We list 16 Mechanical Engineering master's in Germany at eight institutions. All sixteen are master's, all sixteen run 24 months, and none of them carries a tuition figure we have verified — which makes this a shorter cost section than the same subject in any other country we cover, and a longer one about everything else.
The fee section, which is the short part
German public universities are state-funded and charge no tuition for most master's courses, to Indian students as much as to German ones. That is why there is no fee range on this page: it is not missing data.
Two exceptions exist in Germany and neither touches this list. Baden-Württemberg charges non-EU students €1,500 a semester, and Bavaria leaves the decision to each institution — TUM charges substantial fees while LMU Munich does not. Every one of the eight institutions here sits in a state that charges nothing: North Rhine-Westphalia, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein. Checked state by state on 16 October 2026.
What you do pay is the semester contribution, which everybody pays and nobody calls tuition. It runs roughly €70 to €430 a semester depending on the university, funds student services and the student union, and often includes a local transport ticket worth having.
The number that actually decides whether Germany is affordable is the visa one: you must show €992 a month, set on 1 January 2025 — about €11,904 for a year, normally in a blocked account. We have written that out properly here. Free tuition is not free living, and the blocked account is the figure families underestimate.
Ten of the sixteen are taught in English — and six are not only English
This is the thing to check before anything else. Ten programmes list English as the language of instruction. The other six list German and English, which in practice means German is doing real work in the degree and you will need it.
That ratio is less generous than it is in German civil engineering, where eleven of thirteen are English-only. Mechanical engineering in Germany remains closer to its German-language roots than several neighbouring disciplines, and a zero-German applicant has a materially shorter list here than the headline count of sixteen suggests.
Where German is required, the two recognised exams differ in a way that matters to your timeline: TestDaF can be taken from India, while DSH is taken at the German university — so if you need the certificate to secure the admission and the visa, TestDaF is the one that fits. More on the language requirement here.
Where the 16 are
By city: Aachen (4), Essen (3), Siegen (3), Hamburg (2), and one each in Hanover, Dresden, Kiel and Paderborn.
The institutions are RWTH Aachen University, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Universität Siegen, TUHH Hamburg University of Technology, Leibniz University Hannover, Technische Universität Dresden, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel and Universität Paderborn.
RWTH Aachen carrying four of the sixteen is worth noting, because RWTH is the name most Indian mechanical engineering applicants have already heard and it anchors the list.
Two years, which is the comparison that matters
All sixteen run 24 months. Set that against a UK engineering master's, which is normally twelve, and the arithmetic goes in an unexpected direction: two years of no tuition plus two years of living costs against one year of £18,700-and-up plus one year of living. For most self-funding students Germany still wins that comparison comfortably, and the second year buys a real thesis and time for a working-student role rather than a compressed dissertation.
What you give up is a year of salary and a year of your twenties, which is a genuine cost even when it is not a fee.
Entry requirements
Every one of the sixteen records an English requirement on our listings, but the formats vary enough that there is no single number to quote. The most common anchor is IELTS Academic 6.5; TOEFL iBT alternatives appear widely, with per-section minimums; and several programmes also accept UNIcert® or telc certificates, which are European systems most Indian applicants have never encountered and should not assume they hold.
Two things decide a German engineering application beyond the language. The first is whether your bachelor's subject matches closely enough in credits — German admissions compare module by module more literally than British ones do. The second is the APS certificate, which Indian applicants need before applying and which is the step that most often costs people an intake. Start it early — here is how it works.
Browse the set: Mechanical Engineering in Germany, master's only, or the subject across every destination we list. The wider picture is in master's in Germany for Indian students, and you can check where you stand in 60 seconds.
Catalogue figures counted from our published listings on 20 October 2026, after an attribution audit retired programme rows that had been assigned to the wrong institution. No verified tuition figure is held for any of these sixteen; state tuition rules, the semester contribution range and the proof-of-funds figure were read on 16 October 2026 from the DAAD and the states' own pages. Rules and figures are revised — confirm on the university's page before you budget.