A master's in Germany, from Nigeria

This guide is for a Nigerian graduate who wants a master's taught in English at a German public university, paid for by herself or her family, and who has never done any of this before. It takes you from your Nigerian degree to your first semester in Germany in 14 stages: choose your courses, get your papers ready, pass your English test, apply, get your admission letter, open your blocked account, apply for the visa online and join the list, wait in the Lagos queue, attend your appointment, get the decision, travel, settle in, work while you study, and what follows the degree. Each stage says what you have just done, what you do now, where, what you need, what it costs, how long it takes and how you know you are done. Start with "Where the window stands today", then find your row in "From today". If the deadline you were aiming at has passed, the closed plan under it tells you what you do now. Then read Part 1 once from top to bottom, and come back to the stage you are on. Every fee, date and rule comes from the official page that sets it. The guide's date is 12 October 2026: every "open", "closed" and "days left" in it is counted on that day. Where a page has not yet printed something for the next intake, the guide says so and names the day the page was read. A line that names an earlier intake or an earlier year gives it only to show what has changed. Where a line says "applicants who did it say", it is what Nigerians report from their own applications in 2025 and 2026, not a rule.

Where the window stands today

In Germany you apply to one course for one semester, and each course sets its own window. There are two intakes a year: the winter semester, which starts in October, and the summer semester, which starts in April. At TUM, the Technical University of Munich, the summer semester 2027 runs from 1 April 2027 and the winter semester 2027/28 from 1 October 2027. Most English-taught master's take new students in winter only (Part 1).

On 12 October 2026, the guide's date:

• The winter semester 2026/27 has started. TUM's lectures begin today. Its windows are closed: TU Berlin's English-taught master's closed on 15 May 2026, and Bonn's Computer Science page reads "Application for our Computer Science and Cyber Security programs is now closed." Nothing can be added to them.
• The summer semester 2027 (April 2027) is open now at some courses, and opens at TU Berlin on 1 December 2026. Most of its windows close on 15 January 2027.
• The winter semester 2027/28 (October 2027) is open now at Oldenburg's SuRE (since 15 August 2026), opens at others from 15 November 2026 (Stuttgart) and 1 December 2026 (RWTH), and closes between 15 January and 15 July 2027; RPTU, Freiburg's MEG and RWTH's restricted master's print no opening date.
• The DAAD's EPOS scholarship closes at three courses on 15 October 2026, three days from today ("If you are also applying for the DAAD scholarship or a UK master's", Part 1).

These are the windows the universities' own pages printed, for applicants from outside the EU, counted on 12 October 2026. Each course is an example of its kind; Stage 1 shows you how to find yours.

Two rules sit over every date. uni-assist: "Apply as early as possible, ideally at least 8 weeks before the deadline." And a university takes your application only "if it is complete, and reaches the higher education institution before the application deadline" (Study in Germany). Most pages print no hour, so send everything at least a day before the date, never on it.

Where the visa queue stands today. Your admission letter does not decide when you start your master's. Your visa appointment in Lagos does. The German missions' booking page: "The Consulate schedules appointments in strict chronological order of the waiting list. The list is still valid! Once all applicants from the waiting list have received an appointment, applicants who have registered themselves on the Foreign Portal will receive an appointment." No missions' page states how long the wait is: "We cannot provide a specific time frame". What applicants report: in September 2026 the Consulate was calling people who had joined the portal in June 2025, about 15 months before. Those who registered on the old list between 2022 and 2024 waited 19 to 25 months. A first-class graduate of the last two years, a holder of a scholarship from German public funds and a PhD applicant apply under "Study, Specific qualifications", and report appointments within weeks (Stage 7).

When you can really start. Count it from the day you join the list, and you join only with an admission letter and a funded blocked account (Stages 6 and 7). The DAAD: letters for an April start are sent in February and March, and only Bonn's page dates a decision, by 15 December. If you join in February or March 2027 and the wait is the 15 months applicants reported in September 2026, your appointment comes about May or June 2028; applicants report one week to three months for the decision (Stage 10), so your first semester in Germany is the winter semester 2028/29, in October 2028. With a Bonn admission you join in January 2027, and your appointment comes about April 2028, for the same October 2028. If the wait is the 19 to 25 months of the old list, your appointment comes between September 2028 and April 2029, and your first semester is October 2028 at the earliest and as late as October 2029. So plan your first semester in Germany for October 2028 at the earliest. Your first admission letter will be for an earlier semester: you keep it alive, or apply again for the semester your appointment reaches (Stage 8). With a first class of the last two years, you can reach the semester your letter names.

What has changed since last year.

• Joining the queue. Until 2025 an applicant could register on the Lagos waiting list before she held an admission, and applicants did. One wrote online in January 2025 that "the date came without admission letter". Study now goes through the Consular Services Portal, and applicants confirm in 2026: "You can't join waiting list without an admission letter". By most 2026 accounts the portal also asks for the funded blocked account before you join. The old list goes first.
• A refusal. Since 1 July 2025 there is no appeal to the mission against a refusal. You apply again, or go to the Berlin Administrative Court within one month (Stage 10).
• Where you attend. Since 25 March 2026, by the press's and applicants' accounts, study applications in Lagos are taken at VFS Global's centre in Lekki (Stage 9).
• The blocked amount. Older videos still print €11,208 or €10,332. The amount today is €11,904 (Stage 6).
• The APS. Applicants were still being told in 2026 that a Nigerian needs the APS certificate. It exists only for China, Vietnam and India (Part 1).
• Work. Sellers online still cite "120 full or 240 half days". The rule now is 140 full days or 280 half days (Stage 13).
• TUM's tuition. TUM charges new master's students from outside the EU "usually 4,000 or 6,000 euros per semester" now, and "4,600 or 6,800 euros" from the winter semester 2027/28 (Part 1, On Baden-Württemberg's tuition).

From today: what you can still finish

Find the course you are aiming at in the table above, and count the days from today to its deadline. Whether you can finish depends on what you already hold: your transcript with your university's grading system, your degree certificate or statement of result, your WAEC result, an English result at the course's score, and, for TU Berlin, a VPD made for TU Berlin (Part 1, The bodies you will deal with). The money and the visa come after the admission (the second table).

If you open this guide with three days left to your course's deadline (Bonn's 1 November, on 29 October), you can finish only if your transcript with the grading system, your degree certificate or statement of result, your WAEC result and an English result at the course's score are in your hands today, and the course takes applications through uni-assist's standard form or its own portal (Bonn's Computer Science takes them in its own portal, and asks IELTS Academic 7.0 and set modules in your bachelor's: 18 ECTS credits of mathematics, 14 of algorithms and complexity theory, 18 of programming and a research thesis of 12). Upload and submit today. If any one of them is missing, you cannot finish that window: go to the closed plan, and apply in the course's next window.

Where these times come from.

• The deadline. Your form and your complete documents must be in My assist by the course's deadline: "Upload all of your documents into your My assist account within the application deadline." In the standard form uni-assist can "continue to process your application even after the application deadline has expired"; "The above-mentioned agreement does not apply to the VPD procedure."
• The VPD. "The processing of your VPD application usually takes 4 to 6 weeks." TU Berlin: "An application without the preliminary review documentation (VPD) from uni-assist is considered incomplete and will result in formal rejection." TUM takes its own signed confirmation form when the VPD is not ready (Stage 4).
• The payment. "International bank transfers can take up to two weeks." A 3D Secure card pays at once (Paying in euros from Nigeria, before Stage 4).
• The transcript. Only ABU states a time (Stage 2). Order yours this week whatever your deadline.

By what you hold for the visa. Your admission is the ticket to the queue, and the queue sets your start (above).

If the window has closed: the closed plan

If the deadline of the course you were aiming at has passed, you cannot apply to that course for that intake. Do these in this order, so that the day its next window opens, only the application is left.

1. This week: choose the next window. Find in the table above the next course whose window is open, or opens soonest, and whose lines you meet. If you open this guide in February 2027, the April 2027 windows of most courses closed on 15 January 2027. One April 2027 window is still open: TU Berlin's master's with open admission, until 28 February 2027, and only if your VPD application is already in (From today). Apply to it if you can: an admission for any semester is what lets you join the list, so the course that decides soonest moves your place in the queue forward. These October 2027 windows are open: RWTH's open-admission master's until 1 March, RPTU's Actuarial and Financial Mathematics until 30 April, TUM's Data Engineering from 1 February to 31 May, Freiburg's MEG until 15 May, and many uni-assist universities until 15 July. Apply to them now, by "From today". When you can really start, if you open this guide in February 2027. Count it as in "When you can really start" above. RWTH's boards must answer an October 2027 open-admission application by 15 September 2027. If you join the list then and the wait is the 15 months applicants reported in September 2026, your appointment comes about December 2028, so plan your first semester in Germany for April 2029 where your course takes a summer intake, and otherwise for October 2029.
2. If you want the same course again: its next window, only as its page prints it. RWTH, Stuttgart's INFOTECH, TUM's Data Engineering and RPTU print their windows by day and month, with no year: watch for the same dates, and read the page again the week its window should open. Bonn's Computer Science has not printed a window for the summer semester 2028, and TU Berlin has not printed its winter 2027/28 dates (both updated on 10 October 2026). In the app, tap Tell me when it opens: the app tells you the day the course's page prints its next window.
3. This month: your papers (Stage 2): your transcript with the grading system, your degree certificate, your WAEC result and checker card, and for the visa file your primary school results, your birth certificate by your year of birth and any affidavit.
4. Your English (Stage 3): sit IELTS Academic now, and check that its age will meet the next window's course rule.
5. Your money (Stage 6): decide who sends the €11,904 and from where, and gather that person's bank statement and the papers that show where the money came from. Pay in only once you hold an admission letter: you apply online the same week.
6. Your CV and your letter of motivation (Stage 4): write them now, with every year from your first school and your service year in the CV.
7. German (Stage 3): start at A1 with Deutsche Welle's free course.
8. When the window opens: apply in its first week (Stage 4), at least eight weeks before its close.

If you already hold an admission and a place on the Lagos list, no deadline has closed on you: your next stage is the wait (Stage 8).

Part 1. Before you start

What this route is

A master's at a German public university is usually four semesters, two years, and on this route every class is taught in English. At most German public universities you pay no tuition for it. The DAAD, Germany's academic exchange service, says: "There are generally no fees for Bachelor's courses or most Master's courses at state higher education institutions." Every student pays a semester contribution instead, each semester, for student services, the students' union and, at many universities, a ticket for local transport.

Who pays what.

• Tuition: none at most public universities. RWTH Aachen: "RWTH Aachen University continues its policy of not charging additional tuition fees for international students from non-EU countries." The University of Bonn charges no tuition and nothing to apply. Two exceptions you must know: Baden-Württemberg charges students from outside the EU €1,500 (about ₦2.25 million) a semester, and some universities in Bavaria charge too (TUM, the Technical University of Munich, charges most new master's students from outside the EU €4,000 or €6,000 a semester). Both are covered under "On Baden-Württemberg's tuition", below.
• The semester contribution, paid by you: between €70 and €430 a semester, says the DAAD. For winter 2026/27: TU Berlin €379.06 (about ₦567,000), RWTH Aachen €375.19 (about ₦562,000), Bonn €363.07 (about ₦540,000).
• uni-assist's fee, paid by you: €75 (about ₦112,275) for your first course in a semester and €30 (about ₦44,910) for each other course.
• Your visa, paid by you: €75 (about ₦112,275), paid in naira at the mission.
• The money to live on, shown by you: €11,904 (about ₦17.8 million) in a blocked account for your first year. It stays your money: in Germany it is paid back to you €992 (about ₦1.49 million) a month.

