants pay the state's mandatory tuition fee, the trade-off against those industry links.