Where Public Universities Charge Little or No Tuition

What "little or no tuition" usually means

At a public university, "little or no tuition" rarely means the same thing twice. It can mean a semester contribution for student services, not an academic fee. It can mean a flat national rate charged only to students from outside the EU. It can mean a fee that rises and falls with household income, so two students on the same course pay very different amounts. This guide sets out what the universities in this site's own records actually charge, country by country, and the condition attached to each number.

Germany: free tuition, most places, most students

Most German public universities charge no tuition fee to any student, of any nationality. Leipzig University, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Technische Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, the University of Bremen, Goethe University Frankfurt and the University of Göttingen all confirm this on their own pages (uni-leipzig.de, lmu.de, tu.berlin). What every student pays instead is a semester contribution, not tuition: EUR 379.06 at TU Berlin for 2026/27, covering administration, the student body, a Studierendenwerk share and a transport ticket; EUR 127 at Göttingen, rising to EUR 157 from summer 2026; elsewhere about EUR 300 to EUR 425, depending on the university and city.

Two states break the free-tuition pattern for non-EU students specifically. Baden-Württemberg has charged EUR 1,500 a semester at its public universities since 2017/18; Heidelberg University, the University of Mannheim, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the University of Freiburg all confirm the same figure, with exemptions for EU/EEA citizens, holders of a German entrance qualification, long-term residents, refugees and a small allowance on academic grounds (uni-heidelberg.de). Bavaria has let its universities opt in since 2024/25: the Technical University of Munich charges EUR 2,000 to 3,000 a semester for a bachelor's degree and EUR 4,000 to 6,000 for a master's (tum.de), and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg will introduce a comparable fee, EUR 1,000 to 3,000 (bachelor's) and EUR 2,000 to 6,000 (master's), from summer 2027, plus a new EUR 100 non-EU application fee, capped at EUR 300 for three applications, from winter 2026/27 (fau.eu).

The catch that survives all of this is living costs, not tuition. Germany's own figures put a monthly student budget at EUR 900 to 1,200 (daad.de), and the real cost an international student underestimates is the gap between a large city such as Munich and a smaller university town, not the tuition line, which for most of them stays at zero.

Austria: one national rate, and it is only for non-EU students

Austria runs a single tuition figure set nationally rather than by each university, and every public university in this site's records quotes the identical number: EUR 726.72 a semester, from a student's first semester, for non-EU and non-EEA students holding a student residence permit (studieren.univie.ac.at), confirmed alike at the University of Vienna, TU Wien, the University of Innsbruck, the University of Graz and the Vienna University of Economics and Business. EU, EEA and Swiss citizens pay nothing within the standard programme length plus two tolerance semesters, then EUR 363.36, half the non-EU rate; citizens on the OECD's least developed countries list are exempt from tuition altogether. Every student also pays the students' union fee, EUR 26.20 for winter semester 2026/27.

Applying is a separate cost, and it does not always scale the way tuition does. Vienna charges EUR 50 to sit an entrance or aptitude procedure, but only once per programme group, so a candidate applying to several programmes in the same group still pays EUR 50 in total, not EUR 50 per programme. The Vienna University of Economics and Business, by contrast, charges its own EUR 50 bachelor's selection fee per programme (wu.ac.at).

France: one government rate, two different outcomes

France sets a single national tuition figure for non-EU students by decree, EUR 2,902 a year for a Licence and EUR 3,950 for a Master, in force for 2026-2027 (campusfrance.org). What a university actually charges depends on whether it exempts non-EU students from that rate. Sorbonne University has adopted an exemption policy for 2026-2027 that brings most non-EU students down to the EU rate, EUR 178 for a Licence and EUR 255 for a Master, and Université Paris Cité and Paris-Saclay University publish closely similar low rates under their own exemption policies (sorbonne-universite.fr, u-paris.fr). Université Grenoble Alpes, Aix-Marseille Université, Claude Bernard University Lyon 1 and the University of Strasbourg charge the full national rate instead, with only a narrow, capped exemption by individual request; Lyon 1 caps exemptions at 30 percent of its eligible non-EU intake for 2026-2027, falling to 25 then 20 percent later (univ-lyon1.fr). Every student also pays the CVEC campus-life contribution, roughly EUR 100 to 105 a year. The honest answer to "does France charge tuition" depends on which university's exemption policy an applicant lands under, not on one national answer.