The money comes first. For one year at TU Berlin, the worked example in this guide, your fees come to about ₦2.47 million and the blocked account to about ₦17.8 million: about ₦20.3 million in all (Part 7). The blocked money must be in a German account before you apply for the visa (Stage 6). The visa asks for one year's money. At every renewal of your residence permit the foreigners office asks for current proof of money again (Aachen's office: "Bei jeder Verlängerung des Aufenthaltstitels sind aktuelle Nachweise über die Finanzierung des Lebensunterhaltes vorzulegen!"), so plan for your second year's living money too (Stage 12).

Nobody can sell you an admission or an appointment. uni-assist says on every page: "uni-assist e.V. does not cooperate with commercial agencies in Germany or abroad that place applicants at German universities." The German missions in Nigeria say "Booking an appointment is FREE OF CHARGE", and the Federal Foreign Office says agencies "do not have any special or preferential access to the appointment booking system, even if they claim otherwise." Every step in this guide is one you do yourself.

The bodies you will deal with

The DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, the German Academic Exchange Service) runs the official information for international students and the International Programmes database, where you find courses taught in English. It does not admit you. It has no office in Nigeria: its regional office in Accra, Ghana, serves Nigeria, and books consultations in person or online through its appointment calendar.

Your university decides whether you are admitted. Its International Office answers questions from applicants abroad.

uni-assist is the office that checks the certificates of international applicants for many German universities, about 180 in its own words, and turns your grades into German grades. Where your university uses it, you apply to uni-assist first. It works in one of two forms, and your university decides which:

• The standard form: uni-assist checks your papers and forwards your application to the university.
• The VPD: the Vorprüfungsdokumentation, in English the preliminary review documentation. uni-assist checks your papers and gives you a document, the VPD, that says how your grades compare in the German system. You then apply to the university yourself, in its own portal, with the VPD.

The Hochschulkompass, the Higher Education Compass, is the free course search of the German Rectors' Conference. It lists only state and state-recognised universities, with each course's deadline for applicants from outside the EU.

anabin is the German database that says whether a foreign university and its degrees are recognised. uni-assist and the universities send you to it, and you can check yourself there (Check that you can start, below).

The German Consulate General in Lagos decides your student visa. Its service provider, VFS Global, takes in study applications for it. You apply online first, on the Federal Foreign Office's Consular Services Portal, and then attend an appointment.

The blocked account (in German, Sperrkonto) is a German account that holds your living money for a year. You cannot touch it until you are in Germany; then it pays you a fixed amount each month. You open it online with a provider.

The national visa is the long-stay visa you travel on. In Germany you turn it into a residence permit for study, issued by the Ausländerbehörde, the foreigners office of your town.

The Anmeldung is registering your address at the town's residents' registration office (the Bürgeramt or Einwohnermeldeamt). You do it within two weeks of moving into your room. Without it you cannot open a bank account or get your residence permit.

The Studierendenwerk is the student services organisation of your university town. It runs the student halls of residence, and part of your semester contribution goes to it.

The APS is not for you. The APS (Akademische Prüfstelle) checks certificates only for applicants from China, Vietnam and India. uni-assist: "It exists in China, Vietnam and India." TUM: "An APS certificate is not required for applications for master's programs if your master's entrance qualification (usually a bachelor's degree) was acquired outside of China, Vietnam or India." The German missions in Nigeria name no APS certificate on their student visa list. Applicants online were still being told in 2026 that the APS is "very important". It is not, for a Nigerian degree, and anyone who charges you for one is selling you nothing.

Check that you can start

Three sets of lines decide whether you can start: uni-assist's, your course's own, and the German missions' for the visa. Where they differ, the stricter one governs you. In this guide a Second Class Upper is written "a 2:1" and a Second Class Lower "a 2:2"; UK universities' pages print a Nigerian Second Class Upper as a CGPA of 3.5 to 4.49 out of 5, and a Second Class Lower from 2.4. Here is the answer for your case.

• A 2:1. You can start at every course whose own grade line your CGPA meets. uni-assist sets no class ("Some master's courses require a minimum grade"), and the missions set none. The lines in this guide: Stuttgart's INFOTECH asks a CGPA better than 3.5 out of 5, so a 2:1 of exactly 3.50 does not meet it; Freiburg's MEG asks a German 2.5 or better (below); Bonn's Computer Science admitted "roughly the top 1%" of its applicants from outside the EEA. On the visa, a 2:1 applies under "Study Regular", the long queue (Stage 7).
• A 2:2. You can start only at a course whose printed grade line your CGPA meets, or that prints no grade line and decides on your transcript. Stuttgart's INFOTECH does not take you: a 2:2 is below 3.5 out of 5. Do not spend an application on Bonn's Computer Science. TU Berlin, RWTH, RPTU and TUM's Data Engineering print no class, and decide on your transcript (TUM in points). Applicants report a 2:2 graduate with a CGPA of 3.01 admitted in January 2026, and another told in December 2025 that her grade was too low. On the visa, a 2:2 applies under "Study Regular".
• An HND. You do not qualify. uni-assist asks for a degree "equivalent to a German bachelor's degree with a duration of 3, 3.5 or 4 years", anabin rates the HND as a "Fachschule", below university level, and the ZAB, the office that compares foreign degrees, will not compare it. Get a bachelor's degree first.
• No German. You can start. An English-taught course needs no German where its entry reads "No minimum language level required", and the missions ask for German on a study visa only for a course taught in German. uni-assist warns: "Some courses of study are taught in English, but proof of German proficiency may still be required." So keep only courses whose entry says no German is needed.
• The money. The missions' line governs: €11,904 (about ₦17.8 million) paid into a blocked account before you apply online, which is the day you join the list, plus a year's tuition paid where the course charges it. One year is all the visa asks. At each renewal of your permit the foreigners office asks for current proof of money again (Stage 12). A letter from a relative in Nigeria is not proof.
• Your family can show the blocked amount once. That is enough for the visa and your first year in Germany. The money is locked from the day you pay it in, the same week you join the list, about 15 months before your appointment by the September 2026 accounts, and it comes back to you €992 a month only once you are in Germany. For your second year, it depends on your town (Stage 12). In Aachen, the foreigners office also takes "Regelmäßige Geldtransfers der Eltern oder anderer unterstützender Personen", regular transfers from your parents or others, shown with the last three months' bank statements. In Munich, the office issues your first permit "in der Regel für drei Jahre", as a rule for three years, which covers a two-year master's, so you show no second year's money there before you finish. At TU Berlin, and in any town whose office's term is not printed in this guide, plan a second year's €11,904 in your blocked account before your first year ends.
• A course that does not follow your bachelor's. You cannot start where the course's page names the first-degree subjects it takes and yours is not one: uni-assist asks for "a related subject", Stuttgart for "very similar content". At the visa, applicants refused in 2025 and 2026 heard that their course was "not aligned" with their degree. Choose a master's that follows from your bachelor's.

The lines behind each answer follow.

Your degree. You need a bachelor's degree from a recognised university. In anabin, every Nigerian federal, state and private university is listed with the status "H+", which means its degrees can be put through a comparison with German degrees. The University of Ibadan, the University of Lagos, Lagos State University, Ahmadu Bello University and Kaduna State University are all "H+". anabin rates the Nigerian Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor (such as an LLB) as corresponding to a German three-year bachelor's, and the Bachelor of Engineering as corresponding to a German four-year bachelor's. uni-assist asks that your degree is "equivalent to a German bachelor's degree with a duration of 3, 3.5 or 4 years". A Nigerian four-year bachelor's meets that line.

An HND alone does not open a German master's. anabin lists Nigerian polytechnics as "H -", which in anabin's own explanation means they are not to be regarded as higher education institutions, and rates the HND as corresponding to a German "Fachschule", a school below university level. The ZAB, the office that compares foreign degrees, will not evaluate an HND: "You cannot apply for a Statement of Comparability for this degree." With an HND, you need a bachelor's degree first. A Postgraduate Diploma (PGD) has no rating in anabin either, so it does not take the place of the bachelor's.

A B.Sc. in Education. anabin rates some Nigerian B.Sc. (Education) degrees, such as Education (Chemistry), Education (Agriculture) and Education (Computer Science), only "Bedingt vergleichbar", conditionally comparable. B.Sc. Education (Economics) and Education (Accountancy) are rated "Entspricht", corresponding. If yours is a conditionally comparable one, apply only to courses whose page names your subject, and expect the university to check it closely.

Your subject. uni-assist: "To apply for a Master's course in Germany, you generally need to have completed undergraduate studies in a related subject." Stuttgart asks for a "Degree in the particular study program or a study program with very similar content". Choose a master's that follows from your bachelor's. Applicants who were refused visas in 2025 and 2026 heard "not aligned with his previous degree" and "Lack of knowledge of the course".

Your class of degree. Each course sets its own grade line, and the stricter the course, the higher it is.

• Stuttgart's INFOTECH asks a CGPA better than 3.5 out of 5.
• Freiburg's MEG asks a grade "equivalent to minimum 2.5 or better, under the German Degree System (1.0 max - 4.0 pass)" and converts it with "the Bayerische Formula", which its page does not print. Its transcript must show "a final weighted average/CGPA and a grading scale": a class alone, such as "Second Class Lower", is not enough. No page says which Nigerian CGPA meets 2.5, so this is the one question to ask before you apply: email the MEG office (info-meg@unr.uni-freiburg.de) by 15 April 2027, a month before its 15 May deadline, with your CGPA and your university's grading scale: "Does my CGPA of [yours] out of 5 meet 2.5 under the Bayerische Formula?" If it does, apply. If it does not, take MEG off your list.
• Bonn's Computer Science "admitted roughly the top 1% (one percent)" of its applicants from outside the EEA.
• TUM scores the grades of your bachelor's and your written papers in points, then admits you, rejects you or invites you to an interview.

A first class, finished in the last two years. If you hold a first-class bachelor's issued no more than two years ago and you are admitted to a master's, you apply for the visa under "Study, Specific qualifications" (Stage 7). Applicants in that category report appointments within weeks.

A degree not yet finished. TU Berlin takes no conditional admissions, and a bachelor's from a university outside the European Higher Education Area (Europe's shared degree area) must be complete by its deadline. Some universities accept a transcript to date and your certificate later (TUM's "soft transition" on certain master's, Stuttgart's conditional admission). Apply to TU Berlin only once your result is out.

Your English. You need an English test for most courses (Stage 3). You do not need German for a course taught in English.

Your money. The blocked account's €11,904 (about ₦17.8 million), in euros, in a German account, before you apply for the visa, plus your fees (about ₦2.47 million on the worked example). If your family cannot show that sum, the other forms the visa takes are a scholarship from a recognised funder or a formal obligation (Verpflichtungserklärung) signed in Germany by a person living there (Stage 6).

Your NYSC. Neither uni-assist's Nigeria page nor the German missions' student visa list asks for an NYSC certificate. List your service year in your CV.

