Scholarships in Germany: what you can actually get
Here's the part nobody leads with: Germany's real scholarship is that a public university charges you no tuition at all. Most international students receive nothing on top of that, and the ones who do usually get a few hundred euros a month rather than a funded degree. That's not a reason to skip applying. It's a reason to spend your evenings on the applications that can actually land.
Every figure on this page was checked against the funder's own site in August 2026. Amounts move yearly and deep links rot: four of the nine official URLs we tried while researching this were already dead.
€0
tuition at a public university, for EU and non-EU students alike
€300
a month is the most common German scholarship, the Deutschlandstipendium
1.2%
of students in Germany held one in 2025, roughly one in 86
€992
a month is what an award must cover to replace your blocked account
Every scholarship worth your evenings, and what it pays
Sorted by whether you can realistically apply. The badge is the honest part: several of these are famous, generous and completely closed to someone arriving on a study visa.
Open before you arrive
DAAD Study Scholarships (Master’s)
DAAD, the German Academic Exchange Service
€992 a month
€460 a year as a study allowance
Health, accident and personal liability insurance
Travel allowance, on application
Rent and family subsidies once funding starts, on application
A German course before you start, paid, and your TestDaF or DSH fee reimbursed
What decides it
Your most recent degree must be less than six years old at the deadline
You must not have lived in Germany longer than 15 months at the deadline
Language proof is required at application, not later
Admission must be in hand before funding starts, even if you apply without it
One application window a year, and the deadline is set per country
Thirteen foundations receive federal money to award scholarships, funding 31,000 students at any one time between them on €269.2 million a year. They pay €300 a month, paid regardless of your family income, plus up to €855 a month, depending on your family’s finances. Every listicle presents all thirteen as thirteen options for you. They are not: the two biggest follow BAföG eligibility rules, which a study visa does not satisfy.
№ 02How hard this really is
Nobody publishes acceptance rates, so here is what can be checked
You will find pages quoting a success rate for German scholarships. Ask where the number came from and it evaporates, because not one of these funders publishes one. Two things can be checked instead, and together they tell you more than a percentage would.
Published counts
The Deutschlandstipendium is the one with hard numbers: 33,500 students held one in 2025, which the federal statistics office puts at 1.2% of everyone studying in Germany. Roughly one student in 86. The foundations publish how many people they support rather than how many apply, so you can see the size of the door without seeing the queue.
The gates that actually decide
Most applications die on a rule, not on merit. You already live in Germany and the DAAD wants under 15 months of residence. Your programme is in English and the foundation still wants B2 German. You have a master's already and Rosa-Luxemburg excludes you. Read the gates on each card above before you write a single word of a motivation letter.
BAföG is not open to you, and it is better to know now
BAföG (the federal student finance scheme) pays up to €992 a month, built from €475 basic need, €380 housing, €102 health and €35 care insurance. Half of it is a grant and half an interest-free state loan, and repayment is capped so you never owe more than €10,010. It is the most generous student money in the country, and eligibility is a closed list.
Who can get it
Germans, and EU citizens with permanent residence rights
Holders of a settlement permit (Niederlassungserlaubnis) or EU long-term residence
Recognised refugees and stateless people
People who worked in Germany before starting, or whose parent worked here for three of the last six years
Tolerated residents (Geduldete) after 15 months of continuous residence
Who cannot
Anyone here on a study visa. That is the whole international-student population arriving to study, and no amount of good grades changes it.
Worth knowing even so: if you later hold a settlement permit, the door opens. And the loan half follows you: leaving germany does not cancel it.
The best-funded applications are the least advertised
Everyone applies to the famous ones. The money that gets handed out quietly, inside a single university building, has a fraction of the competition.
Your university’s own hardship and graduation funds
Most German universities hold money from the DAAD STIBET programme and award it themselves. You apply at your own International Office, never to the DAAD. This is where most graduation grants actually come from, and almost nobody outside the building knows to ask.
€992 a month for a master’s, research stay or doctorate in Bavaria, for graduates from a defined list of central and eastern European countries. One year, renewable up to three.
€800 to €1,400 a month for three to eleven months. It runs through partner-university exchanges only, so you apply via your International Office; direct applications are not accepted.
Three of the foundations that do take international students gate on language, not marks, and one wants B2 even when your degree is taught in English. If you are a year out from applying, German is the highest-return thing you can do with those months. Our A1 to B2 course is free for the first five chapters of every level.
