The semester fee covers 226.80 EUR for the Germany semester ticket, which covers public transport across the whole country; the rest funds the Kölner Studierendenwerk, the student committees and university sport.

No tuition doesn't 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, transferred months before the semester starts.

These are the deadlines for non-EU applicants. University of Cologne does not publish an earlier non-EU deadline: the general date is the same for EU and non-EU applicants, with the one exception being the WiSo Faculty, where several Master's programmes close earlier.

Applicants whose school-leaving certificate or first degree was earned outside Germany go through a two-stage process. A Preliminary Review Documentation (VPD) from uni-assist checks that your qualification is recognised; only after that can you apply through the university's own Klips 2.0 portal. The VPD is not tied to a semester and can be requested at any time, but it typically takes 4 to 8 weeks to process, so request it well before your deadline, not on it.

University of Cologne teaches a number of programmes fully in English, concentrated at the WiSo Faculty (Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences), which runs a large share of the university's tuition-free, English-taught Master's degrees, alongside English-taught options in the natural sciences and LL.M. programmes at the Faculty of Law. Most of the English-taught catalogue is at Master's level, so a Bachelor applicant will need German for the great majority of programmes. The English-taught programmes can be studied without German, though everyday German still helps with housing, part-time work and the authorities.

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

Work backwards from the lecture start date rather than the semester start date, and plan to be in Cologne a few weeks earlier for city registration, a bank account and a room.

Germany's second-oldest university, founded in 1388, closed in 1798 under French rule and re-established in 1919. Today it is one of the country's largest universities by enrolment and a member of the German U15 group of research-intensive universities. Its strengths span law, economics and business through the EQUIS-accredited WiSo Faculty (a CEMS founding member), medicine, and the humanities, with five Clusters of Excellence spanning ageing research, quantum information, plant sciences, and economics and market design.

The university sits in the middle of Cologne, a short walk from Cologne Cathedral and the Rhine, giving students access to one of Germany's largest job markets and corporate hubs without leaving the city centre.