Your age. No page in this guide sets an age limit for the master's or the student visa. The cheaper student health insurance ends at 30 (Stage 11).

If you meet these lines, start Stage 1 today, and find your row in "From today" at the top of this guide.

The route this guide walks: an English-taught master's, no tuition, through uni-assist, for the winter semester

Take a master's taught in English, at a public university that charges no tuition, starting in the winter semester (October), applied for through uni-assist. Here is why.

You do not need German to get in. The DAAD: "International degree programmes or postgraduate programmes taught in English are exempt from these requirements. You will instead need to show proof of your English language skills." The German missions in Nigeria ask for German on a study visa only for a course taught in German. On 10 October 2026 the DAAD's database held 1,587 master's taught only in English, 919 of them with no tuition.

No tuition means your money goes where the visa needs it. With no tuition, the year's cost is the semester contribution and your living money. Where tuition is charged, the visa file also asks for proof that the first year's tuition is paid (Stage 9), on top of the blocked account.

Most English-taught master's start only in winter. The Hochschulkompass entries say "First-year students can only apply or register for the winter semester." On 10 October 2026 it listed 1,003 English-taught master's at state universities for a winter start and 61 for a summer start.

uni-assist checks your papers once for many universities. The DAAD: "If you are from a different country, then you need to submit your application to uni-assist or your chosen higher education institution." uni-assist needs each document "once only, even if you are applying to multiple universities."

What this route asks of you.

• Money before any visa: the blocked account, €11,904 (about ₦17.8 million), in a German account before you apply for the visa, plus your fees (Part 7). The missions: "Open the blocked account in good time BEFORE applying for a visa." You apply online when you join the list (Stage 7), so the money goes in before you join and stays there through the wait; applicants in 2026 say the portal asked for it "fully funded" before they could join. The provider's monthly fee runs while you wait: Fintiba's "starts as soon as the money enters your account". Expatrio's page does not say when its €9 a month starts, so count it from the day you pay in, as Fintiba's: a wait of 18 months before you arrive adds €162 (about ₦243,000) to the €227 of your first year.
• Time: the wait in the Lagos queue is a stage of its own (Stage 8). In September 2026 the Consulate was calling applicants who had joined the portal about 15 months before, and those on the old list waited 19 to 25 months. Your first admission will be for an earlier semester than the one your appointment reaches, and you keep it alive or apply again (Stage 8).
• German later: the DAAD warns that "unless you are seeking a job in research or IT, employers will probably expect you to be fluent in German." Start learning it in your first semester (Stage 14).

The worked example is TU Berlin, the Technical University of Berlin. It asks for a VPD from uni-assist and then takes the application in its own portal, and its semester fee page for winter 2026/27 lists €379.06 and no tuition fee. Each stage says where another university does it differently.

On a university with its own portal

Some public universities do not use uni-assist: you apply in their own portal, and the university checks your certificates itself. RWTH Aachen takes every application "online via our digital application portal" (RWTHonline), names no application fee and charges no tuition. The University of Bonn charges no tuition and nothing to apply, and each master's has its own process and deadline. The University of Stuttgart takes applications in its own portal, C@MPUS, and charges no application fee (but it is in Baden-Württemberg, below). The papers, the English test, the blocked account and the visa are the same. Where the stages differ, each says "On a university with its own portal".

On Baden-Württemberg's tuition

Baden-Württemberg's ministry of science: international students from outside the EU who come to study pay "einen Eigenbeitrag von 1.500 Euro pro Semester", a fee of €1,500 (about ₦2.25 million) a semester, and €650 a semester for a second degree. The University of Stuttgart and the University of Freiburg are in Baden-Württemberg. The University of Stuttgart's international office: "You will need at least 992 EUR per month for living costs and as a degree student an additional 1,700 EUR per semester for tuition and semester fees." Your university decides any exemption, and you apply for one only after you accept your place and receive the tuition notice. The ministry says a share of its exemptions goes to students from the ACP states (African, Caribbean and Pacific countries) and the least developed countries; no official page names Nigeria on that list, so plan to pay.

The visa file asks for "Proof of payment for the first year of study. If your university doesn't accept a full payment, please add the funds to your blocked account." So on this variant you pay a year's tuition, €3,000 (about ₦4.49 million), before your visa appointment, on top of the blocked account.

At TUM in Bavaria the same rule applies with larger sums. TUM charges new master's students from outside the EU "usually 4,000 or 6,000 euros per semester", and from the winter semester 2027/28 "4,600 or 6,800 euros". "Payment in installments is not possible." This guide does not walk TUM; if you choose it, follow the Baden-Württemberg notes with TUM's figures.

If you are also applying for the DAAD scholarship or a UK master's

The DAAD's EPOS scholarship closes on 15 October 2026 at several courses. EPOS (Development-Related Postgraduate Courses) is a DAAD scholarship for a master's at named German courses: €992 a month for a master's student, plus health, accident and liability insurance and a travel allowance. It asks at least two years of related work after your bachelor's, a bachelor's graded at least Second Class Upper (the DAAD's West Africa office's words), and a last degree normally not more than six years old; Nigeria is on its list of countries. You apply to the course, not to the DAAD. For a start in October 2027:

• University of Freiburg, Environmental Governance (MEG): 15 June to 15 October 2026.
• Heidelberg, International Health (MScIH): until 15 October 2026.
• University of Oldenburg, SuRE (renewable energy): 15 October 2026, through uni-assist.
• TU Berlin, Urban Management: closed on 31 August 2026.

No page states an hour on 15 October, so send yours by the end of 14 October. With three days left, apply only if you already hold your transcript, your degree certificate, an IELTS or TOEFL result (not the institutional TOEFL), your employer's letter of recommendation and two years of work certificates. If you do not, apply for the self-funded rounds of the same courses: Freiburg's MEG closes on 15 May each year, and Oldenburg's SuRE takes self-funded applicants until 15 January 2027 (both charge tuition; Freiburg €1,500 and Oldenburg €1,500 a semester).

What you do once for both:

• Your transcript, with your university's grading system, and your degree certificate: the same papers go to the EPOS course and to uni-assist (Stage 2).
• Your English test: EPOS takes IELTS or TOEFL; the course sets the score. One result serves both.
• Your CV: EPOS asks for a Europass CV in reverse order with no unexplained gaps. uni-assist's universities ask for a CV with no gaps too. Write the Europass one and use it for both.
• What an EPOS award changes later: a holder of a scholarship from German public funds applies for the visa under its own category, "Study, Specific qualifications", pays no visa fee, may apply at the Embassy in Abuja if she lives in one of the states the Embassy lists (the FCT and the northern states), and shows the award letter in place of the blocked account. Freiburg exempts DAAD-EPOS holders from its tuition.

A UK master's. What you do once for both:

• Your English test. Nigeria is not on the UK's list of countries whose nationals need not prove English, and a UK university at degree level "can assess your level of English themselves". The German universities in this guide ask for a test: RWTH exempts only degrees from English-speaking countries, and Bonn's Computer Science and Stuttgart's INFOTECH do not accept a letter that your degree was taught in English. Take IELTS Academic (₦299,000 at an IDP centre): it serves the German universities and the UK universities that assess English themselves. If a UK course asks for a UKVI-approved test, that test is IELTS for UKVI (₦315,500).
• Your transcript, your degree certificate and your passport are the same papers for both. Order your transcripts once, for every university on both lists (Stage 2).
• What differs: the UK route has no blocked account and no Lagos waiting list, and a UK taught master's is one year. Applicants weighing both in 2026 said the German queue is why many put the UK first: "2 years for visa ? that means admission will expire then. I see why people always priotize UK." Rekoja's guide "A UK master's you pay for yourself" walks the UK route.

Part 2. The whole journey on one page

Stage 1. Choose your courses. Find three to five English-taught master's at public universities that fit your degree, your grade and your English, and write down each one's deadline and how it takes applications. Free. Plan for a few weeks.

Stage 2. Get your papers ready. Your transcript with your university's grading system, your degree certificate, your WAEC result, your passport and your birth certificate, all in the same name. About ₦30,000 for the transcripts at the University of Ibadan, and ₦200,000 for a new 10-year passport if yours does not meet the rule. Only ABU's page states a time (24 to 48 hours for an e-copy); start the transcript the first week.

Stage 3. Your English. Pass IELTS Academic at the score your courses ask: from 6.0 to 7.0 overall at the courses in this guide. ₦299,000 at an IDP centre.

Stage 4. Apply through uni-assist. Pay uni-assist, upload your papers once, and apply to each course. €135 (about ₦202,095) for three courses: €75 for TU Berlin's VPD and €30 for each of two courses at other universities. uni-assist's check takes 4 to 6 weeks in its own words; for certificates from Africa it was quoting 2 to 3 weeks on 28 September 2026. The universities send their letters in August and September for an October start.

Stage 5. Your admission letter. Accept your place, check the letter, and know from your university's pages what keeps it alive until your visa appointment. Free to accept. The semester fee falls due at enrolment.

Stage 6. Your blocked account. Open a blocked account online and pay in €11,904 (about ₦17.8 million). About €227 (about ₦339,800) in fees for a year with Expatrio, and €9 (about ₦13,500) for each further month you wait. The transfer takes days; the confirmation comes when the money lands.

Stage 7. Apply for the visa online and join the list. Fill in the visa application on the Consular Services Portal, upload your papers and join the waiting list, the week your blocked account is funded. Free to apply and to book. You are done when the portal says your papers are complete and you are on the list.

Stage 8. The wait in the Lagos queue. Keep your place (every email answered the day it comes), keep your admission current for the semester your appointment reaches, keep your blocked account funded, and get your file ready. No official page states the wait. Applicants report about 15 months on the portal in September 2026, 19 to 25 months on the old list, and weeks in the "Specific qualifications" category. Its cost is the blocked account's monthly fee and whatever keeps your admission alive.

Stage 9. Your visa appointment. Attend with your sorted file, answer the interview and write the short subject test applicants describe. €75 (about ₦112,275), paid in naira.

Stage 10. The decision and your insurance. Wait for the decision; when it is positive, buy the incoming health insurance and send your passport. The Federal Foreign Office: "several weeks, in individual cases even months."

Stage 11. Travel and your first two weeks. Fly in on your visa, register your address within two weeks, enrol and set up your statutory health insurance. The first semester's contribution, €379.06 (about ₦567,000) at TU Berlin.

Stage 12. Your residence permit and your first semester. Open your bank account, receive your first €992 from the blocked account, and apply for your residence permit before your visa ends. Up to €100 (about ₦149,700) for the permit.

Stage 13. Working while you study. Up to 140 full days or 280 half days a year. The minimum wage in 2026 is €13.90 an hour.

Stage 14. After your master's. An 18-month permit to look for work, then the skilled-worker permit or the EU Blue Card. €98 (about ₦146,700) for the job-search permit.

The money. On the worked example, TU Berlin, for one year, for you alone: about ₦529,000 in Nigeria (a new passport, the transcripts, the IELTS test) and €1,295.12 (about ₦1.94 million) in euro fees (uni-assist, the blocked account's fees, the visa, two semester contributions and the residence permit), about ₦2.47 million in fees, plus €11,904 (about ₦17.8 million) in the blocked account: about ₦20.3 million in all. The blocked money is your own and is paid back to you, €992 a month, in Germany. Your flight, your insurance for the first weeks and your room's deposit come on top. On Baden-Württemberg's tuition, add €3,000 (about ₦4.49 million) for the year's tuition. Part 7 has every amount.

