Every student pays the semester fee, which is not a fee for teaching — it covers student union membership and a local transport pass for the Allgäu region, not the nationwide Deutschlandticket that most other universities include, so a Kempten semester ticket does not extend to travel outside the region.

The service fee applies only to non-EU students newly enrolling on the Bachelor in International Engineering or one of the three English-taught Master's programmes (Electrical Engineering, Global Business Development, Corporate Sustainability & Sustainable Finance). It funds dedicated mentoring and integration support for these students; students already enrolled before Winter Semester 2025/26 are exempt.

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.

Kempten does not set an earlier deadline for non-EU applicants: the same procedures and deadlines apply to international applicants as to German applicants for the same degree programme. For Winter Semester 2026/2027, the deadline is 15 July 2026 for both Bachelor's and Master's programmes.

A separate, later date applies only to the uni-assist paperwork: the preliminary review documentation (VPD) must reach the Academic Registry by 31 July for a winter start or 15 January for a summer start, which is after the application deadline itself. Proof of language proficiency can follow later, by 30 September (winter) or 14 March (summer).

Applications are submitted through MeinCampus, the university's own portal, but before that your degree certificate has to be verified by uni-assist, which charges its own fee (about 75 EUR for a first application, 30 EUR for each further one). The one exception is the Master's in Electrical Engineering, where the Academic Registry checks the Bachelor's certificate itself and uni-assist is not required.

Kempten runs 4 degree programmes fully in English, out of roughly 47 study programmes in total: the Bachelor in International Engineering, and the Master's programmes in Electrical Engineering, Global Business Development, and Corporate Sustainability & Sustainable Finance.

Three of the four are Master's programmes, concentrated in engineering and international business, so a Bachelor applicant will need German for almost the entire catalogue. The English-taught Bachelor in International Engineering does include some German-language modules for students below level B1. You can study the four English-taught programmes without German, though everyday German still helps with housing, part-time work and the authorities.

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

Proof of language proficiency can be submitted after the application deadline, by 30 September (winter) or 14 March (summer).

Unusually, Kempten's winter lectures begin on the same day as the semester itself, 1 October, rather than two weeks later as at many German universities, so there is less runway after arrival for city registration, a bank account and a room.

Kempten is a small city in the Allgäu with roughly 4,700 students at the university itself. Unlike bigger university cities, its Studierendenwerk-run halls are very limited — historically only about 38 places, run by Studierendenwerk Augsburg, which is also responsible for Augsburg and Neu-Ulm. Most students therefore look for private rooms from the outset rather than waiting for a halls place; apply to Studierendenwerk Augsburg the day you are admitted, 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.

The only state-run university of applied sciences in the Allgäu region, founded in 1977 and built around practice-oriented Bachelor's and Master's programmes rather than academic research; every degree includes at least one semester of industry experience. Its faculties span mechanical and electrical engineering, computer science and multimedia, business administration, tourism management, and social and health studies, with more than 100 partner universities worldwide for study-abroad options.

The compact campus sits in the Allgäu, at the foot of the Alps, within the Internationale Bodensee-Hochschule network of universities around Lake Constance, close to regional employers as well as larger Bavarian industry such as BMW, Audi and Airbus in the wider south-German corridor. It also holds its own right to award doctoral degrees through its Doctoral Studies Centre, unusual for a university of applied sciences of its size.