Nothing in tuition, for EU and non-EU students alike, for Bachelor's and consecutive Master's programmes, because UdK Berlin is funded by the State of Berlin. The exception sits at postgraduate level: a small number of "weiterbildende" (further-education) Master's programmes charge tuition to every student, regardless of nationality, because they sit outside the standard Bachelor/Master structure.

What every student pays instead is the semester contribution, and it is not a fee for teaching. For winter 2025/26 it stood at 360.00 EUR, of which a large part is the Deutschlandticket for nationwide public transport, alongside a social contribution to studierendenWERK Berlin and a contribution to student representation (AStA).

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.

UdK Berlin runs no single application deadline. Unlike most universities, it also draws no distinction between EU and non-EU applicants: its own FAQ states that international applicants are on an equal footing with national applicants. Instead, each degree programme sets its own deadline around its portfolio review or audition date, and these are spread right across the year rather than clustering around a single autumn intake. The examples below illustrate the range; they are not a complete list and do not represent one university-wide date.

UdK Berlin states that 98.6% of its study places are free of a numerus clausus (NC), with admission decided through an artistic aptitude test or audition instead.

UdK Berlin uses a hybrid route. If your school or university qualification was earned abroad, or you are applying for a Master's programme, you first need a uni-assist Vorprüfungsdokumentation (VPD), which checks your certificates and typically carries uni-assist's standard fee (75 EUR for a first application). Purely artistic Bachelor's programmes, such as Fine Arts, instrumental music, or dance, do not need a VPD. Either way, you then apply directly to UdK Berlin through its own portal, which charges a separate, non-refundable application fee of 30 to 50 EUR per application.

Open the application overview at udk-berlin.de

UdK Berlin teaches 6 of its roughly 72 degree programmes fully in English, all of them at Master's or postgraduate level: the Jazz Institute's Master's programmes (Composition/Arrangement and the European Jazz Master), Solo/Dance/Authorship (SODA), and Sound Studies and Sonic Arts are taught entirely in English, while Chamber Music (ensembles) and the Kunst und Medien Meisterschüler*in programme use either German or English. There is no English-taught Bachelor's programme at UdK Berlin. You can study these programmes without German, though everyday German still helps with housing, part-time work, and the authorities.

Because almost all teaching at UdK Berlin is in German, English certificates only matter for its 6 English-taught programmes and the two German-or-English options. For those, UdK Berlin does not accept TOEFL MyBest Scores, so the score has to come from a single sitting, and IELTS must be the Academic version. A Bachelor's or Master's degree taught in English is accepted as a waiver only if it was earned in Australia, Great Britain, Ireland, Canada (outside Quebec and New Brunswick), New Zealand, or the USA; for programmes requiring B2 only, a secondary-school qualification from the same countries, plus Scotland, is also accepted.

The exact level required (B2 or C1) 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 same as anywhere else in Germany: the winter semester formally begins on 1 October, but city registration, opening a bank account, and finding a room all take weeks, so plan to be in Berlin well before lectures begin.

Berlin remains one of the more affordable of Europe's big capitals for students, but demand for housing, especially UdK Berlin's own halls, is intense at the start of the winter semester. Apply to studierendenWERK Berlin's halls as soon as you have your admission letter and paid your semester fees, and search WG-Gesucht in parallel, since the halls' waiting list can run up to 18 months.

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

Founded in 1696 and one of the largest and oldest art universities in Europe, UdK Berlin brings fine arts, design, music, and the performing arts together across four faculties, plus the Jazz Institute Berlin and the Inter-University Centre for Dance. Admission runs on artistic merit rather than school or degree grades: nearly all of its roughly 72 programmes select through a portfolio review, audition, or aptitude test instead of a numerus clausus.

Its campus sits in Charlottenburg, in the same part of the city as Technische Universität Berlin, within reach of Berlin's wider concentration of universities, orchestras, theatres, and galleries, and a large creative-industries job market that international graduates can tap into without leaving the capital.