The fee page says €9,320. The visa office says €13,569. The landlord in Amsterdam says €950 a month. Only one of those three is negotiable, and it is not the one you think.
The question we are asked most, by families in Lagos and Lahore as often as in Texas, is how much it costs to study in Holland. Holland is strictly two provinces of the Netherlands, but it is the word people search, so we use both here. The short answer for a non-EU student arriving in September 2027: tuition from €9,320 a year, about $10,400, at a university of applied sciences, and from €13,415 to €21,900 for most degrees at a research university. On top of that the immigration service, the IND, wants €13,569 shown for the year. A careful first year, everything included, is about €23,800, which is $26,700 at the $1.12 to the euro our destinations table uses. Every figure below was checked against the university and government pages listed at the end, in the last week of October 2026.
Key figures, 2026/27
- Tuition, university of applied sciences: €9,320 to €10,940 a year for non-EU students, about $10,400 to $12,300.
- Tuition, research university: €13,415 to €21,900 for most bachelor and master degrees, about $15,000 to $24,500. Medicine and veterinary science run to €32,562.
- Funds to show: €1,130.77 a month, €13,569 for twelve months, about $15,200. Valid for all of 2026.
- Residence permit: €254, about $280. The orientation year after graduation is another €254.
- Real living costs: €800 to €1,000 a month in Groningen, €1,200 to €1,800 in Amsterdam, by the universities’ own estimates.
Two kinds of university, two price bands
Dutch higher education has two tracks, and the price gap between them decides whether the year is possible for many families.
A university of applied sciences (hogeschool, or HBO) teaches professional bachelor degrees over four years, usually with a work placement built in, and a smaller range of one or two-year professional masters. HAN in Arnhem and Nijmegen charges non-EU students €9,320 for 2026/27 in business, communication and social work, and €10,940 in engineering, chemistry and life sciences. NHL Stenden in Leeuwarden charges €10,335 for almost everything. Inholland’s September 2026 cost sheet shows €10,360. The pattern across the sector is €9,300 to €11,000.
A research university (WO) teaches three-year academic bachelors and one or two-year masters. The non-EU fee depends on the subject. At the University of Groningen a bachelor in economics, law, arts, psychology or spatial sciences is €14,000; science and engineering is €19,800; medicine and dentistry is €32,000. Utrecht University’s 2026/27 list reads €13,415 for humanities, law, economics and social sciences, €17,073 for the sciences, and €28,416 for medicine, pharmacy and veterinary medicine. At master level Utrecht charges €21,342 in the humanities and social sciences and €25,306 in the sciences. Wageningen, which runs the best-known English-taught masters in food, environment and agriculture, charges €21,900 for a non-EU master in 2026/27, rising to €22,560 for 2027/28.
EU students pay the statutory fee of €2,694 at every institution. It applies only to EU, EEA, Swiss and Surinamese passports, and it is the figure most “cheap Netherlands” articles quietly quote.
| Institution and level, 2026/27 | Non-EU fee | In dollars |
|---|---|---|
| HAN, bachelor in business or social work | €9,320 | $10,400 |
| NHL Stenden, bachelor or master | €10,335 | $11,600 |
| HAN, bachelor in engineering or life sciences | €10,940 | $12,300 |
| Utrecht, bachelor in humanities, law or social sciences | €13,415 | $15,000 |
| Groningen, bachelor in economics, law, arts or psychology | €14,000 | $15,700 |
| Groningen, bachelor in science and engineering | €19,800 | $22,200 |
| Utrecht, master in humanities or social sciences | €21,342 | $23,900 |
| Wageningen, any master | €21,900 | $24,500 |
| Groningen, bachelor in medicine or dentistry | €32,000 | $35,800 |
The visa money: €1,130.77 a month
The IND publishes one required amount for students in higher education and changes it every 1 January. For 2026 it is €1,130.77 a month, which is €13,569 for a twelve-month permit. The amount changes every 1 January, so a September 2027 applicant should plan for a little more than this.
Two things make the Dutch rule gentler than the British or German one. First, there is no 28-day holding period and no blocked account. Second, in most cases you never deal with the IND yourself. The university is a recognised sponsor and files the application for you. Its standard route is to ask you to transfer the living amount to the university, together with first-year tuition and the €254 permit fee, before it files. Radboud in Nijmegen asks for €13,800 and refunds it to your Dutch bank account after you arrive and register. Inholland offers a second route in which you transfer tuition and fees and prove the living sum with a bank statement instead. Which route your university allows is written in its admission pack.
