Europe has some of the best universities in the world and some of the lowest tuition. The problem for an international student is that the two lists rarely overlap with a third one: universities where you can do the whole bachelor's in English. Heidelberg is superb and costs almost nothing, and every bachelor's there is in German. The same is true at ETH Zurich, at most of Paris, and at every technical university in Austria.
So we built the list the other way round. For each of seven countries, we took the QS World University Rankings 2026 and walked down the national table, keeping the first five universities that offer at least one full bachelor's degree taught entirely in English and open to non-EU applicants. Every English-taught program was checked on the university's own site, and so were the fees, the scholarships and the deadlines. Two countries came up short of five under those rules, and we say so rather than pad the list.
Deadlines are for fall 2027 entry where universities have published them; otherwise we give the most recent cycle and label it.
🇩🇪 Germany
Germany is the cheapest place on this list to earn a top-ranked degree. Public universities charge no tuition for a first bachelor's; you pay a semester contribution of roughly €70 to €430 that usually includes a transit pass. The exceptions matter: Baden-Württemberg charges non-EU students €1,500 a semester, and Bavaria lets universities set their own non-EU fees. The catch is language. LMU Munich, Heidelberg, RWTH Aachen, Humboldt and TU Berlin all rank higher than some entries below and none of them offers a bachelor's fully in English. Most applications run through uni-assist, which checks your school diploma before the university sees it, and the Deutschlandstipendium is open to every nationality.
1. Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich, QS 22
The best-ranked university in Germany and the only one in the world's top 25 on this list. TUM's English-taught bachelor's include Aerospace on the Garching and Ottobrunn campuses and Management and Data Science at the Heilbronn campus, which asks for no language certificate at all and proves your English through the aptitude assessment instead.
TUM is one of the Bavarian universities that charges non-EU students: €2,000 or €3,000 a semester depending on the program, and the Aerospace page lists €3,000. The TUM Scholarship for International Students pays €500 to €1,800 a semester and is renewable, and fee waivers exist for excellence and hardship. You apply through TUMonline with a uni-assist preliminary document check, between May 15 and July 15 for the winter semester. Aerospace also wants a German A2 certificate and an eight-week pre-study internship, so read the program page before you plan.
2. Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, QS 88
Free University's one bachelor's taught entirely in English is North American Studies at the John F. Kennedy Institute, which combines history, culture, literature, politics, sociology and economics of the United States and Canada in one degree. It asks for C1 English and no German.
Berlin charges no tuition. The semester fee for winter 2026/27 is €376.80, and it includes the Berlin transit ticket. Applications go through uni-assist and then the university, and limited-admission bachelor's closed on July 15 in the 2026 cycle.
3. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, QS 98
KIT's English-taught bachelor's is Mechanical Engineering (International), a KIT degree delivered through the Carl Benz School of Engineering with guaranteed on-campus housing bundled into the first two years. That bundle is why this is the expensive entry on Germany's list: KIT's own fee for non-EU students is the Baden-Württemberg €1,500 a semester, but the Carl Benz College Program fee adds €11,780 a semester for the first four semesters and €7,700 for the last two, housing included. Applications open in December and close April 30, 2027 for winter 2027/28.
4. Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, QS 193
Hamburg launched its first entirely English-language bachelor's in 2025: Earth System Physics, which merges geophysics, oceanography and meteorology and plugs students into the university's climate research cluster. Hamburg charges no tuition; the semester contribution for winter 2026/27 is €402. You apply directly through the university's own portal, not uni-assist, between June 1 and July 15.
5. University of Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, QS 201
Freiburg's Liberal Arts and Sciences is a four-year, 240-credit bachelor's in English with majors in Culture and History, Governance, Life Sciences, and Environmental and Sustainability Sciences, and about 80 percent of its students spend a semester abroad in year three. There are about 80 places. As a Baden-Württemberg university, Freiburg charges non-EU students €1,500 a semester plus a €190 semester fee. Applications run June 1 to July 15 each year through hochschulstart and the university portal, with English at B2.
🇫🇷 France
France changed the rules this year. Public universities now charge non-EU bachelor's students €2,902 a year in differentiated fees, and a May 2026 decree caps how many of them a university can exempt. That still makes a French public degree one of the cheapest in this post. The harder part is finding one in English: PSL, Paris-Saclay and Sorbonne Université all rank above the entries below, and none of them offers a full English-taught bachelor's in France. Under our rules only four universities qualified, and we list four rather than invent a fifth. Foreign-diploma applicants to public universities go through the Études en France procedure, with a mid-December deadline in the 2026 cycle; the grandes écoles run their own admissions.
