Study in Poland: Admission, Cost, Visa and Scholarships (2027)

Poland's higher education system follows the Bologna three-cycle structure: a bachelor's degree (licencjat or inzynier) of three to four years, a master's degree (magister) of one and a half to two years, and a doctorate. The country has more than 130 public universities and around 250 private institutions, spanning full public universities, specialised technical universities (politechnika), medical universities and universities of economics. Public universities are largely funded by the state and, unlike in some Bologna countries, do not share one national application system: each university runs its own online recruitment platform, commonly called IRK (Internet Recruitment of Candidates) or a locally branded equivalent, where a candidate creates an account, uploads translated copies of school or degree certificates, and applies to a specific field of study.

Recognition of a foreign secondary or first degree varies by the applicant's country of origin. Universities generally accept a Polish school-leaving certificate, an International Baccalaureate or European Baccalaureate diploma, or a certificate from an EU, EFTA, OECD country or a small group of others (commonly including Ukraine and China) without extra formality; applicants from elsewhere are commonly asked to sit a university-set entrance examination, most often in mathematics for technical and science fields, or to have their certificate formally recognised (nostrification) before enrolling. Universities publish this as a separate route for candidates without a Polish or automatically recognised qualification, alongside the standard route.

Most bachelor and master programmes admit once a year for the winter semester, which starts in the first week of October; a smaller number of master's programmes, mostly in business and technical fields, also open a February or March start tied to the summer semester. Tuition for non-EU students is set by each university, per programme, through an annual Rector's ordinance rather than one national fee schedule; English-taught programmes are commonly quoted in EUR and Polish-taught programmes in PLN, and the same university can use both currencies side by side depending on the field. English test requirements have a genuine national floor rather than being left entirely to each university: a Ministry of Science and Higher Education regulation of 30 July 2025 (Journal of Laws 2025, item 1045, in force from 1 August 2025) sets the minimum accepted proof of B2-level foreign-language proficiency for a non-EU applicant to any Polish higher education institution at IELTS 5.5, TOEFL iBT 72, PTE Academic 59 or an equivalent Cambridge, Trinity, TOEIC, LanguageCert or telc certificate; individual universities are free to set a higher bar for a specific programme, and several technical universities and medicine programmes do, but none may accept less. A realistic student living budget runs from about PLN 1,600 a month in a dormitory or shared flat to PLN 5,000 in a major city such as Warsaw, with smaller university cities generally cheaper. Full-time international students do not need a separate work permit and may work up to 20 hours a week during term and up to 40 hours during holiday breaks, and a graduate of a Polish university may apply once, immediately after finishing, for a residence permit to search for a job or start a business, granted for up to nine months.