Country guide

Study in Estonia: universities, tuition fees and admission

Our catalogue has 22 universities and colleges in Estonia offering 195 undergraduate programmes in 8 cities. 187 of the programmes are at public institutions and 8 at private ones.

Universities: 22
Programmes: 195
Cities: 8
EU fee / year, public: Free
Non-EU fee / year, public, in English: €5,400

Always check current information on the official website of the university before you apply.

How admission works

Applications for most bachelor's, professional higher education and integrated programmes go through SAIS (sais.ee), the national admission information system run by the Ministry of Education and Research; a few institutions also take applicants with foreign diplomas through their own systems. You need a completed secondary education (an Estonian upper secondary certificate or an equivalent foreign qualification); each programme ranks applicants by its own criteria — Estonian state exam results, entrance exams, interviews or portfolios — and admits them up to its number of places, so there is no national cut-off score. For the autumn 2026 intake most Estonian-taught programmes closed at the end of June or in early July (30 June at the University of Tartu, 6 July at TalTech), while English-taught programmes closed earlier (TalTech 1 February for applicants with foreign diplomas, University of Tartu 15 April); the dates for autumn 2027 are set by each institution and published in SAIS.

Selection: grade limit (numerus clausus)
Main exam or platform: SAIS

Tuition fees in Estonia

At public universities an EU student typically pays no tuition fee, and a student from outside the EU €5,400 a year on a programme taught in English (most other programmes are free for them too). All amounts are per year in euros; fees charged per credit or per semester are converted to a full year (60 ECTS credits or two semesters).

	EU students, typical	EU students, range	Non-EU students, typical	Non-EU students, range	Programmes with a published fee
Public universities	€0	€0–€13,200	€0	€0–€13,200	187 of 187
Private universities	€7,820	€6,200–€8,100	€8,100	€6,700–€8,320	8 of 8

Where the fee depends on family income, the typical figure is the full fee and the range starts at the lowest one.

Good to know about fees

Eesti: Full-time study in Estonian at public universities and state professional higher education institutions is free of charge for all students, whatever their citizenship; students who fall behind the required number of credits may have to reimburse part of the study costs. Programmes taught in English charge tuition set by each institution and shown per programme, for example €2,100–6,600 per semester at the University of Tartu and €2,100–2,700 at Tallinn University in 2026/27, mostly the same for EU and non-EU students. At TalTech, the English-taught engineering and IT programmes are free for EU citizens but cost €3,000–3,500 per semester for others. Estonian Business School, a private university, charges tuition for all its programmes, including those taught in Estonian.

Language of instruction

Estonian: 176 programmes; English: 19 programmes. See all English-taught programmes in Estonia.

Map of universities in Estonia

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Each dot is a university or college: select it to open its page. The street map is optional and loads images from OpenStreetMap.

Where to study: cities

City	Universities	Programmes	Typical EU fee / year, public
Tallinn	10	106	€0
Tartu	4	70	€0