Nothing in tuition, for EU and non-EU students alike. Public universities in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern do not charge tuition fees for consecutive Bachelor's and Master's programmes, and that applies equally to non-EU applicants.

What every student pays is the semester contribution, and it is not a fee for teaching. Most of it is the Semesterticket, run with the Verkehrsverbund Warnow, which covers public transport in and around Rostock. The amount is set each semester, so it changes: as of March 2026 it stood at 333.00 EUR, made up of the Semesterticket, the Studierendenwerk Rostock-Wismar contribution and the Studierendenschaft (StuRa/AStA) contribution.

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. Most Bachelor's and Master's programmes at Rostock share one non-EU deadline, but Engineering, Computer Science and restricted-admission Master's programmes close earlier, so a reader who only checked the general date could miss it entirely.

Applications for winter 2026/27 opened via the university's application portal, campus.uni-rostock.de, with the general non-EU/uni-assist deadline confirmed at 15 July 2026 by the university's own scholarship notice.

International applicants without a German university entrance qualification apply through uni-assist, which pre-checks documents for around 160 German universities, including Rostock. Once uni-assist has processed the application, admitted students complete enrolment through the university's own online portal, which opens from 1 June to 30 September for the winter semester and from 1 February to 31 March for the summer semester.

Open the international applicants page at uni-rostock.de

University of Rostock runs 6 Master's programmes fully in English (Computational Science and Engineering, Computer Science International, Culture, Ecology and Change, Electrical Engineering, Physics, and Sustainable Maritime Engineering), plus one English-taught doctoral programme, out of more than 150 degree programmes in total. All of the English-taught options are at Master's or doctoral level, so a Bachelor applicant will need German for the entire undergraduate catalogue. You can study the English-taught Master's programmes without German, though everyday German still helps with housing, part-time work and the authorities.

Requirements are set per Master's programme rather than centrally: Computational Science and Engineering asks for IELTS Academic 6.5 or TOEFL iBT 90, while Computer Science International and Electrical Engineering ask for IELTS Academic 7.0 or TOEFL iBT 94. Certificates must not be older than two years at the time of application, and applicants whose native language is English are exempt from submitting 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 you want to be in Rostock a few weeks before that for city registration, a bank account and a room.

Founded in 1419, University of Rostock is the third-oldest university in Germany and the oldest in the Baltic Sea region, having celebrated its 600th anniversary in 2019 under the motto "Traditio et Innovatio". It is a full university spanning engineering, natural sciences, medicine, humanities and social sciences, with interdisciplinary research strengths in maritime systems, life sciences, ageing and digitalisation.

Its location on the Baltic coast connects the university to the Ocean Technology Campus Rostock and the wider maritime and port economy, which is relevant for students in engineering and the natural sciences looking for local research and industry contact. Rostock itself is a smaller Hanseatic city than Berlin or Hamburg, which keeps living costs lower even as dormitory space stays tight.