1. Institut Polytechnique de Paris (École Polytechnique Bachelor), Palaiseau, QS 41
École Polytechnique's Bachelor of Science is a three-year, English-only degree with double majors in Mathematics and Physics, Mathematics and Computer Science, or Mathematics and Economics, and the school reports 80 percent international students in it. Tuition for the 2027 intake is €19,600 a year for non-EU students. The scholarship page lists an Excellence Scholarship of €4,800 a year for three years, a Women in Science scholarship of the same size, awards for international olympiad medalists worth up to €87,900, plus need-based waivers and interest-free loans. You apply on Polytechnique's own portal, never through Campus France. For September 2027: Round 1 closes October 20, 2026, Round 2 on January 6, 2027, Round 3 on February 8, 2027.
2. Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, QS 257
Paris 1 opened an International Track of its Economics bachelor's in September 2025, taught entirely in English with 250 first-year places. The university ranks 49th in the world for economics in the QS subject table and 39 percent of its students are international. Fees are the national rate, so €2,902 a year for most non-EU students under the differentiated fees. Foreign-diploma applicants apply through Études en France, which closed on December 15 for 2026 entry. One thing to check with the program directly: the university's general international admissions page mentions French at B2, while the track itself asks for English at B2.
3. Sciences Po, Paris and regional campuses, QS 367
Sciences Po teaches its three-year bachelor's on seven campuses, and the English-taught tracks are outside Paris: Le Havre with an Asia-Pacific minor, Reims with a North America minor, and Menton. Every student spends the third year abroad at one of more than 480 partner universities. Tuition is €14,900 a year for students whose household is taxed outside the EEA, and the Émile Boutmy scholarship for non-EU applicants covers full tuition or €9,500 of it, with a deadline of January 13, 2027 for the 2027 intake. Alexia from Brașov and Ioana from Bucharest both wrote about getting in from Romania. You apply on Sciences Po's own portal; the 2027 intake opens mid-September 2026 with deadlines on November 4, 2026, January 13, 2027 and March 1, 2027.
4. Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille and Aix-en-Provence, QS 428
Aix-Marseille's International Program in Business and Management is a three-year Economics and Management bachelor's taught entirely in English with a compulsory mobility semester abroad in year three. Non-EU students pay the differentiated fee of €2,902, due in full at first enrolment, and the university applies partial relief within the national quota. Foreign-diploma applicants apply through Études en France.
🇮🇹 Italy
Italy is the sweet spot of this list: five universities in the world's top 250, all with English-taught bachelor's, and public fees that are income-based under national law, with a zero fee below an ISEE of €22,000. Non-EU students living abroad are usually placed in a top bracket or on a flat fee unless they document their family income, and the amounts below reflect that. Anyone who needs a visa pre-enrols on Universitaly after getting an offer. Anna from Armenia and Viola from Kosovo are two of the Borderless students who took this route.
1. Politecnico di Milano, Milan, QS 98
The first Italian university to break into the QS top 100, and seven of its 29 bachelor's are taught in English: Engineering Science in Milan, Industrial Engineering in Piacenza, Process Engineering in Cremona, Interaction Design in Lecco, plus English tracks of Architectural Design and Civil Engineering. The Architectural Design program in Piacenza reserves 50 places for non-EU students. Non-EU students living abroad pay the top bracket, €3,943 a year for 2026/27. Scholarships exist for international students on the Cremona and Piacenza bachelor's. Admission is by an online entrance test or the SAT; in the 2026 cycle the test windows ran February to May with the first ranking in late July.
2. Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, QS 128
Sapienza says it teaches 59 bachelor's and master's programs entirely in English, and its 2026-27 call for English-taught bachelor's lists Bioinformatics, Classics, Global Humanities, Sustainable Building Engineering, Economics in four tracks, Molecular Biology, and Medicinal Chemistry and Computer Science for Pharmaceutical Applications. Non-EU fees are unusually low: €300 to €1,500 a year depending on your country of residence, per the international admissions page. Pre-selection for 2026-27 ran from December 22 to May 15 with a €30 fee per application and a maximum of two, followed by Universitaly pre-enrolment by June 30.