The time. No official page states how long the whole journey takes. Each course's window opens and closes on its own dates ("Where the window stands today"), and the letters come in August and September for an October start, February and March for April. The longest part is the wait in the Lagos queue (Stage 8): in September 2026 the Consulate was calling applicants who had joined the portal about 15 months before. So apply now to the April 2027 courses whose lines you meet, join the list with your first admission letter in February or March 2027 (January with a Bonn admission), and plan your first semester in Germany for October 2028 at the earliest ("Where the window stands today"). Once your visa is granted, your first two weeks in Germany are the busiest: your room, your address, your enrolment and your insurance.

On a university with its own portal, Stage 4 is the university's own application, with no uni-assist fee; everything else is the same.

On Baden-Württemberg's tuition, you pay the first year's tuition after your admission and before your visa appointment (Stage 6), and you show the payment at Stage 9.

Part 3. Stage by stage

Stage 1. Choose your courses

Back to the short stages

You can start. Now find the courses that fit you. In Germany you apply to a course, not to a university in general, and each course sets its own deadline, grade line, English score and application route. So you choose your courses first: they tell you which papers, which test score and which fees you need.

Do.

1. Search the DAAD's International Programmes database. Set the course type to Master, the language to English only, and the tuition filter to "no fees". On 19 October 2026 that search gave 920 master's.
2. Check the same courses in the Hochschulkompass. In its Advanced Degree Programme Search, set Study Type "Second cycle", Degree "Master", Main instruction language "English", Type of control "state" and Admission semester "winter semester". Adding Type of Institution "Universities" leaves out the universities of applied sciences. On 10 October 2026 that search gave 1,003 courses, and 789 at universities alone.

3. Open each course's entry and then the course's own page. Write down, for each:

   • the deadline for applicants from outside the EU, in the entry's block "Deadlines for International Students from Countries that are not EU Members";
   • the tuition line, if there is one (a "Tuition Fee" block in the entry);
   • the degree and subjects it asks for, and any grade line;
   • the English test and score it asks for;
   • the German level it asks, if any (the levels are the European levels of a language, from A1, a beginner, to C2): keep only courses whose entry says "No minimum language level required";
   • how it takes applications: uni-assist, a uni-assist VPD then its own portal, or its own portal only;
   • the semester contribution.
4. Keep three to five courses whose grade, subject and English lines you meet, with no tuition, and at least one whose deadline is the earliest you can make.

Where. DAAD International Programmes in Germany, opens in a new tab; Hochschulkompass, Advanced Degree Programme Search, opens in a new tab; uni-assist universities, opens in a new tab, to see whether your university uses uni-assist and the VPD.

How to read an entry. A DAAD entry shows the application periods for non-EU countries, the tuition per semester, the semester contribution, the monthly cost of living, the English and German levels, and how to submit. For example, RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau's Actuarial and Financial Mathematics: "non-EU countries, For the summer semester: until 31 October" and "For the winter semester: until 30 April"; "Tuition fees per semester: None"; a social fee of €350 a semester including the Deutschland-Semesterticket (a transport ticket valid throughout Germany for the semester); English "B2 required"; "German language skills: No minimum language level required"; "Please apply via e-mail." A Hochschulkompass entry shows the same blocks, and the non-EU deadline in one of four forms: a date, "The deadline for the Winter Semester 2026/2027 has expired", a link to the university's own deadline page, or no block at all with the date in the university's note. Where it sends you to the university, the university's page governs.

Which universities use uni-assist. The uni-assist list shows each university, and "If the VPD procedure applies, you will find a note on the VPD procedure below the address of your chosen university in our list." On 10 October 2026: TUM and the University of Cologne (for all master's) ask for a VPD; TU Berlin asks for a VPD "specifically for TU Berlin"; RWTH Aachen, the University of Stuttgart and the University of Bonn are not on the list and take applications in their own portals. uni-assist adds: "uni-assist is not automatically responsible for all applications to a uni-assist university." The course page has the last word.

Watch the tuition line. "No fees" in a search is not the end of it. Some English-taught master's at public universities charge: TU Dortmund's own programme page puts its Advanced Methods in Particle Physics at approximately €970 a semester; some of RWTH's English-taught master's are "privately offered by the RWTH International Academy" and are marked ** in its list; every course in Baden-Württemberg charges €1,500 a semester to students from outside the EU; TUM charges €4,000 or €6,000. Read each course's own tuition line.

What you need. Your transcript or your result, to compare with each course's grade line, and a phone or laptop.

Cost. Free.

Time. No page states a time. Applicants who did it in 2025 and 2026 say they searched alongside their papers and their English test, often a year or more before the semester.

You are done when you hold a list of three to five courses, each with its deadline, its application route, its English score, its grade line and its semester contribution.

If it goes wrong. If no course you like takes your grade, widen the search to universities of applied sciences (the Hochschulkompass's Type of Institution) and to courses with "without admission restriction" (the Mode of admission filter). If a course's page leaves out a line on your list, read the same course's Hochschulkompass entry: its blocks carry the deadline, the language levels and the contact. If neither prints the line, put a course that prints it in its place.

From applicants who did it. Applicants online in 2025 and 2026 name the DAAD search, filtered for English-taught master's, as the tool everyone uses. The mistakes they report most are applying to courses whose grade or subject line they do not meet, an HND holder aiming at a master's, and a course that does not follow from the bachelor's, which some later met again at the visa interview. Some who ran out of time took a private university and were then asked at the consulate for a full year's tuition paid; an experienced poster's advice in October 2026: "Anything private school in Germany...my advise is don´t do it". This guide walks public universities only.

Same as the DAAD scholarship. The EPOS courses are on the DAAD's own list, "List of all Postgraduate courses with application deadlines 2027/2028", and each one sends you to its course page for its deadline.

On a university with its own portal. The university's own page is your only source for the deadline and the documents: RWTH's international master's page, Bonn's course pages ("All our master's degree programs have individual deadlines, which you can find on the websites of the relevant academic disciplines."), Stuttgart's course pages ("International Master's programs and those taught in English have special application deadlines").

On Baden-Württemberg's tuition. Stuttgart's and Freiburg's English-taught master's charge €1,500 a semester to students from outside the EU. Count it in your money before you add the course (Part 7).

Next. Get your papers ready (Stage 2) and book your English test (Stage 3), at the same time.

Stage 2. Get your papers ready

Back to the short stages

You have chosen your courses. Now get out of your Nigerian university and from WAEC the papers every one of them asks for. This is the stage you control least, because your university decides how fast your transcript comes, so start it this week.

Step 1. Put your papers in one folder, in one name

Do. Check that your name and date of birth read the same on your birth certificate, your passport, your WAEC result, your degree certificate and your transcript. Fix any difference now: the visa file asks for affidavits where names differ, and a transcript in a different name is slow at some universities.

What you need.

• Your passport. The visa file asks for a passport "issued in the last 10 years", "valid for at least 6 more months" and with "at least two free pages". A residence permit in Germany is never issued for longer than your passport is valid, so take the 10-year passport. A new standard passport is ₦200,000 for 64 pages and 10 years, or ₦100,000 for 32 pages and 5 years, applied for and paid on passport.immigration.gov.ng, opens in a new tab; a fresh application or a change of data takes "42 days after Successful Enrolment".
• Your birth certificate. The visa file's rule depends on when you were born. "For births at or after December 15, 1992": an "NPC birth certificate, issued from the NPC of your place of birth". If you have none, or you were born before 15 December 1992: a "Certified copy of the local birth register extract based on the first registration", an "Affidavit ("Declaration of Age") of one parent or the head of the family" (the head of family "at least 10 years older than the applicant") and a "Copy of an identity document showing the signature of the person making the affidavit". An adult gets the NPC's birth attestation with her NIN and a court sworn affidavit, and downloads the certificate online.
• Affidavits where your names differ. The visa file names "Affidavit of Change of Names (with the published newspaper advertisment), Affidavit of Reconciliation of Names, Affidavit of Spinster- / Bachelorhood, Affidavit of Facts", "issued by the competent court". uni-assist asks for a "Record of name change" if you changed your name, for example by marriage.
• Your school results from primary school up. The visa file asks for "School results in chronological order: Primary, Secondary school, WAEC or National diploma, Bachelor Degree, Masters Degree", originals and copies. Find your primary school leaving certificate now.

If your passport needs changing. A change of data after a marriage, or a correction of names, is applied for online to the Nigeria Immigration Service with your birth certificate or declaration of age, your state of origin certificate, a court affidavit, a newspaper notice and your passport's data page; the correction of data carries an administrative charge of ₦30,000.

You are done when every paper is scanned clearly into one folder and your name reads the same on all of them, or an affidavit explains each difference.

Step 2. Order your transcript

Do. Order two kinds of transcript from your university's records office, through its own portal only:

• A copy for yourself. You scan it for your applications, and you take it to your visa appointment, where the file asks for the "Transcript of records" with the originals.
• An official copy sent by the university, where a course or uni-assist asks for one. Nigerian universities send an official transcript only to an institution, never to you.

Where, at five universities.

• University of Ibadan: the transcript portal, academic.ui.edu.ng, opens in a new tab. "Any personal address supplied for processing transcript will be treated as Student's Copy and as such watermarked." The portal's own fee sheet: ₦20,000 to a foreign address, ₦10,000 to a Nigerian address, ₦10,000 for a Student's Copy. Pay what the portal charges. Enquiries: record@stu.ui.edu.ng, 080 2084 1489.
• University of Lagos: records.unilag.edu.ng, opens in a new tab. Official transcripts go only to institutions, scholarship boards and embassies; "Upload of electronic copy of official transcript can uploaded to official web link/ website of equivalent academic institutions", for which you give the link, username and password. The Senate's notice: "The total cost of processing of Transcript for upload shall be Twenty-Five Thousand Naira (₦25, 000.00)." The student copy is applied for on the student portal, under Results, "Student Academic Transcript". Email only: records@unilag.edu.ng.
• University of Nigeria, Nsukka: the iTranscript portal; "Default mode of transcript dispatch is by electronic mail (soft copy)"; ₦25,000 for a transcript going outside Nigeria. Apply in the name you were admitted with: "Providing a name that is different from what is currently on your file will greatly delay the processing of your transcript."
• Ahmadu Bello University: transcript.abu.edu.ng, opens in a new tab: an international e-copy ₦5,000, "24-48 hours for e-copies, 5-7 days for hard copies".
• Obafemi Awolowo University: tps.oauife.edu.ng, opens in a new tab: its page prints no fee or time before you make an account; "Transcripts that are requested for personally will be marked "Student Copy"".
• At any other university (Kaduna State University among them): order through its records office's own portal, pay what the portal charges and only there, never to an individual, and keep the receipt with its payment reference.

The grading system. uni-assist wants, with your transcript, "the grading system that is applied for your degree programme and year of graduation", including "the classification of degrees with the highest possible mark and the lowest pass mark required for a bachelor's degree to be awarded". It is "often shown on the reverses of transcript of records or in students handbooks/course guides". If your transcript does not carry it, upload a PDF of your university's official grading system or a link to the page that shows it. "Links to anabin or Wikipedia are not enough."

