Bavaria Non-EU Tuition: Which Universities Actually Charge

Bavarian law lets a university charge students from outside the EU and EEA if it wants to, but obliges nobody. Years after that door opened, four institutions have walked through it and the state's largest, LMU, has not. Each scheme bites only on students who enrol after its start date: if you are already matriculated when your university switches, you finish on the old terms.

TUM: EUR 2,000 to 6,000 a semester

TUM charges non-EU students who enrolled from winter semester 2024/25. Bachelor's programmes are usually 2,000 or 3,000 euros a semester, master's usually 4,000 or 6,000, set per degree and listed under "Program details" on each programme page. Doctoral candidates, exchange and visiting students, Studienkolleg students and state examination programmes sit outside it. Read the full breakdown of TUM's fees before you compare offers: the master's rate is the one that reshapes a budget.

Two assumptions that cost people money. Attending a Studienkolleg does not exempt you from tuition in the bachelor's programme that follows, because TUM does not count the Studienkolleg final examination as a German higher education entrance qualification. And an International Baccalaureate or European Baccalaureate earned outside Germany does not exempt you either.

A German bachelor's degree cancels the master's fee

This is the exemption most applicants never find. If you completed a bachelor's degree at a German university, at TUM or anywhere else, before your master's starts, you are not required to pay TUM's non-EU tuition for that master's. The exemption is permanent once granted.

It turns entirely on proof and on one date. You have to submit evidence of the completed bachelor's no later than the enrolment deadline, which TUM sets at five weeks after the start of lectures. Accept your place, transfer only the semester fee, and upload the signed enrolment application together with your certificate and diploma as authentic documents, meaning sealed, signed or online-verifiable. If the diploma is not out yet, a final transcript plus a preliminary degree certificate from the examination office works, as long as it confirms the degree was awarded and states your final grade. A bare 4.0 certificate is not enough. If you were paying tuition in a TUM bachelor's programme, you also have to disenrol from it within those same five weeks.

Miss the date and there is no second chance that semester: retroactive exemptions and refunds after the enrolment deadline are not possible, so you either pay the first master's semester or postpone your start and reapply in the next round.

TUM's waivers are an application, not an outcome

Where the fee does apply, TUM runs waiver scholarships for outstanding academic performance or financial need, exemptions for cases such as joint degree programmes, a leave of absence or established ties to Germany, and waivers for personal circumstances like childcare or caring for a relative. None of them is automatic, each is reviewed individually, and every one requires an application by the deadline. They are not paid out to you either; they are credited against the fee. Separately, the TUM scholarship for international students weighs academic record and financial circumstances and pays a one-time study grant of 500 to 1,800 euros a semester, and you can apply again each semester.

The applied-sciences campuses cost a fraction

HM in Munich charges 500 euros a semester for a bachelor's and 700 for a master's, for students enrolling from winter semester 2026/27. Anyone matriculated at HM before that pays nothing, with one catch: switch programme inside HM from winter 2026/27 and the fee starts. New students pay through the ePayment system when they accept the place, alongside the semester contribution; from summer semester 2027 the fee is collected during the normal re-registration window instead. THI Ingolstadt has charged 800 and 1,200 since summer semester 2026. Both are a different order of magnitude from TUM. Studying in Munich without German compares the big campuses there.

FAU is next, and it is a 2027 problem

FAU has published its rates in advance: 1,000, 2,000 or 3,000 euros a semester for a bachelor's and 2,000, 4,000 or 6,000 for a master's, by programme. They start in summer semester 2027 and hit only students newly enrolling or changing subject. Apply for an earlier intake and this does not touch you.

FAU states four conditions that must all be true before it bills you: you are in a bachelor's or master's programme, you hold no German, EU or EEA citizenship, you do not hold a German university entrance qualification, and you have no established ties to Germany. Fail any one and the fee does not apply. Part-time study halves the fee, and a two-subject bachelor's in the humanities faculty is charged for one subject rather than two. Fee-paying students are guaranteed a free German course place. The 82-euro semester contribution is charged separately and to everyone.

Where you still pay nothing

LMU's own fee page states that no tuition has been charged since winter semester 2013/14 and names no non-EU rate. Wuerzburg says flatly that there are no tuition fees. Passau has published a statement that it could charge under Bavarian law but does not plan to. All three still collect the semester contribution.

Those are the campuses applicants ask about. Bavaria has dozens of public institutions that each decide for themselves. If your university is not named on this page, that means we have not checked it, not that it is free.

Who is exempt where fees do apply

The categories look similar wherever fees apply: EU and EEA citizens, holders of a German university entrance qualification, students with an established domestic connection, doctoral candidates and exchange students. TUM adds anyone who has already completed a degree at a German university with a standard period of study of at least six semesters.

"Established domestic connection" is the one people guess at, and it has a legal definition: Section 8 of the federal BAfoeG. TUM's reading of it covers, among others, family members of EU citizens with permanent residence rights, holders of a permanent settlement permit, anyone who lived and worked legally in Germany for at least five years before starting the degree, and anyone with a parent who lived and worked in Germany for at least three years within the last six. Get yours confirmed in writing before enrolment, not inferred from a general page, because refunds after the deadline do not happen.

What to budget for Bavaria

Munich living costs run 1,000 to 1,400 euros a month, and the 11,904 euros for the blocked account are required whether or not you pay tuition. Add fees only for the four campuses above. On most Bavarian offers the tuition line is zero, which leaves the state cheaper than Baden-Wuerttemberg, where every public university bills non-EU students EUR 1,500 a semester. The cost of studying in Germany in rupees puts that in perspective.

Check the fee page, and note the date

A university charging nothing when you apply can publish a fee before your intake, as FAU and HM both did with a year's notice. Read its own fee page rather than any summary, this one included, and write down the amount with the date you saw it. Paying tuition changes nothing about part-time work or the 18-month job-seeker visa: see the rules on working while you study, the post-study job-seeker visa and how DAAD scholarships work, since most external funding closes long before you hold a decision letter.

Sources

• TUM: non-EU tuition
• FAU: non-EU tuition
• HM Munich: non-EU fees
• THI Ingolstadt: fees
• Passau: no fees

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