Unlike most universities on this list, RH Köln is not tuition-free. As a private, state-recognised university of applied sciences it charges tuition to every student, German, EU and non-EU alike — there is no separate non-EU rate. Fees are set per programme and billed in monthly instalments rather than one lump sum per semester.

On top of tuition, every student also pays the AStA-Beitrag, a much smaller semester contribution set by the student body. It is 247.80 EUR per semester for full-time students in winter 2026/27, most of which is the Deutschlandticket for nationwide public transport — so the two costs should not be confused with each other.

Tuition here is real, so the proof-of-funds calculation for your student visa has to sit on top of it, not instead of it. Budget for about 11,904 EUR for the year in a blocked account in addition to whatever your programme’s tuition comes to, and transfer both well before the semester starts.

RH Köln does not publish non-EU deadlines because it does not have any: admission is rolling across Bachelor, Master, MBA and LL.M. programmes alike. Applications are decided in the order in which a complete file arrives, for as long as places in the programme remain open, and the university can still admit someone up to six weeks after lectures have started. That is a genuine advantage for a late-deciding applicant, but it also means there is no official cushion before the semester begins — the earlier you apply, the more weeks you have for a visa appointment.

Through Portal RH, the university’s own application portal. RH Köln does not use uni-assist, so there is no uni-assist account and no separate uni-assist processing fee. Because admission is rolling, the portal stays open outside a fixed season, and applications are processed in the order all required documents arrive complete.

Open Portal RH at rh-koeln.de

RH Köln runs 5 programmes fully in English, out of about 41 in total: an MBA in International Business, a Master of Engineering in Sustainable Engineering, an LL.M. in Compliance & Corporate Security, an MA in International Marketing and Media Management, and an MSc in Sustainable Leadership. All five are Master’s level — there is currently no English-taught Bachelor’s programme, so a Bachelor applicant needs German for the entire catalogue. You can study these five without German, though everyday German still helps with housing, part-time work and the authorities.

Browse the programme catalogue

The exact score is set per programme, so check your programme page before booking a test. All five English-taught programmes are at Master’s level, so the ranges below are the Master’s-level ranges to work from.

Work backwards from the lecture start rather than the semester start. RH Köln’s semester calendar runs earlier than most public universities: the winter semester formally begins on 1 September, not 1 October, and lectures start in mid-September, so a reader used to the public-university calendar needs an extra few weeks of lead time.

A private, state-recognised university of applied sciences in Cologne, founded in 1958 as an engineering school and rebranded from Rheinische Fachhochschule Köln to Rheinische Hochschule Köln in 2024 as its programme range broadened. Around 5,750 students, about 12% of them international, study across four Cologne locations in engineering, business, psychology and law, media and marketing, and medical economics and health management, in full-time, part-time and dual formats.

For an international applicant the practical distinction from the public universities on this list is that tuition is real and the semester calendar runs about a month ahead of the public-university cycle, while the trade-off is a rolling, no-deadline admissions process rather than a fixed non-EU cut-off.