Where the official copy goes. uni-assist's pages ask for scans of official certificates "bearing a signature and stamp from the issuing institution" and say nothing on a transcript a Nigerian university sends to it directly. Applicants who did it in 2026 say they asked their university to send the transcript straight to uni-assist. Make your My assist account now (Stage 4, Step 1; you pay only when you submit an application) to get your applicant number. Then, before you pay for an official copy, write to uni-assist through its contact form with your applicant number and ask: "Do you accept my transcript sent by email by my university's records office, and to which address; or a scan of my university's Student's Copy?" Ask it the week you make your account: no uni-assist page answers it, and the answer changes what you pay for. If uni-assist takes the emailed transcript, order one official copy to the address it gives. If it takes the scan of your Student's Copy, upload that and pay for no official copy for uni-assist. Order your Student's Copy today, whatever uni-assist answers.

Cost. At the University of Ibadan, ₦10,000 for your Student's Copy and ₦20,000 for each official copy to a foreign address. Pay only through the portal: UNILAG warns "under no condition should applicants make payment to any individual or organisation under the pretext of fast track", and OAU that "Payment of cash to any individual, company or agent is prohibited."

Time. Only ABU states a time. Request yours this week. If nothing has come within a month, email the records office with your payment reference and ask the date it will be sent: no page but the records office can give it. If that date falls after your course's deadline, apply to the course's next window, or to a course whose deadline it meets ("From today").

You are done when you hold your copy of the transcript with the grading system, and the official copy is ordered where a course asks for one.

Step 3. Your degree certificate, your WAEC result and the letter that you studied in English

Your degree certificate. uni-assist asks for "the diploma certificate as well as the overview of all subjects and grades"; TU Berlin's checklist asks for the "degree certificate and transcript". If your certificate is not yet issued, ask your university for a statement of result (₦5,000 at UNILAG). At UNILAG, a certificate not collected the year after convocation attracts a ₦10,000 demurrage charge and ₦5,000 for every further year.

Your WAEC result. uni-assist, for a Nigerian applicant: "a copy of your school leaving certificate, issued by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) or the National Examinations Council (NECO)" and "a scratch card or the information which it contains (card number and PIN) for verification of your examination results". Buy a WAEC result checker card and keep its number and PIN with your papers. WAEC does not replace a lost certificate; it issues a statement of result or confirms the result for a fee. If a university asks WAEC to confirm your result to it directly, the confirmation costs ₦39,000 for an institution abroad, plus a ₦13,000 scratch card and a sworn affidavit from a law court.

The letter that you studied in English. Your university issues one: "English as a Medium" (₦5,000 at UNILAG), "Proof of English Proficiency" (UNN), a "Proficiency in English Language Letter" (UI). It does not replace an English test at most courses in this guide (Stage 3), but uni-assist accepts it where a university does, and applicants took it to the visa interview too.

Certified copies. uni-assist's application is "fully digital": scans, no certified copies. TUM: "It is not required to upload notarized copies". RWTH: "The copies do not need to be notarized." Where a university does ask for certified copies, the German Consulate General in Lagos certifies them free for a university application in Germany, by appointment, up to five application sets per appointment, with your originals ("The certification of copies for University Applications in Germany is free of charge."). Book it on the Lagos appointment system under Legal and Consular Affairs, "Services for university applicants".

Papers that need no stamp from Abuja. Germany asks for no legalisation of Nigerian papers. The German missions: "The legalization of public documents and certificates was ceased in May 2000". Do not pay anyone to have your certificates "attested for Germany".

From applicants who did it. For WAEC, "the print out was enough for me, but you also need to include a picture of your waec card clearly showing your details" (November 2025). For the transcript: "You need to contact your school to send the transcript directly to uni-assist, the grading system is usually in the transcript" (April 2026). Those who certified copies did it free at the consulate: "the whole process is free, you just need to go with your application form for the school, original documents and Photocopies" (April 2026).

Same as the UK master's and the DAAD scholarship. The same transcript, degree certificate and passport serve all three. Order enough official copies in one request for every university on every list.

Next. Your English test (Stage 3), if it is not done.

Stage 3. Your English

Back to the short stages

Your papers are ordered. Now, at the same time, pass your English test. Every course in this guide is taught in English, and most ask for a test, not a letter.

What the courses ask.

• TUM: IELTS Academic 6.5 overall; TOEFL iBT 88 ("MyBest Score will not be accepted"); "For Master's degree programs, English language proficiency cannot be proven by school grades in any case"; a degree taught at least half in English, shown by your university's official confirmation, also counts.
• RWTH Aachen: IELTS 6.0, or 7.0 for some courses (such as Biomedical Engineering); TOEFL iBT 90 or 100. Exempt only with "a high school diploma or academic degree in an English-speaking country", which it names as the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States.
• TU Berlin: recommended IELTS Academic 6.5 (B2+) or 7 (C1); TOEFL iBT 87 or 95; "All certificates should not be older than 3 years."
• Bonn, Computer Science: IELTS Academic 7.0, "valid until the start of the upcoming semester"; "a proof of the language of instruction in your Bachelor's programme does not suffice."
• Stuttgart, INFOTECH: IELTS 7.0; "Medium of Instruction (MoI) ... is not accepted. Exceptions cannot be made."

Do. Sit IELTS Academic at a test centre and aim for 7.0 overall: that meets every course above. Before you book, check that the score each course on your list asks is the one you aim for.

Where. IDP and the British Council run IELTS in Nigeria: the IELTS test centre finder, opens in a new tab showed 57 centres in Nigeria, among them Yaba, Ikoyi, Victoria Island, Lekki, Ikeja, Festac and Alausa in Lagos, and Wuse 2 and the Central Area in Abuja. Search it for Ibadan and Kaduna. TOEFL iBT is booked on ETS's TOEFL page, opens in a new tab.

Cost. IELTS Academic at an IDP centre on computer: ₦299,000. TOEFL iBT in Nigeria: US$170 (about ₦227,000), with US$29 for each extra score report.

Time. IELTS on computer: results in 1 to 5 days, on IELTS's results page. TOEFL scores are in your ETS account "3 days after your test date". "Your scores are valid for 2 years."

How long your result counts. Your English result must be valid by each course's rule: TU Berlin, "not older than 3 years"; Bonn's Computer Science, "valid until the start of the upcoming semester"; Freiburg's MEG: TOEFL two years, "other certificates have no expiration limit". If you apply again while you wait for your appointment, check your result against the course's rule again.

You are done when you hold a result with the score every course on your list asks. Keep your IELTS Test Report Form number: uni-assist checks it online ("We can verify your certificate (IELTS Test Report Form) online").

If it goes wrong. If you miss a course's score, take the test again before that course's deadline, or take the course off your list. Do not send a letter that you studied in English to a course that refuses it.

From applicants who did it. Many 2025 and 2026 admits used their university's letter that they studied in English instead of IELTS, where the course took it, and took the same letter to the visa interview. Others found programmes that refused it, and one poster's advice was: "Just write IELTS, to save you from from stress from the embassy."

German. You do not need German to be admitted to a course taught in English. The German missions ask for German on a study visa only for a course taught in German (C1 without a German course before it). For the job after your degree you need it (Stage 14). In Nigeria the missions accept German certificates only from the Goethe-Institut or the Österreichisches Sprachdiplom Deutsch (ÖSD), "not older than one year". Applicants report that Goethe-Institut exam seats in Lagos are "fully booked after 5-10 minutes" (July 2026). Start with Deutsche Welle's free courses at learngerman.dw.com, opens in a new tab.

Same as the UK master's and the DAAD scholarship. One IELTS Academic result serves the German courses, the UK universities that assess English themselves, and EPOS (which takes IELTS or TOEFL, never the institutional TOEFL). If a UK course asks for a UKVI-approved test, that is IELTS for UKVI (₦315,500).

Next. Apply through uni-assist (Stage 4).

Paying in euros from Nigeria

From Stage 4 on, most fees are in euros: uni-assist's €75 and €30 (Stage 4), the blocked account's €11,904 and its provider's fees (Stage 6), the semester contribution (Stage 11). The visa's €75 is paid in naira (Stage 9). Before Stage 4, sort out how each euro payment leaves Nigeria.

• uni-assist takes "3D Secure Credit card (Visa or MasterCard)" (a 3D Secure card is one that confirms each online payment with a code sent to your phone) or a bank transfer to your personal IBAN in My assist (an IBAN is a bank account's international number), with your applicant number, name and date of birth in the payment details, and "the OUR transfer" (you pay all the banks' charges, so the full sum arrives). "Another person can transfer the handling fees for you." "International bank transfers can take up to two weeks." "Sometimes banks may not accept payments with credit cards from certain countries for security reasons." Ask your bank this week whether your naira card pays online in euros with 3D Secure, and what its foreign spending limit is: only your bank can say. If it does, pay uni-assist by card the day you submit. If it does not, have the fee transferred to your personal IBAN, by you or by someone abroad, at least two weeks before your deadline.
• The blocked account. Expatrio says payments go "in your local currency through Flywire"; Coracle says "Transfer in your local currency"; Fintiba has its own transfer service. No provider's page names Nigeria or says it takes naira from a Nigerian bank. Open the provider's payment step, choose Nigeria and naira, and see whether it is offered, before you choose the provider (Stage 6). Applicants in 2025 and 2026 funded their accounts through a relative or friend abroad, or through Fintiba's own naira transfer. If no provider's step offers naira from your bank, write to your bank with the provider's account details (its IBAN), and ask whether it will send the €11,904 on Form A against your admission letter, and with what papers. Ask it now, before your admission comes: no page of the CBN or of a provider answers it. You fund the account and join the list in the week the letter comes (Stages 6 and 7), and a no from the bank then costs you weeks in the queue. If your bank says yes, pay in through it. If it says no, the money goes from a relative or friend abroad, or through a provider's own transfer that takes naira, as applicants did. Keep its answer. Form A is the bank form for buying foreign currency for school fees and living costs abroad, filled in on the CBN's Trade Monitoring System; Access Bank generates it through its FX Service Portal, which lists "Upkeep" with your admission letter, the school bill, your first degree certificate and "Evidence of school fees payment through Access Bank".
• The semester contribution and any tuition go by bank transfer to the university's account; TU Berlin: "It is not possible to pay the semester fee in cash", "it is not possible to pay the semester fee in installments", and from abroad "the full required sum must be deposited", because bank charges are deducted. Tell your bank to choose "OUR" for the charges. For tuition at a Baden-Württemberg university or TUM, Access Bank's FX portal buys school fees in foreign currency up to US$15,000 a semester against your admission letter and the school's bill.
• Your flight's foreign currency. A Personal Travel Allowance (PTA) is up to US$4,000 a quarter at Access Bank, asked for "not more than 14 days from the date of travel".

Stages 4, 6 and 11 point back here.

Stage 4. Apply through uni-assist

Back to the short stages

You have your courses, your papers and your English result. Now apply. At a university that uses uni-assist, uni-assist checks your certificates first; the university then decides.

Step 1. Make your My assist account and pay

Do. Register in My assist, the uni-assist portal. Choose your first course, answer the university's questions, and pay. For a VPD (TU Berlin, TUM, Cologne), choose the university and "all subjects" ("Master's (all subjects)" for TU Berlin), not a single course: TU Berlin needs a VPD "specifically for TU Berlin", and TUM "does not accept a VPD that has been applied for for another university".

