The University of Oldenburg charges no tuition fees on its Bachelor's or consecutive Master's programmes, for EU and non-EU students alike, because Lower Saxony funds the university as a state institution. The one exception is fee-based professional development and continuing-education programmes, which charge their own separate fee on top of the semester contribution.

What every student pays is the semester contribution, currently 457.90 EUR for winter semester 2026/27, and it is not a fee for teaching. Most of it funds the Deutschlandsemesterticket, the discounted nationwide public transport pass every enrolled student receives automatically, with the rest going to the Studierendenwerk and the student body.

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 via a blocked account, and that money has to be transferred months before the semester starts.

These deadlines apply to non-EU applicants on Master's programmes that go through uni-assist. Applicants without a German Bachelor's degree apply via uni-assist between 15 March and 30 April for the winter semester, while EU and German applicants on the same programmes have until 15 July, or on some programmes 30 September. Deadlines for individual Master's programmes vary, so always check the specific programme page.

Applicants with a foreign Bachelor's degree apply through uni-assist, the central agency used by most German universities, at a standard cost of about 75 EUR for the first application and 30 EUR for each further one in the same intake. Applicants with a German Bachelor's degree skip uni-assist entirely and apply directly through the university's own portal, at no extra cost.

See the international applicants page at uol.de.

Most of the Oldenburg catalogue is taught in German, but a number of Master's programmes — concentrated in the natural sciences, engineering, marine research and neuroscience-related fields — are taught fully in English. Nearly all of the English-taught catalogue is at Master's level, so a Bachelor applicant will need German for the great majority of programmes. You can study the English-taught programmes without German, though everyday German still helps with housing, part-time work and dealing with the authorities.

IELTS and TOEFL are accepted, but the minimum level is set per programme rather than centrally, ranging from around B2 on some Master's programmes up to C1 on others, such as the English Studies Master's. Applicants who completed a Bachelor's degree taught in English or German are generally exempt from the test, and a language-centre test from a German university is also accepted. Validity is typically two years for a B2-level certificate and longer for C1 or above. The exact score is set per programme, so check your programme page before booking a test.

The winter semester formally begins on 1 October, but lectures do not start until 12 October 2026 — plan to be in Oldenburg a few weeks before that for city registration, a bank account and a room.

Oldenburg is a city of around 170,000 people with roughly 15,000 students, so rooms are cheaper and less contested than in Cologne or Munich, though competition still picks up at the start of the winter semester. Apply to the Studierendenwerk halls as soon as you are admitted: places are allocated through a running application list rather than a first-come queue, and you have to confirm your interest every month to stay on it. The monthly payout from a blocked account is typically transferred into a German current account, which you open after arriving in Oldenburg.

Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, founded in 1973, is one of Germany's youngest universities and was built from the outset around interdisciplinary faculties rather than separated disciplines.

Its research strengths sit in renewable energy, marine and environmental sciences, and hearing and neuroscience research, most visibly through the Hearing4all cluster of excellence. Oldenburg itself is a mid-sized city in Germany's northwest, close to the North Sea coast and within easy reach of Bremen, which keeps living costs and competition for housing well below what students face in Germany's larger university cities.