Germany Has Around 2,400 English-Taught Degrees. Here Is How to Find the Right One
TL;DR: DAAD counts roughly 2,400 English-taught programmes in Germany: about 420 bachelor's and 1,930 master's. That ratio is the single most useful fact in German admissions. If you want an English-taught master's you have real choice. If you want an English-taught bachelor's at a public university, your options are narrow and you should plan around German or around a Studienkolleg.
Germany is the most important non-English-speaking host country for international students, and the reason is not that everyone learns German first. It is that German universities built an English-taught postgraduate system on purpose, over about two decades.
The DAAD press release of 26 November 2025 puts the count at nearly 2,400 English-taught programmes, split roughly 420 bachelor's to 1,930 master's, alongside 402,000 international students and doctoral candidates in the country.
Read the ratio, then plan accordingly
| Level | English-taught programmes | What that means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Master's | Around 1,930 | Genuine choice across engineering, CS, sciences, economics and increasingly public policy. This is the sweet spot. |
| Bachelor's | Around 420 | Thin, concentrated in private universities and a handful of public international programmes. Fees are common here. |
Four fifths of the English-taught offer is at master's level. That is not an accident: German bachelor's education is largely conducted in German, and the internationalisation effort went into postgraduate study where research is conducted in English anyway.
If you want an English-taught bachelor's
You have three realistic routes, and only one of them is cheap.
Private universities. Most of the 420 English bachelor's sit here. They admit readily and teach well, but they charge tuition, often 10,000 to 20,000 euros a year, which erases the main financial reason to choose Germany.
The small set of public English bachelor's. They exist, usually in international business, engineering or the sciences, and they are heavily oversubscribed precisely because they are free. Worth applying to. Not worth planning around.
Learn German and open the whole system. Reach C1, and several thousand tuition-free bachelor's programmes become available instead of a few hundred. For a 17 or 18 year old with a year to spare, this is comfortably the highest-return option, and it usually runs through a Studienkolleg if your Indian qualification does not directly meet the entry standard. Our German exam guide explains what C1 proof means in practice.
How to search properly
Use the DAAD International Programmes database, which is the authoritative index of English-taught courses in Germany, and filter by degree level, subject and language of instruction. Then verify each shortlisted programme on the university's own page, because databases lag behind course closures, and closures are more likely this year given the budget cuts in several states.
Two filters people forget to apply:
- Tuition. "English-taught" and "tuition-free" are different filters. Baden-Wuerttemberg charges non-EU students 1,500 euros a semester at public universities, and private institutions charge much more. See tuition-free universities.
- Whether it runs in your intake. A programme listed as English-taught may only admit for winter. Check before you build a summer plan around it.
What English-taught admission still requires
Studying in English does not exempt you from anything else. You still need APS certification and a blocked account. Check whether the dMAT applies to your bachelor's field. Most programmes want IELTS or TOEFL. Some accept an English-medium instruction letter from your Indian university instead, which is covered in our guide to studying in Germany without IELTS.
The part that catches people after arrival
Your degree is in English. Your life is not.
Rental listings, the Auslaenderbehoerde, your Anmeldung appointment, tax paperwork and most part-time job adverts are all in German. So are most graduate job descriptions outside a handful of international companies. Students who arrive with an English-taught admission and zero German usually spend their first year discovering this slowly and expensively.
Take an English-taught programme. Then start German at A1 in your first semester, and do not stop. It is the difference between a degree and a career here.
Sources
Frequently Asked Questions
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