Where. uni-assist, opens in a new tab, then My assist.

Cost. "Cost for the first chosen course of study: EUR 75.00; For each additional chosen course of study: EUR 30.00", in one semester, "the same for all forms of application, whether standard or VPD procedure". Three courses: €135 (about ₦202,095). TU Berlin's VPD ("Master's (all subjects)") is your first choice, €75; each other course you choose through uni-assist in the same semester is €30. TU Berlin takes one master's application a semester, so your other two are at other universities. "Fees must be paid, regardless of the result of the checking procedure", and you do not get the fee back if your application is unsuccessful. "Some universities pay their applicants' handling fees": a note in your selection list in My assist tells you. Pay as described in Paying in euros from Nigeria, above.

If the payment will not go through. uni-assist: first check that you answered all the university's mandatory questions; the card must be 3D Secure; three wrong entries lock you out of the payment site for an hour. "If you can no longer find your application, your payment was not successful. Simply submit your application again within the application deadline."

Step 2. Upload your papers once

Do. Upload, as PDF scans, "complete and clearly legible":

• your degree certificate (if issued) and your full transcript, with the grading system;
• your WAEC result, with the scratch card's number and PIN;
• your English result;
• your passport's photo page ("The copy of your passport only needs to contain the page with your picture and your personal data");
• a photo ("It does not have to be a passport photo");
• what each course asks on top: a CV, a letter of motivation, letters of recommendation, a module description.

"We need each document once only, even if you are applying to multiple universities." Your papers are in English, so they need no translation; uni-assist accepts only certified translations, never "non-certified translations from standard translation agencies".

Your CV and your letter of motivation. "Some universities require a CV without any omissions which is current up to the date of application. List everything you have done up until now. Start with your first school." "If you were not enrolled at university or did not work for a time, write 'no special activities / no studies'." Put your NYSC year in it. In your letter of motivation, "Name your chosen university and the course of study you are applying to visibly and in bold print at the top", and explain how the master's follows from your bachelor's: applicants refused visas in 2025 and 2026 heard that their course did not follow their degree.

Step 3. Submit, and apply to the university where it asks

Do. Submit your online application in My assist. "The processing time starts once you have submitted your online application form." Then:

• Standard form: uni-assist forwards your application to the university when it is "Okay".
• VPD: when the VPD is ready, download it from "My inbox" and "Submit your VPD as an upload, together with your application documents, directly to your university before the deadline." At TU Berlin that is its own master's portal; "An application without the preliminary review documentation (VPD) from uni-assist is considered incomplete and will result in formal rejection." If the VPD is not ready by TUM's deadline, TUM takes its own signed confirmation form in its place.

TU Berlin, the worked example. Only one master's application per semester: "A second application will not be considered." Its checklist: the VPD; the degree certificate and transcript; the study and examination regulations and module descriptions, if they exist, with the relevant parts highlighted (module descriptions are a description of each course you took in your bachelor's, its content and its credit units; RWTH calls it "A module catalog or course descriptions of all the courses you completed": ask your department for its course outlines, signed and stamped); the English proof; a declaration of your previous periods of study, "chronologically, completely, and without gaps"; a certificate of enrolment or exmatriculation (exmatriculation is the paper that shows you have left a university; if you graduated and hold none, no TU Berlin page says what takes its place, so ask TU Berlin's master's admissions in writing the week you apply to uni-assist for your VPD: "I graduated from a Nigerian university and hold no exmatriculation certificate; what do I upload in its place?" Upload what it names. If no answer has come a week before the deadline, upload your statement of result, the paper that shows your degree is complete); your passport's photo page. "If your application is not complete after the application deadline, it will be rejected for formal reasons."

Time. "You will usually receive your evaluation result in 4 to 6 weeks"; uni-assist's current times on 12 October 2026: "Africa, Middle East and Iran: 1-2 weeks". "The processing of your VPD application usually takes 4 to 6 weeks." uni-assist does not hurry for a visa: "I have to apply for a visa. Can you process my application faster? No". So submit at least eight weeks before each deadline. A VPD "is valid for one year from its date of issue" (TU Berlin also says one year; TUM accepts its own for three years).

What each status means. "In evaluation"; "Faulty: Your application does not meet all criteria ... You may submit any missing documents before the application deadline."; "Okay"; "Case-by-case decision: ... we will forward your application to the university. The university will contact you."

You are done when uni-assist shows "Okay" (or your VPD is in your inbox and uploaded to the university), and each university has your application before its deadline.

If it goes wrong.

• A "Faulty" status: upload what is missing before the deadline.
• A deadline missed: "If the application deadline has passed, you can no longer submit documents or make any changes. If that is the case, you can apply again for a later semester." Your account stays: "Please do not set up a new account." uni-assist keeps your documents for up to three years.
• A wrong course chosen after processing: create a new application; each new course is €30.
• A question: uni-assist's contact form, or +49 30 201 646 001, Monday to Friday, 10am to 1pm German time, with your applicant number.

From applicants who did it. One VPD took about two weeks (May 2025). The mistakes applicants name most are applying too close to the deadline and sending a transcript without the grading scale.

Same as the DAAD scholarship. Oldenburg's SuRE takes its EPOS and self-funded applications through uni-assist, so your My assist account and uploads serve both.

On a university with its own portal. Apply in the university's portal with the same scans and pay no uni-assist fee. RWTH: "All applications must be submitted online via our digital application portal. No physical documents need to be mailed"; upload "A module catalog or course descriptions of all the courses you completed" ("Your application may however have to be rejected due to your missing module catalog") and a resume in list form; "You can apply for a maximum of 5 open admission Master's courses of study". Stuttgart: apply in C@MPUS, "please upload your documents twice: the original version and the translated document" where a paper is not in English or German, and add the "Description of the contents and modules of your completed Bachelor's study program". Bonn: "There is a specific application process for each master's degree program."

On Baden-Württemberg's tuition. Nothing changes here: Stuttgart charges no application fee. The tuition notice comes after you accept your place.

Next. Wait for the universities' answers, then your admission letter (Stage 5).

Stage 5. Your admission letter

Back to the short stages

Your applications are in. Now the answers come. The DAAD: "Letters of acceptance are sent out in August/September and in February/March. Rejections are often sent a little later." RWTH's boards must answer for its open-admission master's by 15 September for a winter start. When an admission letter comes, you do four things: accept it, check that it carries what the visa needs, plan your room, and know what keeps the letter alive until your visa appointment.

Do.

1. Accept your place as the letter says (at TUM, "You accept your spot" in its portal). uni-assist: "If you are offered admission by multiple universities, you are free to decide which one to accept."
2. Check the letter. The visa file asks for an "Admission Letter (current) from a German University, stating, the course, the starting date and the language of instruction". If your letter does not say the course is taught in English, ask the university for one that does: the law asks the visa office for proof of English only where the university did not check it at admission.
3. Your room comes later. Apply for a room at the Studierendenwerk of your university town the week your appointment date is booked (Stage 8), not now: your appointment will come after the semester your letter names, and an applicant who held a room while waiting wrote that "the bills are beginning to rack up on a room I have never been to." The DAAD's Accommodation Finder lists the halls with their Studierendenwerk (Stage 11). In Munich the list is longer ("Depending on the hall of residence, the waiting period is between one and seven semesters"), "From the day you apply, your name will be on the waiting list", and you upload a current certificate of matriculation every semester to stay on it.

4. Know what keeps your letter alive, from your university's own pages. Your appointment will come after the semester your first letter names (Stage 8), so read your university's rule before you accept:

   • TUM: "Up until the enrollment deadline (5 weeks after the start of lectures), you can withdraw from your planned degree program without any consequences", and its departmental advisor issues a late-arrival letter.
   • RWTH: enrolment for a master's without restricted admission runs from 1 August to 31 October for the winter semester; "A complete refund of student body and social contributions is only possible until the last working day before the start of lectures."
   • Stuttgart: the enrolment deadline is in your letter ("In most cases, this is May 15 for the summer semester and November 15 for the winter semester"); "If the application for enrollment is not received within the specified period, the letter of admission becomes invalid"; you can waive your place "By September 30 (winter semester) or March 31 (summer semester) at the latest".
   • Enrolling from Nigeria before your visa: the DAAD lists "Your passport with visa or residence permit" among the papers you enrol with, so plan to enrol in Germany, after your visa (Stage 11).
   • TU Berlin, the worked example, prints no deferral rule and no enrolment deadline for a master's. This is the one question to ask: write to TU Berlin's master's admissions the week your letter comes: "If my visa appointment in Lagos comes after this semester starts, can I defer my admission to a later semester, how many times, and will you issue a late-arrival letter?" If it defers, defer each semester until your appointment (Stage 8). If it does not, you apply again for the semester your appointment reaches, with the same uni-assist account (Stage 8).

Where. Your email and your university's portal. Your International Office's address is on its page and at the bottom of your course's Hochschulkompass entry.

Cost. Free to accept. The semester contribution is paid at enrolment (Stage 11). On Baden-Württemberg's tuition, the tuition notice comes now.

You are done when you have accepted your place in writing, your letter states the course, the start date and English as the language of instruction, and you know what keeps it alive: your university's rule above, or TU Berlin's written answer.

If it goes wrong.

• A conditional admission. Applicants report that the consulate turned away a "Conditional enrollment/admission letter" (March 2025). Meet the condition and get the final letter before your appointment.
• A rejection at every course. Apply again for the next semester with the same uni-assist account, to courses whose grade line you meet (Stage 1, and "From today").

Same as the DAAD scholarship. An EPOS course's admission comes with or after its scholarship decision; Heidelberg tells EPOS applicants their result "by February".

On a university with its own portal. The same: RWTH sends your admission through RWTHonline; Stuttgart's enrolment deadline and its waiver dates are above.

On Baden-Württemberg's tuition. After you accept, the university sends the tuition notice. Apply for any exemption then: Stuttgart takes an exemption application only "after the acceptance of the university place and the receipt of the notification of the tuition fee". Pay the first year's tuition before you apply for the visa online (Stage 6).

Next. Your blocked account (Stage 6), then your visa application online (Stage 7), in the same week. Do them in that order: the visa portal asks for your papers when you apply, and the list runs from the day you join.

Stage 6. Your blocked account

Back to the short stages

You hold your admission. Now put your living money where the visa can see it. The German missions in Nigeria: "Open the blocked account in good time BEFORE applying for a visa. When applying for a visa, only the official confirmation of the account opening, including information on the amount paid in and the amount available per month, will be accepted."

How much. "University studies (including preparatory language courses) 992 EUR net per month"; "2-year degree programme in Germany: You must provide proof of funds totaling €11,904 (12 × €992). Although the programme lasts two years, proof is only required for a maximum of one year." So €11,904 (about ₦17.8 million), whatever the length of your master's.

How it works. The Federal Foreign Office: "You are free to choose where to open your account. Usually, you can open a blocked account online." "In addition to the amount blocked in the account, you have to pay the requisite banking fees." "Only a certain amount can be withdrawn every month." You name the mission where you apply as the account's beneficiary before the visa, and the foreigners office after you arrive; "The account beneficiary is not, however, able to withdraw your money." "The Federal Foreign Office does not make any recommendations".

