What it costs just to apply: nineteen universities' fees, read on their own pages
Photo: Friedrich Haag Β· CC BY-SA 4.0 Β· Wikimedia Commons
The cost everybody forgets
Budgets for studying abroad count tuition, housing and the visa. The application fee usually is not counted at all β and it exists almost everywhere, and it is paid before you know the decision.
It is non-refundable. Worth understanding early: the university charges to consider an application, not to admit you. A rejection leaves the fee with them.
And people rarely apply to one university. At three to five, this stops being small change.
China: 800 yuan almost everywhere
Tsinghua, Peking, Fudan, Zhejiang and Renmin all charge 800 yuan per application, non-refundable, and at each of them an unpaid application simply is not processed β Fudan says so outright: without payment it is invalid.
But almost everywhere is not everywhere. Shanghai Jiao Tong's Global College charges $75. Half as much again, and you find out only on the university's own page.
We'll total the fees for your shortlist
We'll build your list and show the fee for each university with the page it came from and the application dates β so you know the sum before you begin.
Italy: β¬30 to β¬50, with a catch about timing
Sapienza charges β¬30 per application and caps it at two per candidate per intake, with no waivers. Bologna charges β¬50 through PagoPA, β¬20 on some programmes. Turin charges β¬50 for a master's and β¬30 for a PhD application.
Milan works differently, and it is the most useful example here: β¬50 up to 1 December and β¬150 after it. Same university, same programme, three times the fee, on nothing but a date.
Applying to several Italian universities, the difference between getting organised in November and getting organised in January can be a hundred euros for nothing.
Japan: the most expensive on this list
Japanese universities charge noticeably more. The University of Tokyo's PEAK programme asks Β₯5,000 plus a Β₯500 transaction fee. Kyoto's iUP asks Β₯9,800, with no waivers available.
Waseda charges Β₯10,000 of applicants outside Japan and Β₯35,000 of those already in it. Osaka charges Β₯17,000 for the general undergraduate entrance examination, and Β₯26,800 for its international science programme.
Three Japanese universities, then, is already about Β₯30,000 for the right to apply.
Spain: a small fee and a long procedure
The amounts here are the most modest. The University of Barcelona and the Autonomous University of Barcelona charge β¬30.21 to process an application, not returned whatever the outcome. The Autonomous has a separate non-EU rate for its degree-change route: β¬54.54.
The Autonomous University of Madrid charges β¬70 to process an application for studies begun abroad, plus 25% of the recognised credits. For ordinary admission through UNEDasiss it publishes no separate fee.
The Technical University of Madrid publishes no application fee at all β rare on this list.
Spain takes the money earlier and elsewhere instead: homologaciΓ³n of the certificate and UNEDasiss accreditation are separate procedures with their own payments, set out in UNEDasiss and homologaciΓ³n.
What to do with this
Add up the fee for every university on your list before you start gathering documents. Five universities runs from about β¬150 in Spain to Β₯60,000 in Japan, and that money goes either way.
Check whether the fee moves with the date. Milan is not the only university that does this, only the clearest.
And remember the university's fee is not the only payment: translations, notarisation, legalisation and the language exam are counted separately.
Every figure here was read on the universities' own pages in October 2026, and each university's page on this site carries the link it came from and the day it was checked. Fees change β check before you pay.
Japan
Spain
Italy
Get in touch to get started
Tell us about yourself and what you're specifically interested in β our specialists will help you find the right format.