Germany student visa fee
What a Germany student visa costs, taken from the government's own published fee page. The application fee is rarely the whole cost, so the charges that sit beside it are set out below as well.
At a glance
| Visa | Nationales Visum zu Studienzwecken — the national "D" visa for study under Section 16b of the Residence Act. It is NOT a Schengen visa: it covers a stay longer than 90 days, and after you arrive and register you convert it into a residence permit (Aufenthaltstitel) at the local Ausländerbehörde. The same visa type covers a Studienkolleg preparatory course and a language course taken to prepare for a degree — but not a language course taken for its own sake, which is a different visa and a common misfiling. |
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The fee, as published
€75, as published by the German Missions in India, with the fee for minors at half the regular rate — €37.50. The fee is NOT refunded if the visa is refused or the application withdrawn. Two things are worth knowing before you pay. First, it is waived outright for "foreign nationals receiving a scholarship from public funds during their stay in Germany, as well as their spouse or partner and minor children as long as they are covered by the funding" — which covers DAAD and comparable public awards, and is missed by most applicants who hold one. Second, the payment method is fixed by mission: the Consulates General in Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata take a demand draft only, while Bangalore and the Embassy in New Delhi also accept cash. Separate from the visa fee, most Indian applicants also pay the APS India verification fee, which APS sets and publishes itself.
What the application fee does not cover
Almost every student visa route has costs beyond the application fee itself, and they are a material part of the budget rather than a rounding error.
- Health surcharge or insurance, which several countries require up front for the whole course length.
- Biometrics, where it is charged separately from the application.
- Document costs — attestation, notarisation, certified translations, courier.
- The financial requirement itself, which is money you must hold rather than spend, and is usually the largest number in the process.
- Dependant applications, each charged separately.
Before you budget from this page
- Check the date this page was last verified, printed at the foot.
- Open the official source linked there and confirm the current figure.
- Check whether your route — the specific visa subclass or category — carries the same fee.
- Add the surrounding costs above before deciding what the visa stage will cost you.
Visa fees are revised on government timetables rather than annual ones, and a figure that was right last quarter can be wrong this one. The date at the foot of this page is the honest limit of what we can tell you.
Fees — FAQs
2 questions
Application fees are generally not refunded on refusal. That is the usual position across student visa routes, and it is why getting the application right the first time matters more than the fee itself.
Yes, these fees are paid online during the application in nearly every route. Budget for the exchange rate and card charges on the day.
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Sources
Checked against these sources on 10 November 2026.