Nothing in tuition, for EU and non-EU students alike, because the state of Bremen funds the university. That applies to Bachelor's and consecutive Master's programmes. Bremen never introduced general tuition fees, and the long-term study fees that used to apply from the fourteenth semester were abolished with effect from the winter semester 2020/21, so there is no fee that starts if your studies run long.

What every student pays is the semester contribution, and it is not a fee for teaching. For winter 2026/27 it is 443.40 EUR, and the largest single part of it, 226.80 EUR, is the Deutschlandsemesterticket, which covers regional public transport across the whole country. One item is worth knowing about before you compare Bremen with other states: 63.00 EUR of the total is an administrative fee, a charge for the university's own administration rather than a service you receive, and most German states no longer levy one. The amount is set each semester, so it changes. It rose by 18.00 EUR for winter 2026/27 because the Deutschlandticket got more expensive, and the state has said it intends to bring it back down for summer 2027.

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 that apply to applicants from outside the EU, and Bremen is unusual in that they are the same as the dates published for everyone else. There is no separate, earlier non-EU deadline for Bachelor programmes: 15 July for the winter semester applies to EU and non-EU applicants alike. What does fall earlier is the step before it. A non-EU Bachelor applicant cannot apply in the university's portal without a VPD from uni-assist, uni-assist needs at least four weeks, and the university therefore recommends requesting the VPD by 6 June for the winter semester and by 1 December for the summer semester. Master deadlines are not published centrally: each programme sets its own date in the master portal, and the portal also shows whether the programme starts in winter or summer.

After admission the clock is short. For restricted-admission programmes the enrolment documents have to reach the Student Office within seven days of the admission decision. For open-admission programmes and for language certificates the date is 15 September for the winter semester and 15 March for the summer semester. Master applications are reviewed by a selection committee, which usually takes six to eight weeks after the deadline.

Through two portals, and which ones depends on your degree level. For a Bachelor or Law, non-EU applicants first pay uni-assist to issue a VPD, then apply with that VPD in moin, the university's own portal, where the application and the processing of your documents are free of charge. For a Master there is no uni-assist step at all: you apply directly in moin. The moin portal opens about six weeks before the deadline, you track the status of your application there yourself, and an application is valid for one semester only and cannot be carried over to the next.

Worth stating explicitly on the page: the University of Bremen charges nothing for the application itself. The only application cost for a non-EU Bachelor applicant is the uni-assist handling fee for the VPD, and Master applicants pay nothing at all.

The University of Bremen runs 30 degree programmes fully in English, out of more than 100 in total, concentrated in marine and environmental sciences, geosciences, space and production engineering, computer science and digital media, and the health sciences. The split matters more here than at most universities: 27 of the 30 are Master's programmes and only three are at Bachelor level, so a Bachelor applicant will need German at C1 for almost the entire catalogue. You can study the English-taught programmes without German for the coursework itself, but several of them still require an A1 certificate in German, so check your programme before you assume no German is needed at all, and everyday German helps with housing, part-time work and the authorities.

Bremen sets the required level per programme rather than centrally, and it is either B2 or C1, so the first thing to check is your own programme's entry in the master portal. Two rules then work in your favour, which is unusual. The waiver for English-taught degrees is not limited by country: if your previous degree or your school-leaving qualification was taught in the language your programme requires, that counts as proof at C1 level, and a confirmation letter from the school or university is enough. And a certificate is only too old if the certificate itself states an expiry date, because certificates issued without a validity period are recognised permanently. One rule works against you: the language certificate is a condition of enrolment, not something you can supply later at leisure, and for some programmes it has to be in by the application deadline rather than two weeks after lectures start.

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 start on 12 October 2026 and the orientation week runs from 5 to 9 October, and you want to be in Bremen a few weeks before that for city registration, a bank account and a room. There is a second date to work backwards from: to receive your student ID and your semester ticket in time for the start of teaching, the university asks for your enrolment documents about a month before the semester begins, so early September for the winter semester.

There is no teaching from 21 December 2026 to 3 January 2027. Most examinations fall in the three weeks after the lecture period ends.

Bremen has 18,719 students at the university and around 31,000 across all the public institutions in Bremen and Bremerhaven, which is a smaller student market than Hamburg or Cologne, and rents follow. The Studierendenwerk runs 2,139 places in Bremen across eleven halls, and two things about them are worth knowing: every room is furnished, and the rents are flat rates, so there is no utility bill to settle at the end of the year and no back-payment in the spring. There is a waiting list, so apply the day you are admitted and search WG-Gesucht in parallel. Two private halls sit directly on the campus and are usually available at shorter notice, but they cost considerably more than the Studierendenwerk rooms.

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

Founded in 1971 as a reform university, the University of Bremen is the largest higher education institution in Germany's smallest state, with twelve faculties, 18,719 students from 126 countries and more than 100 degree programmes. Its research is strongest in marine, polar and climate research, built around the MARUM Center for Marine Environmental Sciences and its Cluster of Excellence on the ocean floor, with further strengths in geosciences, materials science, production engineering and the social sciences, and a second Cluster of Excellence working on Mars research.

For an international student the practical points are the compact single campus in the north of the city, where the halls of residence, the canteens and the library are within walking distance of the lecture halls, the founding "Bremen Model" of project and research-based teaching that still shapes how courses are structured, membership of the YUFE alliance of European universities, which opens courses at partner universities elsewhere in Europe, and the Deutschlandsemesterticket, which covers regional transport nationwide from a city with fast connections to Hamburg and the northwest.