Rent is the real variable
The IND figure is a legal minimum, not a budget, and in the big cities it is below what you will spend. The universities say so themselves. The University of Groningen tells international students to expect €800 to €1,000 a month in total, with rent at €450 to €650 including energy, food at €200 to €300, insurance at €100 to €120 and transport at €70 to €80. Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences tells its students to expect €1,200 to €1,800 a month for the basics. The difference between those two cities, over a year, is more than a year of tuition at HAN.
Market data points the same way. Kamernet, the largest Dutch room-rental platform, reported an average listed student room at €643 a month in the second quarter of 2026, up about six percent on the year. Amsterdam rooms averaged about €950, Utrecht €755, Leeuwarden €465 and Enschede €388. Those are listing prices for private rooms. University-arranged housing is cheaper and rationed; Inholland’s cost sheet says it can offer accommodation to a limited number of students only, and some version of that sentence is on every Dutch housing page.
A worked first year
Here is a non-EU bachelor student at HAN in Arnhem, International Business, September 2027, using the 2026 IND figure because the 2027 one is not yet published.
| Item | Euros | Dollars |
|---|---|---|
| Tuition, year one | €9,320 | $10,400 |
| Living funds shown to the IND, 12 months | €13,569 | $15,200 |
| Residence permit fee | €254 | $280 |
| Health and liability insurance, year one (Inholland’s Aon figure) | €692 | $780 |
| Cash needed before departure | €23,835 | $26,700 |
That is the money a family must have in one place by about June of the year you start. It excludes flights, a housing deposit and the first-month spike of bedding, a bike and a phone contract. In Arnhem, where rent is nearer the Groningen figure than the Amsterdam one, the €13,569 will roughly cover the year. In Amsterdam it will not, and the honest budget for a comparable degree in Amsterdam, using the university’s own €1,200 to €1,800 a month in place of the IND figure, is €25,000 to €32,000.
The same exercise for a research university bachelor at Groningen in economics is €14,000 plus the same €14,515 of funds, permit and insurance, which is €28,515 or about $31,900. For the Wageningen master it is €36,415, about $40,800, and that is a one or two-year degree, so the second year costs the same again minus the permit fee.
Our table shows the Netherlands at $25,600 to $39,700. The lower figure is the cheapest applied-sciences tuition plus the IND funds; the upper is a Wageningen master plus the same funds. Permit and insurance sit outside both, which is why the worked totals above are a little higher. We updated the upper figure this week, because Wageningen’s fee rose and the old entry no longer matched.
Working during the degree
A non-EU student may work 16 hours a week during the academic year, or full time in June, July and August, but not both in the same year. The employer applies for the work permit and it is free. Once you take paid work you must switch to Dutch public health insurance, a legal duty with a fine attached. Sixteen hours a week pays for groceries and a bike, not for tuition. Plan the money as if you will not work.
After graduation: the orientation year
The Netherlands gives every graduate of a Dutch bachelor or master twelve months to find work or start a business, with no work permit and no job offer required. It is called the orientation year for highly educated persons. You apply to the IND within three years of graduating, the fee is €254, the permit runs for twelve months and cannot be extended. If an employer hires you during it, or within three years of graduation, the salary threshold for a highly skilled migrant permit is reduced to €3,122 gross a month in 2026, against €5,942 for a highly skilled migrant aged 30 or over who did not study here. That reduced threshold is the real prize of the Dutch route.
The policy picture in 2026
Older articles describe the Netherlands turning against international students. Between 2023 and 2025 the government pushed a bill to cap English-taught bachelors and announced deep cuts, and universities began converting some programmes to Dutch. The coalition agreement of early 2026 changed direction: it reversed the planned cuts, and psychology, economics and business, the programmes most at risk, no longer need to be taught in Dutch. Nuffic’s July 2026 mobility report records the first fall in international enrolment in twenty years for 2025/26, driven by fewer new students from China and Germany, with master numbers holding. For a non-EU applicant that means less competition for places than two years ago, a friendlier climate, and the same housing shortage as before.
Who the Netherlands suits, and who it does not
It suits a family that can put about €24,000 in one place by June, wants a degree taught in English throughout, and has a plan for the orientation year that ends in a salary over €3,122 a month. Engineering, data, food and agricultural science, logistics and finance graduates meet that threshold most easily; arts and social work graduates often do not, and that is a conversation to have before choosing a programme.
It does not suit a family that can show €14,000 but not €24,000. At that level Poland, Czechia and Austria are open and the Netherlands is not yet. Nor does it suit anyone who must study in Amsterdam specifically; the same Dutch degree in Groningen, Enschede, Nijmegen or Leeuwarden costs roughly €300 to €550 a month less in rent by the figures above, and is the same degree to an employer. The Route Finder puts the Netherlands next to 34 other countries against your real figures in about four minutes, and that is the right place to start before any deposit leaves your account.
