Funding a stay abroad

Planning a stay abroad, finding funding

Spending time abroad is a great opportunity to experience other cultures, learn something new and change your perspective. When planning a stay abroad, you must first and foremost be clear about what motivates you to spend time abroad on both a personal and subject-related level.

Once you have clarified the fundamental aspects of your stay abroad, you can start to look for specific funding options. We would recommend that you find out about the various funding options as soon as possible, as applications for certain scholarship programmes have to be submitted far in advance of the planned starting date for your stay abroad.

How much does a stay abroad cost?

It is hard to say how much a stay abroad costs. It depends on a number of different factors. Costs vary depending on, for example, the general cost of living in your host country and also on whether you have to pay tuition fees for your time abroad. At the end of the day, the costs also depend on your own personal requirements.

You should take the following expenses into account for a stay abroad:

  • Tuition fees (you will often be exempt from tuition fees if you take part in an FAU exchange programme)
  • Administrative fees from the host university abroad
  • Travel expenses (journey to and from your host country)
  • Costs for accommodation abroad (rent, ancillary costs)
  • Costs for daily needs (food)
  • Costs for study materials
  • Charges for mobile phone abroad
  • Expenses for leisure activities
  • Visa fees
  • Costs for insurance (foreign health insurance, liability and accident insurance)
  • Costs for immunisation
  • Ongoing costs in Germany

As scholarships only very rarely cover all expenses incurred for a stay abroad, you will usually need mixed funding. In other words, you will need to find funding from a combination of different sources such as parents or relatives, your own savings or scholarships and other funding programmes.

Please note that a number of funding programmes are especially tailored for specific target groups. There are programmes, for example, which are only open to students from certain degree programmes, only German students or only for stays in certain countries. As there is such a wide range of different funding programmes available, it may all appear rather overwhelming at first. We are happy to help you find the one best suited to your requirements. An initial overview is available here. More detailed information on the individual programmes is available on the relevant websites (in German).