Poland: modest, until the subject changes the number

No Polish public university in this site's records charges nothing, but the range starts low. AGH University of Krakow's cheapest confirmed bachelor's programme, Space Engineering, is EUR 1,250 a semester (international.agh.edu.pl), and Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań charges as little as PLN 1,000 a semester for Ethnology or German Studies (amu.edu.pl); the University of Warsaw's cheapest confirmed figure is EUR 1,500 a year for International Studies in Philosophy (welcome.uw.edu.pl). What breaks the pattern is the subject. Warsaw's own Master in Food Systems costs EUR 18,000 a year, its highest published figure, and the Medical University of Warsaw charges EUR 18,800 a year for the six-year Medicine programme and EUR 20,900 for the five-year combined Medicine and Dentistry programme (ed.wum.edu.pl). A Polish humanities degree and a Polish medical degree are not the same country, cost-wise.

Turkey: state universities are cheap, foundation universities are not

Turkey's public sector is where the cheap reputation comes from. Middle East Technical University charges international undergraduates USD 1,600 a year in the humanities, economics and education faculties and USD 2,400 in engineering, architecture and the sciences (iso.metu.edu.tr). The catch is the currency: the fee is quoted in dollars but paid in lira, converted at the central bank's rate about a week before each payment window, with a government minimum floor if the conversion falls under it, and a student who overruns their programme by more than two extra semesters pays 1.5 times the rate. Private foundation universities are a different market. Bilkent University's tuition rises by the year a student was first admitted, from USD 16,300 before 2023 to USD 18,400 for those starting in 2026 (w3.bilkent.edu.tr), and Sabancı University charges USD 36,500 a year flat, though every applicant is automatically considered for a merit scholarship of 25 to 75 percent, and most admitted students pay less than the published rate (iro.sabanciuniv.edu).

Italy: assessed by income, or assessed by country

Italian public universities calculate tuition mainly from the ISEE, the national household income indicator, so the same university can charge a low band almost nothing and a high band thousands of euros. The Polytechnic University of Milan fixes the lowest instalment at EUR 157.04 a year for an ISEE up to EUR 22,000, rising in bands to a published maximum of EUR 3,943.04; a master's student on a foreign first degree, without a scholarship, pays the maximum regardless of ISEE documentation (polimi.it). The University of Padua runs the same idea from EUR 0 for its lowest band to about EUR 3,000, with a fixed EUR 208 instalment, regional tax plus stamp duty, due from everyone regardless of income (unipd.it). The University of Naples Federico II is flatter still: EUR 156 a year for non-EU students, the fixed regional tax and stamp duty only, no variable component stated (international.unina.it).

The University of Perugia uses a different method for students enrolling from abroad: not income, but a flat rate by the human development bracket of the applicant's country, from EUR 400 a year for the lowest bracket to EUR 1,000 for the highest, plus a EUR 16 stamp duty (unipg.it); an applicant who prefers to be assessed on household income can ask for that instead. Ca' Foscari University of Venice runs a similar country-based scale, EUR 700 a year for students from a Ministry list of low human development countries up to EUR 2,300 for a master's from an OECD country outside the EU (unive.it). None of this applies to Italy's private universities: Bocconi charges EUR 17,000 to 18,550 a year to every student regardless of income (unibocconi.it), close to a mid-range Turkish foundation university and nothing like the lowest Italian public band.

Reading a low figure correctly

A number on its own is not the full answer. Check whether it is a tuition fee or a semester contribution for something else, whether it is set nationally or by the university, whether it depends on nationality, income or country of origin, and whether it is this year's rate or one that only takes effect later. The universities above show all four patterns inside six countries, which is why "how much does it cost to study here" so rarely has a one-line answer.