Choose a provider. Deutsche Bank no longer opens blocked accounts ("Neueröffnungen von Sperrkonten sind nicht mehr möglich"). Three providers' own pages, updated on 10 October 2026 (Coracle's on 19 October 2026):

Expatrio's own 12-month sum: €11,904 + €119 + €108 = €12,131 (about ₦18.16 million). Choose the provider whose payment step takes your money from where it is (Paying in euros from Nigeria, before Stage 4), and whose source-of-funds questions you can answer with papers. If none takes naira from your bank, the letter to your bank in that section is your next step.

Do.

1. Open the account online with the provider you chose.
2. Pay in €11,904 plus the provider's fees, from your own account or from the person paying for you, with that person's bank statement and the papers that show where the money came from.
3. Download the blocking confirmation that shows the amount paid in and the amount available per month. That is the paper for your visa file.

What you need. What the provider asks when you open the account, and the papers behind the money: the payer's bank statement and his or her payslips or business records (applicants report providers checking where the money came from).

Cost. €11,904 (about ₦17.8 million) of your own money, paid back to you €992 a month in Germany. Fees: €227 (about ₦339,800) for a year with Expatrio, and €9 (about ₦13,500) for each further month you wait for your appointment (Part 1, What this route asks of you). If the missions' monthly amount rises before your appointment, you top up to it (Stage 8).

Time. Days, once the money is in euros; the confirmation follows the money.

You are done when you hold the provider's blocking confirmation with the amount paid in and the monthly amount.

The other forms of proof. The missions take two others. A formal obligation (Verpflichtungserklärung) signed by a person living in Germany at his or her foreigners office, "not older than six months", accepted only "with the remark 'nachgewiesen'". And a scholarship from German public funds or a recognised funder, which replaces the blocked account. A letter from a relative in Nigeria is neither.

If your visa is refused or you withdraw. "If your visa application was rejected, the rejection notice is sufficient to lift the blocking notice." If you withdraw without a refusal letter, the Consulate General in Lagos issues "an informal email confirming that you do not have an ongoing application", and if the provider does not accept that, you book a consular declaration under Legal and consular affairs for €36 (about ₦53,900), paid in naira.

From applicants who did it. Expatrio was the provider most recommended in 2025 and 2026 ("some get their blocking confirmation in hours after payment"); Fintiba's source-of-funds check rejected one applicant's statement twice days before her interview (February 2025). Most posters funded the account through a relative or friend abroad; no 2025 or 2026 account describes a Form A transfer from a Nigerian bank into a blocked account. One applicant whose confirmation came the day after his interview was not interviewed and was told to apply again (January 2025). Posters online sell formal obligations ("SL is ready DM"): a bought or false paper gets the visa refused, puts you on a warning database and brings a Schengen-wide entry ban, in the missions' own words.

Same as the DAAD scholarship. An EPOS holder shows the DAAD award letter in place of the blocked account.

On Baden-Württemberg's tuition. Pay the first year's tuition now and keep the university's receipt: the visa file asks for "Proof of payment for the first year of study", and "If your university doesn't accept a full payment, please add the funds to your blocked account". At TUM, which takes one semester at a time, "Please additionally transfer the amount for the second semester to your blocked account." Pay it through your bank's school-fees FX (Paying in euros from Nigeria, before Stage 4).

Next. Apply for the visa online (Stage 7).

Stage 7. Apply for the visa online and join the list

Back to the short stages

Your money is in place. Now apply for the student visa, the same week. Since 1 January 2025 every German visa section abroad is connected to the Consular Services Portal: you apply online, the mission checks your papers online, and when your turn comes you attend an appointment to give your fingerprints, show your originals and pay.

Which mission. "As a rule, the German Consulate General in Lagos is responsible for all visa applications." The Embassy in Abuja takes a study application only from a holder of a scholarship paid from public funds who lives in one of the states it lists. So a self-paying student applies to Lagos, from Ibadan, from Lagos and from Kaduna alike. Its service provider, VFS Global, takes in the study applications.

Which category. On the portal, "Study, Specific qualifications" is for a PhD admission, a scholarship from German public or EU funds, or "a bachelor's degree with a grade of 1. Class issued no more than 2 years ago and having been accepted to a master's degree". "All other please apply in the other categories: Study Regular". With a 2:1, a 2:2, or a first older than two years, choose Study Regular. With a recent first class, choose Specific qualifications and upload the proof of your first class.

Do.

1. Open the Consular Services Portal from the missions' University studies page ("APPLY ONLINE NOW") and make your account.
2. Fill in the form for studying, in your category, and upload your papers as the University studies page lists them (Stage 9 has the list). No missions' page says which of the 20 items the portal asks you to upload and which you bring only on the day: upload every paper the portal asks for, and bring all 20 on the day.
3. Submit. "Your details and documents will then be checked for completeness. You will receive feedback as to whether your documents are complete and have been submitted successfully." "If there's an issue with your information or documents, you can take immediate action to rectify the problem online."
4. Write down the day you joined and your reference number. From here your turn comes in the order of the list: "You will then receive the link to book an appointment at the visa section" (Stage 8).

Where. German Missions in Nigeria, University studies, opens in a new tab, with the button to the Consular Services Portal, opens in a new tab.

What you need. Your current admission letter, your blocked account confirmation (and on Baden-Württemberg's tuition, the proof that your first year's tuition is paid), your passport and the papers the portal asks for.

Cost. Applying and booking are free: "Booking an appointment is FREE OF CHARGE." The visa fee is paid at the appointment (Stage 9).

Time. Days to fill in and upload. One applicant reported the preliminary check's corrections in 7 days (2026).

You are done when the portal tells you your papers are complete and you are on the list, with the day you joined and your reference number written down.

If it goes wrong.

• You are already on the old Lagos waiting list. The missions' FAQ: "If you are already on the waiting list, please wait for your appointment. Only new applicants should use the portal."
• The wrong category. "Applicants who book appointments under the wrong visa category will not be attended to and must re-register."
• The wrong mission. "Please therefore do not attempt to apply online at a different mission abroad".

From applicants who did it. "You can't join waiting list without an admission letter" (June 2026). Applicants under the portal say the blocked account had to be funded and uploaded before they could join: "you must have the blocked account already opened and fully funded" (April 2026). A first-class applicant's portal sorted her as Study Regular until she reported a partial scholarship (2025 and 2026), and an applicant in Specific qualifications who came without the degree certificate was "denied for incomplete documents" (January 2025).

Same as the DAAD scholarship. An EPOS holder applies under Specific qualifications, and if she lives in the FCT or a listed northern state she may email the Embassy in Abuja (visa@abuj.diplo.de) for an interview. A DAAD scholar reported in April 2026 that Abuja gave dates "after only email correspondence" while Lagos put him on its list.

On a university with its own portal. The same.

On Baden-Württemberg's tuition. Upload the university's confirmation that your first year's tuition is paid with your blocked account confirmation.

Next. The wait in the Lagos queue (Stage 8).

Stage 8. The wait in the Lagos queue

Back to the short stages

You are on the list. Now the longest stage of this route begins, and its pace is the Consulate's, not yours: "The Consulate schedules appointments in strict chronological order of the waiting list." "Can I speed up my visa process? No." "We cannot provide a specific time frame". Your work in this stage is to reach your appointment with your place kept, an admission that is current on the day, your money in place and your file complete.

Do.

1. Count your appointment. From the day you joined: about 15 months by the September 2026 accounts (the Consulate was then calling people who joined the portal in June 2025), or 19 to 25 months if you registered on the old list. Then count your semester: your appointment's month, plus up to three months for the decision (Stage 10), plus two weeks to travel. The first semester that starts after that date is the one your admission must be current for.
2. Keep your place. Check your email every two days, spam included, and answer each confirmation the day it comes. You can check your status on the portal: "You can check the current status of your application online in the Consular Services Portal."

3. Keep your admission current for the semester you counted. The visa file asks for an "Admission Letter (current)". Three things keep it current, by your university's rule (Stage 5):

   • Defer it where your university allows it, each semester, until the semester you counted.
   • Enrolling from abroad rests on applicants' accounts only: they kept a place at TUM by paying the semester fee for four semesters (2022 to 2025). The DAAD lists "Your passport with visa or residence permit" among the papers you enrol with, so plan to enrol in Germany (Stage 5); no page in this guide offers enrolment from abroad at TU Berlin.
   • Apply again in the window of the semester you counted, with the same uni-assist account (€75 for the first course; uni-assist re-uses your uploaded documents for 3 calendar years), so that a new letter is current on the day. A VPD is valid for one year (three at TUM), so a new application within that year reuses it.
4. Keep your money in place. Leave the blocked amount in; the provider's monthly fee runs (€9 with Expatrio). Read the missions' Financial means page in the month before your appointment: the missions accept only a confirmation showing "the amount paid in and the amount available per month", so if the page then prints a higher monthly amount, top your account up to it and download the new confirmation. A formal obligation, if you use one, must be "not older than six months" on your appointment day: have it made within the six months before.
5. Get your file ready now: the 20 items of Stage 9, above all your primary school results, your birth certificate by your year of birth and any affidavit. Revise the core courses of your bachelor's for the subject test (Stage 9). Start German (Stage 3).
6. Your passport. Issued in the last 10 years, valid for at least 6 more months, two free pages. A residence permit is never issued for longer than your passport is valid, so renew it now if it ends within your two years of study: a new passport takes 42 days (Stage 2).
7. Your room. The week your appointment date is booked, apply to the Studierendenwerk (Stage 5).

Where. Your email, the Consular Services Portal, opens in a new tab, your university's portal and My assist.

What you need. The day you joined and your reference number; your current admission letter and any earlier one; your blocked account confirmation; your 20 papers.

Cost. Booking is free. The blocked account's monthly fee for each month you wait: €9 (about ₦13,500) with Expatrio. Keeping your admission alive, each semester you wait, at TU Berlin: a new uni-assist application, €75 (about ₦112,275). Enrolling from abroad to keep it rests on applicants' accounts only (TUM, 2022 to 2025), and no page in this guide offers it at TU Berlin.

Time. No missions' page states how long you wait for a study appointment in Lagos. The federal overview of the visa for studying: "there may be waiting times when requesting an appointment. Processing times may strongly vary". What applicants report:

• On the old waiting list, a regular master's applicant waited about 19 to 25 months: registered 25 June 2024, appointment 22 April 2026; registered 21 December 2024, appointment 13 July 2026.
• On the portal, applicants who joined in mid 2025 were called in September 2026, although the portal's screen showed "Estimated waiting time: approx. 2-8 weeks".
• In the Specific qualifications category, applicants report weeks: applied 16 December 2024, appointment 27 January 2025 (reported January 2025). On the portal, a first-class graduate who applied in late June 2026 had the preliminary review back, with two corrections, in 7 days (July 2026).

You are done when the email with the link comes and you have booked your appointment from it, with a current admission, a funded blocked account and your 20 papers in hand. Book only a date you can keep: "Applicants who arrive late for their appointment cannot be accommodated and must book a new appointment", and applicants report that rescheduling stopped with the move to VFS (Stage 9).

If it goes wrong.