Timing beats prestige
The DAAD runs one window a year and excludes anyone resident in Germany over 15 months. The foundations mostly want you enrolled first. So the scholarship calendar and the admission calendar are the same calendar, and missing one costs you the other. The free study planner dates both from your intake.
№ 05What it does for your visa
A big enough scholarship replaces the blocked account entirely
The rule
Your student visa needs proof of €992 a month, so €11,904 for the year, normally through a Sperrkonto (blocked account). A scholarship award letter replaces the blocked account outright, as long as it covers that monthly figure.
German public money counts: DAAD, the Humboldt Foundation, the DFG, the political foundations and public education institutions. Home-country public funds count too when a German body mediates them.
Awarded less than €992 a month? The scholarship still helps, but you have to prove the shortfall separately, which usually means a smaller blocked account rather than none.
Work out your own number with the blocked-account calculator, which runs on this same €992 figure and takes a partial scholarship as an input.
Holding two at once
You cannot hold a Deutschlandstipendium alongside any other merit-based funding worth €30 a month or more.
Stacks fine
BAföG, with no deduction on either side
Exchange and mobility grants
A DAAD part-scholarship
Blocks it
Any of the thirteen talent-support foundations
The Aufstiegsstipendium
A full DAAD scholarship
The money chapter, in full
Scholarships are one page of the funding question. The rest is the blocked account, the real first-year costs and the visa file.
Chapter 9 of the Study Application Kit walks the whole thing: which provider to open with, how to wire the deposit without it arriving short, what the first year actually costs, and the two legal ways to skip the account. Chapter 1 and the dated plan are free.
Two of these are public bodies and one is a company. That distinction matters when you are deciding whose eligibility summary to trust, so it is on the label.
DAAD scholarship database
Official
Run by the DAAD, aimed at people coming to Germany, and it lists third-party funders too. The one to start with. The DAAD says itself that it is not complete.
Both run by the same Berlin company. Useful breadth, but they are businesses rather than public bodies, and the European Funding Guide now carries affiliate content beside the listings. Check anything you find there against the funder’s own site.
You will see guides linking Stipendienlotse, the old federal database. It has been offline since 2022. If a page still recommends it, that page has not been checked in four years, which tells you what to make of the rest of it.
Questions people ask before they start applying
Can international students get BAföG?
Almost never. BAföG eligibility is a closed list in §8 of the law, and a student visa is not on it. Permanent residents, recognised refugees, EU citizens with residence rights and people whose parent worked in Germany can qualify; someone who arrived on a study visa cannot, however good their grades or however real their need.
Can I apply for a German scholarship before I have an admission?
For the DAAD, yes: you can apply without an admission letter, but it has to be in hand before the funding starts. For the Deutschlandstipendium and most of the foundations, no: they need you enrolled at a German university first, which means those cannot help you fund the visa.
Do I need German for a scholarship if my programme is in English?
Often yes, and this catches people out. Rosa-Luxemburg asks for B2 even when your degree is taught entirely in English, because the mentoring programme runs in German. Friedrich-Ebert wants C1-level proof. Heinrich-Böll wants B2. German is the gate far more often than grades are.
Does a scholarship replace the blocked account for my visa?
Yes, if it covers €992 a month, which is €11,904 for the year. German public funders count: the DAAD, the Humboldt Foundation, the DFG, the political foundations and public education institutions. If your award is smaller, you keep the scholarship and prove the shortfall separately, usually with a smaller blocked account.
Can I hold two scholarships at once?
Rarely. A Deutschlandstipendium is blocked by any other merit-based funding averaging €30 a month or more, which rules out all thirteen federal foundations and a full DAAD scholarship. BAföG stacks with no deduction on either side, and so do exchange grants and DAAD part-scholarships.
Is it worth applying with an average grade?
For the big foundations, an average grade alone will not carry an application, though social and political engagement genuinely counts alongside it. Your better odds are local: your own university awards hardship and graduation funds from money most applicants never hear about, and the Deutschlandstipendium is decided by your university and weighs obstacles you have overcome, not just marks.
Where this fits in the bigger job
Funding is one decision inside an admission season that also includes recognition, APS, language proof, uni-assist and the visa file. The free study planner dates all of it from your intake, and the study guide covers the admission side.
Guide by
Abdullah
Creator of Ankommo · Based in Germany
I moved to Germany and built Ankommo to help others navigate the same process I went through. We offer 1-on-1 video consultations on visas, Ausbildung applications, citizenship requirements and settling in.
