German Student Application Fees: Uni-assist, APS, University Charges

Plan on EUR 150-500 to get your applications submitted. That is before a single semester fee, before the visa, before anyone mentions tuition. The range is wide because it turns on which route your universities use, so here is where every euro goes. If you have not picked a route, start with VPD, APS and direct application compared.

What uni-assist charges

Uni-assist takes 75 euros for your first application and 30 euros for every additional one inside the same cycle. Two things follow: apply to several schools in one cycle rather than spreading them across two, and check first whether your universities even use the service. How a uni-assist application works step by step and the full list of universities that use uni-assist answer both.

The unit being priced is not the university. Uni-assist charges per chosen course of study, counting a bachelor, a master, a Studienkolleg place and a preparatory German course each as one. Two masters at the same university are two chosen courses. Uni-assist's own worked example: course A at university 1 costs 75, course B at the same university 30, course C at university 2 another 30, total 135 euros. Assume the fee is per institution and you under-budget by half.

Four more things the fee page states plainly. A VPD costs the same as a standard application. The fee is charged regardless of the result, so a rejection buys no refund. Reapply in a new semester and the counter resets to 75. And some universities pay their applicants' handling fee, in which case My assist says so in your selection list and the application costs you nothing. Uni-assist puts the evaluation result at four to six weeks, which is the number to plan backwards from rather than the university's own deadline.

What happens to the money if you change your mind

Uni-assist issues credit in three situations: you paid too much, you paid for a course of study that was free for you, or you withdrew before it was processed. Credit is not a refund. You ask for the payout through the contact form, and it can only go back to the account the money came from, so a relative who paid for you cannot be repaid elsewhere. Withdraw after the revocation period and EUR 10 is kept as an administrative fee. Transfers outside the SEPA area carry bank charges you cover.

The other trap is timing. An international bank transfer can take up to two weeks to register, and until it does your application does not carry the "payment received" status. If the deadline falls inside that window, the deadline wins. Pay by card at submission where you can; if you must transfer, send it a clear month early.

The APS fee depends on your country

There is no single APS price, because there is no single APS. Each office belongs to the German mission in that country and publishes its own fee table.

Beijing publishes the most detailed schedule. Under the table in force since April 2025, the China procedure with an interview costs 2,500 RMB, the TestAS route also 2,500, a repeat interview 2,500, the programme and exchange procedures 2,000, and a pure document review 1,000. Visa charges are not included.

APS India does not publish its fee as text. The amount appears at the payment step of the online registration and is non-refundable once paid, whatever the verification concludes. The office also declines to promise a processing time, because the clock depends on how fast your school, board or university answers its verification letter. A file marked "non-support" means your institution has not replied, and a mail from a Gmail address cannot substitute for official institutional confirmation.

Two 2026 changes are worth budgeting time for. Selected master's applicants whose previous degree falls in fields named by APS India now also sit the Digital Master Test, run by g.a.s.t.; it does not replace document verification, and a low score does not by itself sink the certificate. And APS India will not hold a file open while you wait for a pending result, so applying before that stage is finished wastes the fee.

Vietnamese applicants are caught by scope rather than price: if you completed university study in Vietnam, the Hanoi office has to check it regardless of your citizenship. Some applicants owe no APS at all. APS India lists the exemptions: a relevant degree not issued by an Indian institution, an international school qualification such as the IB as your highest relevant one, a PhD or postdoc where the German institution does not ask, or a scholarship funded from German or EU public funds. The APS certificate guide has the process country by country.

University service fees, and the semester fee people confuse them with

Some universities charge international applicants a service fee, often around 20-75 euros. Plenty charge nothing. This is not the semester fee, which you pay after you enrol, every semester, and which buys your transport ticket.

Real numbers help. For winter semester 2026/27, Freie Universitaet Berlin charges new students EUR 376.80: 85.00 to the Studierendenwerk, 50.00 administrative fee, 10.00 to the student body, 226.80 for the Deutschlandsemesterticket and 5.00 to the social fund. TU Berlin comes to EUR 379.06 the same semester, or 149.56 without the ticket, and both add 19.94 if you re-register late. FU Berlin warns that transfers from outside the EU must use the OUR option, or bank charges eat into the fee and enrolment stalls until you top it up.

Applying direct skips the uni-assist fee entirely

RWTH and much of TU9 take applications on their own portals. Go that way and the uni-assist charge disappears, though the APS does not. Across five or six schools that is a real saving; who accepts what is in the uni-assist and direct-application school list.

The costs that never make it into the budget

Attestation, certified translation and courier delivery are the forgotten ones, along with the fee some schools charge to issue your own transcript. None is large alone. Together they routinely beat the uni-assist bill.

Translation scales badly. APS India requires notarised English translations for any document issued only in a regional language, but a marksheet already printed in English alongside a regional language generally needs none. Check each sheet before you send the stack to a translator; paying per page for documents that were already bilingual is an avoidable bill.

Where applicants throw money away

Paying uni-assist for a school that accepts direct applications. Buying a VPD nobody asked for. Both are avoidable by reading the route before you pay. The fees are small next to what a year in Germany costs, but they gate the process: a failed payment, a wrong reference number or a missing APS stalls the file and can cost you a semester. Pay each one as you start that step and keep the receipt. Ten application mistakes to avoid covers the rest.

What to set aside in total

For a multi-school application, EUR 150-500 covers the fees, with documents and delivery on top. Keep it separate in your head from the 11,904 euros the visa requires, which is money you get back rather than money you spend. See how the blocked account works and what it costs.

Sources

• Uni-assist handling fees
• Uni-assist refunds of credit
• APS Beijing fee table
• APS India FAQs
• FU Berlin fees and contributions
• TU Berlin semester fees

Working out your application budget? A free profile evaluation maps the exact fees for the schools on your list.