Nothing is charged in tuition for Bachelor's and consecutive Master's programmes, for EU and non-EU students alike, because Lower Saxony funds standard degree programmes at its public universities. A small number of continuing-education and executive Master's programmes are the exception: the LL.M. in International Law (GOMIL), for example, charges its own tuition fee of 8,500 EUR for the 2026/27 entry year (4,250 EUR per semester), on top of the normal semester contribution.

What every other student pays instead is the semester contribution, which for winter 2026/27 comes to 484.18 EUR, and it is not a fee for teaching. A large part of it, 226.80 EUR, is the Deutschlandsemesterticket, the nationwide public transport ticket, which is why "tuition-free, but you pay 484 EUR" is not actually a contradiction.

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, and that money has to be transferred months before the semester starts.

These are the deadlines that apply to applicants from outside the EU. Master's deadlines vary by programme; the table above lists commonly seen examples rather than one university-wide date, so check the individual programme page before applying. Restricted-admission Bachelor's programmes require an earlier application than open-admission ones.

Through the university's own online portal. University of Göttingen does not use uni-assist, so most applicants pay no uni-assist account fee or processing fee of about 75 EUR.

University of Göttingen publishes its own list of English and other international degree programmes, but the list mixes fully English-taught programmes with some that require German alongside English, so it does not give one clean total. Approximately 45 English-taught programmes are listed for the 2024/25 catalogue, concentrated in the natural sciences, agricultural and forest sciences, and area studies, and overwhelmingly at Master's level; only a handful of Bachelor's programmes are taught in English, and several of those still carry a German-language requirement of their own. 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, so check your programme page before booking a test. Certificates are typically expected to be no more than two years old at enrolment, and General IELTS is not usually accepted in place of IELTS Academic.

Work backwards from the lecture start rather than the semester start. You'll want to be in Göttingen a few weeks before lectures begin for city registration, a bank account and a room.

Göttingen is a student city of around 30,000 students in a town of about 120,000, so rooms are in real demand, above all at the start of the winter semester. Apply to the Studierendenwerk halls as soon as you are admitted and search the private market in parallel, since waiting times for halls commonly run from 6 to 24 months depending on the building.

Figures are for the private market. The monthly payout from your blocked account is transferred to a German current account, which you open after you arrive.

Founded in 1737, University of Göttingen is one of Germany's oldest and largest research universities, with a strong historic profile in mathematics, physics and the humanities, and associations with more than 40 Nobel laureates. It is a member of the U15 group of major German research universities and works closely with several Max Planck Institutes, the German Primate Center and the German Aerospace Center through the Göttingen Campus network, which gives students in the natural sciences unusually direct access to non-university research institutes.

Göttingen itself is a compact university town in Lower Saxony, roughly two hours from Berlin, Hamburg and Frankfurt by train, with the university and its affiliated institutes shaping much of city life.