3. University of Bologna, Bologna, Forlì and Rimini, QS 138
The oldest university in the Western world runs English-taught bachelor's in Business and Economics, European Studies, Economics of Tourism and more. Admission to Business and Economics is ranked purely on the SAT, with no minimum score, 32 places reserved for non-EU residents abroad, and three intake windows a year. Fees are a fixed €157 plus a variable part by income and program, with full exemption of the variable part below an ISEE of €27,000; students with only foreign income can submit equivalent documents, and there is a reduced flat fee for nationals of developing countries. ER.GO regional grants are open to international students. Mălina from Timișoara wrote about Bologna from inside its medicine program.
4. University of Padua, Padova, QS 233
Padua has eight English-taught bachelor's, from Psychological Science and Information Engineering to Animal Care and Economics, Governance and Decision-Making, with four more pending for 2027/28. Non-EU students living abroad pay a fixed €2,790 or €2,990 a year depending on the field, and nationals of low-development countries pay about a third of that. Padua is also the most generous entry in Italy: the Padua International Excellence Scholarship pays €8,000 a year plus a fee exemption for up to three years and considers every applicant automatically, and the university offers 100 full fee waivers for international applicants to English-taught programs. The first application window for 2027/28 opens September 15, 2026 and closes November 15, 2026.
5. Politecnico di Torino, Turin, QS 242
Turin's polytechnic offers Civil and Environmental Engineering and Electronic and Communications Engineering in English only, plus English tracks of Computer, Mechanical and Automotive Engineering and Architecture. Its fee model is unusual: non-EU students living abroad pay a flat yearly amount indexed to the GDP of their country of citizenship, from a minimum of €600. The TOPoliTO scholarships have paid €8,000 a year for three years to non-EU applicants in past calls. Admission is by the TIL entrance test or the SAT; in the 2026 cycle, language proof was due May 22 and Universitaly pre-enrolment by June 30.
🇪🇸 Spain
Spain's public fees are set by each of its 17 regions, so the same degree costs different amounts in Barcelona and Madrid, and non-resident non-EU students usually pay a higher rate than locals. Madrid charges them the fourth-enrolment credit price, which works out to roughly €6,800 to €8,200 a year; Catalonia prices credits at €17.69 for residents and lets each university set its own non-resident rate. Applicants from foreign school systems need the UNEDasiss accreditation, then join a regional pre-enrolment: Catalonia's ran June 2 to 26 in 2026, Madrid's June 5 to July 6 for foreign systems.
1. Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, QS 160
UB's International Business bachelor's is a 240-credit degree taught completely in English at the Faculty of Economics and Business, with business-language courses in German, French, Italian, Russian or Chinese, and a syllabus designed so students can add a master's at a European partner within four years. UB sets a separate price for non-resident non-EU students that was not published on its fee page when we checked, so ask before you budget. Applications go through the Catalan pre-enrolment.
2. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, QS 172
UAB lists eleven bachelor's taught in English, including Business Administration, Economics, Artificial Intelligence, Bioinformatics, Tourism and Contemporary History, Politics and Economics, and says more than 300 bachelor's-level subjects across the university run in English. The non-resident non-EU rate is set annually by the Board of Trustees and is not on the public fee page. Applications go through the Catalan pre-enrolment.
3. Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, QS 187
Complutense's Business Administration degree can be taken entirely in English, with specialisations in accounting, management, finance or marketing and an optional four-year dual degree with HWR Berlin; Economics is offered in English too. Non-resident non-EU students pay €113.71 per credit for social sciences, about €6,800 a year, per the 2026/27 price list. Applications go through Madrid's joint pre-enrolment for its six public universities. Check the Spanish-language requirement with the faculty: UCM's general access rules mention Spanish at B2 for students from non-Spanish-speaking systems.
4. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, QS 265
UPF's International Business Economics is taught entirely in English, takes 90 students a year, and makes a study period abroad compulsory, preferably in an English-speaking country. Global Studies and a joint degree in Industrial Technologies and Economic Analysis with UPC are also in English. UPF is the one Catalan university on this list that publishes its non-EU price: €6,800.32 a year for 2026-27, against €1,202 for EU students. Applications go through the Catalan pre-enrolment plus UNEDasiss.
5. Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Getafe and Leganés, QS 301
UC3M separates degrees taught entirely in English from bilingual ones; International Studies, Engineering Physics and the dual International Studies and Business Administration are in the first group, and students from non-Spanish-speaking countries are guaranteed places in the English groups for their first two years. Non-resident non-EU students pay €6,823 a year for social-science degrees and €7,714 for engineering, per the non-EU price page. UC3M also runs an Early Admission round for international applicants; for 2026/27 it ran from September 22 to April 10, on a rolling basis.
🇳🇱 Netherlands
Every Dutch research university teaches bachelor's degrees in English, so this is the only country where the ranking alone decided the list, and it produced a tie for fifth place, so we include six. Non-EU students pay an institutional fee set per program, typically €13,000 to €22,000 a year, against the statutory €2,694 for EU students. Everyone applies through Studielink. Capped programs, called numerus fixus, close on January 15; most others close on April 1 for students who need a visa. Our Netherlands guide walks through the whole process with 17 student stories.
1. Delft University of Technology, Delft, QS 47
The oldest and largest technical university in the country teaches four of its 18 bachelor's in English: Aerospace Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering, Earth, Climate and Technology, and Nanobiology. All four are numerus fixus with a January 15, 2027 deadline. The institutional fee for new international bachelor's students is €19,906 for 2026-27, and Delft says plainly that it has no scholarships for bachelor's applicants.
2. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, QS 53
UvA's English-taught bachelor's run from Global Arts, Culture and Politics and Media and Information to the English track of Business Administration, a numerus fixus program with 650 places. Fees for 2026-27 depend on the faculty: €13,900 for Economics and Business, €17,500 for Humanities, €21,800 for Science. The Amsterdam Merit Scholarship is open to non-EU passport holders in Economics and Business, Social and Behavioural Sciences, and Psychology. UvA is one of the most-written-about Dutch universities on Borderless: Jasmine from Galați on the PPLE program and Zena from Oradea on Communication Science are two of five stories.
3. Utrecht University, Utrecht, QS 103
Utrecht lists 13 bachelor's in English, including Global Sustainability Science, Economics and Business Economics, Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and the residential University College Utrecht. The Global Sustainability Science page lists a non-EU fee of €18,700 for 2027-28, and University College Utrecht charges €21,600. Non-EU applicants have until April 1, or January 15 for limited-enrolment programs. River from Japan wrote about applying to four Dutch universities and choosing Utrecht for Psychology.
4. Leiden University, Leiden and The Hague, QS 119
The Netherlands' oldest university, founded in 1575, teaches International Studies in The Hague, Liberal Arts and Sciences at Leiden University College, and Philosophy in English, among others. International Studies costs non-EU students €14,700 for 2027-28; Leiden University College is €17,570 plus a €2,990 college fee. Leiden's own scholarships are for master's students. Non-EU applicants who need a visa have until April 1. Anita, born and raised in Japan, wrote about studying Psychology there.
5. Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, QS 140 (tie)
Everything at TU/e runs in English: all lectures, communication and tests, across bachelor's like Computer Science and Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering and Chemistry. Founded in 1956 at the request of the region's high-tech industry, it sits at the core of the Brainport Eindhoven cluster. The institutional fee is €18,600 for 2026-27, and TU/e offers no bachelor's scholarships. Selection programs close January 15.
5. Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, QS 140 (tie)
Erasmus began as a school of commerce in 1913 and its first Nobel laureate, Jan Tinbergen, won the first economics prize in 1969. Its English bachelor's include the International Bachelor Economics and Business Economics, a numerus fixus program with 700 places, International Business Administration, and the residential Erasmus University College. Non-EEA fees for 2026-27 are €13,500 for most programs, €14,000 at the Rotterdam School of Management and €16,300 at Erasmus University College. Non-EEA applicants have until April 1, or January 15 for numerus fixus, with a €100 fee for non-Dutch diplomas. Alexia from Bucharest and Erkaiym from Kyrgyzstan both wrote about getting in.
🇦🇹 Austria
Austria is where the method bites hardest. Public universities charge non-EU students only €726.72 a semester plus a €26.20 student union fee, per the ministry, which is under €1,600 a year for a degree in Vienna. But TU Wien, Innsbruck, TU Graz, Salzburg and Graz all teach their bachelor's in German, so only three QS-ranked universities pass the English test. Central European University, the one with the most English-taught bachelor's in the country, was not in the QS 2026 table at all; it entered the 2027 edition at 239, which would make it Austria's second entry from next year. We list the three that qualify and CEU as a fourth with that note. Universities here take applications directly, with no national portal.
1. University of Vienna, Vienna, QS 152
The oldest university in the German-speaking world, founded in 1365, with about 87,000 students, offers exactly one bachelor's in English: Mathematical Foundations of Data Science, a 180-credit degree with no German required. Admission is by an aptitude test; for 2026/27 the test application ran March 2 to May 4 with the written test on July 15 in Vienna. Fees are the standard €752.92 a semester for non-EU students.
2. Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz, QS 473
JKU's Artificial Intelligence bachelor's is taught in English, asks for B2 English, and is described by the university as the first academic AI degree in Europe, with distance-learning variants in Vienna and Bregenz. Fees are €752.92 a semester. Non-EU applicants use JKU's own online application, with a February to March window for the winter semester and advice to apply six months ahead.
3. University of Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt, QS 697
Klagenfurt has six bachelor's taught in English, including Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, International Business and Economics, Information and Communications Engineering, and Digital Media, Culture and Communication, on a campus beside Lake Wörthersee where about 2,500 of 13,300 students are from abroad. Fees are €752.92 a semester, there is no entrance exam for Robotics and AI, and the non-EU window for winter 2026/27 ran April 1 to June 30.
4. Central European University, Vienna, QS 2027: 239
CEU teaches three English-taught bachelor's: Culture, Politics and Society; Philosophy, Politics and Economics; and Data Science and Society, all accredited in both Austria and the United States. Tuition is €8,000 a year for every program, and merit-based Partial Tuition Awards cover up to half of it. Applications run in rounds on CEU's own portal: October 15, 2026, February 2, 2027, April 15, 2027 and July 15, 2027, with institutional aid only in the first two.
🇸🇪 Sweden
Sweden's top universities are excellent and mostly closed to English-speaking undergraduates: Chalmers teaches every bachelor's in Swedish, and KTH offers exactly one in English. Every non-EU applicant pays a SEK 900 application fee and tuition set by each university, roughly SEK 90,000 to 145,000 a year, and applies through the national portal universityadmissions.se with a first-round deadline of January 15, 2027 for autumn 2027.
1. Lund University, Lund, QS 72
Founded in 1666, Lund has ten bachelor's in English, including International Business, Development Studies, Biomedicine, Mathematics, Physics and Fine Arts. International Business costs SEK 130,000 a year; Development Studies SEK 125,000. The Lund University Global Scholarship covers part or all of tuition for non-EU applicants to Development Studies, Mathematics, Physics and Physical Geography.
2. KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, QS 78
Sweden's largest technical university offers one bachelor's in English: Information and Communication Technology, at SEK 141,000 a year. KTH's fee page says it offers no scholarships for bachelor's studies. Deadlines are January 15, 2027 for the first round and April 15, 2027 for the second.
3. Uppsala University, Uppsala and Visby, QS 93
The first university in the Nordic countries, founded in 1477 and turning 550 in 2027, teaches its six English bachelor's at Campus Gotland in Visby: four Game Design tracks, Energy Transition, and Leadership, Quality Management and Improvement. Fees run SEK 49,500 to 90,000 a semester; Game Design and Graphics is SEK 63,000 a semester. The Anders Wall Scholarship covers full tuition for citizens of African countries.
4. Stockholm University, Stockholm, QS 147
Stockholm's seven English bachelor's include International Business and Politics, Business, Ethics and Sustainability, Middle Eastern and North African Studies, and a new International Political Science and Regional Studies program. Fees are SEK 90,000 a year for humanities, social sciences and law, and SEK 140,000 for sciences. Stockholm's scholarship scheme is for master's students only.
5. University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, QS 202
Gothenburg has ten English bachelor's, including Software Engineering and Management, Computer Science and AI, Business and Economics, International Relations and six fine-arts programs. Software Engineering and Management costs SEK 435,000 for the whole degree, about SEK 145,000 a year. The Axel Adler Scholarship is a full tuition waiver open to fee-paying applicants to Software Engineering, International Relations, Business and Economics and three of the arts programs.
Start your own journey
Thirty-three universities, seven countries, four application systems and fees from €0 to €20,000 a year. The hard part of studying in Europe is not getting in. It is knowing which door to knock on, and when.
Kai, the Borderless AI college counselor, does that sorting for you. Tell Kai your budget, your grades and where you want to live, and it builds a list from these universities and others, turns every portal deadline above into a task, and works through each application with you. It is free to use.
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