• Deleted from the list. No page says what follows a deletion, so write the same day to info@lago.auswaertiges-amt.de, the missions' only contact email, with your full name, date of birth, passport number and reference number, and ask whether your place can be restored or whether you apply again. If it is restored, keep your date. If not, apply online again the same day (Stage 7): the list runs from the day you join.
• No news. The missions ask you not to request status updates "unless more than three months have passed without any communication from us". Keep answering each confirmation.
• Your admission's semester passes before your appointment. Defer, or apply again for the semester you counted (Do, item 3). No missions' page says whether you upload the new letter to the portal, so ask the missions at info@lago.auswaertiges-amt.de, with your reference number, the week the new letter comes: "My new admission letter is for [semester]; do I upload it to the portal, or bring it to my appointment?" If they say upload, upload it. If they say bring it, bring it. In both cases, bring the newest letter and the earlier one to your appointment, with any late-arrival letter.
• Your passport changes after you apply online. No page says what the portal needs, so ask the missions at info@lago.auswaertiges-amt.de, with your reference number, the week the new passport comes: "Do I upload my new passport to the portal, or bring it to my appointment?" Bring both passports to your appointment in both cases.
• Someone offers you an earlier date for money. The Federal Foreign Office: "Agencies and other facilitators do not have any special or preferential access to the appointment booking system, even if they claim otherwise. Offers which advertise this are not trustworthy". The Lagos consulate "does not collaborate with any agents, agencies, or intermediaries for the booking of appointments."

From applicants who did it. "Yes dear it's 2 years oo except you're a first class" (a 2025 poster). "2 years for visa ? that means admission will expire then" (May 2026). Posters tracked the list month by month. Applicants on the old list had to reconfirm by 11 December 2025 or were deleted; applicants on the portal report a monthly confirmation email, and one found his application deleted after missing one email for nine days (July 2026). They kept their places alive by deferring where the university allowed it ("I've differed my admission twice having to pay the semester fee to keep me enrolled still", May 2026), by enrolling and paying the semester fee each semester (four semesters at TUM, one applicant reported in March 2025), or by applying again ("If your admission expires, it's advisable to reapply into any of your school choice, get admitted again before VISA appointment", April 2026). Some universities refused deferral (Tübingen, May 2025). In January 2025 an applicant interviewed the month before was asked for a late-arrival letter, sent it, and was approved the same day. Some applicants with a residence permit in Ghana, Togo or elsewhere applied there; that is not this guide's route.

Same as the DAAD scholarship. An EPOS award moves you to Specific qualifications, where applicants report weeks (Stage 7).

Next. Your visa appointment (Stage 9).

Stage 9. Your visa appointment

Back to the short stages

Your appointment date has come. Now take your file to it. "At this appointment, your identity and original documents will be checked, a short interview will be conducted, your biometric data (fingerprints and photo) will be recorded and the fee will be paid."

The file, in the order of the missions' sorting list (Status: June 2026). Originals and one black-and-white A4 copy of each, sorted in this order, nothing stapled:

1. The application form from VIDEX. VIDEX is the German missions' online visa form, separate from the portal: fill in the long-term form at VIDEX, long-term stay, opens in a new tab in English or German, typed ("Handwritten forms are not recommended and will slow down the process"). It prints your application form, the information notice under section 54 of the Residence Act (item 2) and the barcodes. Sign both with place and date.
2. The declaration under section 54 of the Residence Act, printed from VIDEX, signed.
3. The data protection (GDPR) form, signed with place and date. No missions' page states where to download it. If the portal does not give it, write to info@lago.auswaertiges-amt.de for it, with your reference number, the week your appointment is booked: without it your file is incomplete.
4. A copy of your passport's data page (and your original passport: "issued in the last 10 years", "valid for at least 6 more months", "at least two free pages").
5. A copy of a residence permit for Nigeria, if applicable.
6. Your admission letter, current, stating the course, the start date and the language of instruction (if it has changed, the newest and the earlier one, with any late-arrival letter: Stage 5).
7. An admission to a Studienkolleg, if any (not on this route).
8. Proof of tuition paid, only where tuition is charged.
9. Your blocked account confirmation (or the formal obligation).
10. Your CV, with "specification of certificates, diplomas, and qualifications obtained, professional training, work experience".
11. Your letter of motivation, "signed by the applicant, detailed expectations regarding the planned stay, anticipated career and personal benefits, as well as future plans".
12. Proof of work experience, if you have any: "work contracts, employer statements, salary slips".
13. Your language certificate, if you have one.
14. Your birth certificate, marriage certificate if any, your affidavits, and "Other old biographical documents that prove your identity" (such as an old passport, a voter's card, a baptism certificate).
15. Your school results in order: "Primary, Secondary school, WAEC or National diploma, Bachelor Degree".
16. Your transcript of records.
17. Papers for a minor (not you).
18. All your originals, in the same order.
19. Two biometric photographs, "not older than 6 months, uniform white background, size: 3,5x4,5 cm".
20. A "self-addressed prepaid courier envelope from any major courier service, addressed to yourself".

"Incomplete and unsorted applications will not be accepted." "Documents sent in advance cannot be considered." "Can I submit missing documents after my appointment? No."

Where. The address on your appointment confirmation: since March 2026, by applicants' and the press's accounts, VFS Global's centre in Lekki, Lagos. If you live outside Lagos, travel the day before: applicants describe arriving from about 6am.

Your English on the file. The missions' language rules name no English test for a course taught in English, and the law asks the visa office for proof of English only where the university did not check it at admission. Bring the English result or letter you were admitted with, and make sure your admission letter states the language of instruction.

Do. Arrive early with the file sorted, attend in person ("No proxies are allowed"), answer the interview, give your fingerprints and pay the fee. "Applicants who arrive late for their appointment cannot be accommodated and must book a new appointment."

Cost. "The fee for processing a visa application is 75 euros", "payable at the current exchange rate of the German mission in Nigerian Naira in cash or via POS". "The processing fee is not refundable in case of visa rejection." At ₦1,497 to the euro that is ₦112,275; applicants paid ₦118,500 in March 2025 and ₦133,000 to ₦134,000 in August and September 2025, at the mission's rate on the day. The press reported in April 2026 that VFS charges a service fee of its own; no official page states it, so ask VFS through its contact page the week your appointment is booked, and bring that sum in naira on the day. Add the courier envelope.

The interview and the subject test, as applicants describe them. The questions they report in 2025: what you applied for, the course, why Germany, why this course, how you will live ("What's your means of subsistence?"), whether you know anyone in Germany, where you work, where you have travelled, and the courses in your bachelor's. Since about January 2025 applicants describe a short written test of about ten questions on the basics of their bachelor's subject and simple arithmetic ("What is opportunity cost", "One apple costs $15, if I want to get 4 apples, how much will it cost?"). A June 2026 refusal turned on it: "unable to demonstrate the necessary specific subject knowledge". Revise the core courses of your degree before your date. No missions' page describes the test or states the language of the interview. The questions applicants quote from 2025 were put in English, and the missions take your papers in English ("for most visa categories, English documents are accepted"): prepare your answers in English.

You are done when the mission has taken your file, your fingerprints and your fee.

If it goes wrong.

• A missing paper. Missing papers cannot follow; the application can be refused. Check your file against the 20 items the night before.
• A forged or false paper. "any visa application submitted with forged documents or documents containing false information will be immediately and automatically rejected", with a warning-database entry and "a Schengen-wide entry ban". Never buy an affidavit, a letter or a statement.

From applicants who did it. The papers that sent people back in 2025 and 2026: the primary school certificate or testimonial ("They denied someone because of the document was not available", May 2026), a birth certificate or affidavit problem, a formal obligation older than six months, a conditional admission, and a degree certificate left at home. On the day, applicants describe arriving from about 6am for an 8am appointment and spending one to two hours inside.

On Baden-Württemberg's tuition. Item 8 is the university's confirmation that your first year's tuition is paid. A private university's applicant who brought a payment plan in July 2025 had her papers refused at the window.

Next. The decision and your insurance (Stage 10).

Stage 10. The decision and your insurance

Back to the short stages

You have attended your appointment. Now the decision is made, with the foreigners office in your university's town: "The German mission abroad can only issue the visa for entry once the foreigners authority has given its approval."

Time. The Federal Foreign Office: "the processing time for student visas may take several weeks, in individual cases even months." The missions answer no status questions "within the first 4 weeks". Applicants report one week to three months after the interview in most 2025 accounts, with some of four to seven months.

When the decision is positive: the incoming health insurance. "If a positive decision has been made on your visa, you will be asked to provide an incoming health insurance." It covers you from your arrival until your German statutory insurance starts, "must meet the standards set by SGB V" (the German social code), and "must not include any cancellation clauses for long-term stays". "Usually, only German providers offer such qualifying insurance." "The embassy/consulate is not entitled to give advice on a specific insurer or company." Policies applicants report as accepted in 2025: Mawista Student Classic Plus and Dr Walter Educare 24. One applicant had a one-day deadline. Choose your policy before your appointment, so you can buy it the day the email comes: no official page prints these policies' prices, so ask each provider for its price for your dates the week your appointment is booked, and choose the one that meets the two lines above. Buy it only when the mission asks, starting on the day you will enter Germany.

Do. Answer the mission's email within its deadline with the incoming insurance, and send or bring your passport as it asks. When the passport comes back, "it is your duty to verify whether the information printed on the visa sticker is correct and complete and to report any errors to the consulate immediately." Your originals come back to you after the decision.

You are done when you hold your passport with the visa in it, its details checked.

If it is refused. "Since 1st July 2025, it is no longer possible to appeal against visa application rejections to the diplomatic mission abroad." The refusal notice "gives the grounds on which it was rejected". You have two choices:

• A new application "at any time", "generally ... subject to the usual fee", with all your papers again, after you put right what the notice names.
• A court action at the Berlin Administrative Court, within "1 month from the date on which the notice is served". "The language of the court is German"; a lawyer is not compulsory; "the fees for court proceedings are currently set at about 480 euro" (about ₦719,000); "processing times of several months can generally be expected".

Then release your money: the refusal notice lifts the blocked account (Stage 6), and "This letter is usually sufficient ... for the university to (partially) refund your tuition fees."

From applicants who did it. Insurances refused in 2025: a policy sold as travel cover ("They said its for Schengen visa"), a three-month travel policy, and a preliminary paper from a statutory insurer. The refusals they report in 2025 and 2026 turned on a course "not aligned" with the earlier degree, the subject test, "low grades on their transcripts", and an affidavit bought through an intermediary; one refused applicant went to court in Berlin and reports the lawsuit "was successful" (May 2026).

Next. Travel (Stage 11).

Stage 11. Travel and your first two weeks

Back to the short stages

You hold your visa. Now go, with a room to sleep in and your papers in your hand luggage. The visa only lets you enter: in Germany you register your address, enrol and get your insurance in your first two weeks, and then apply for your residence permit.

Step 1. Before you fly

Do.

• Book your flight for a date inside your visa, before your enrolment deadline. BAMF: a long-stay visa "is issued for 90 days as a rule, but can also be issued for up to one year for certain purposes of residence such as study". Bonn: "a national visa, which typically is issued for a three-month period."
• Have a room, or at least your first nights. Study in Germany: "If you don't have accommodation when you arrive in Germany, you should figure out before you leave your home country where you can stay for the first few nights." Your International Office helps.
• Pack a set of your visa papers in your hand luggage. "the border police will also ask you to present documents upon entry, as well as proof of health insurance. You should therefore take a set of your visa documents with you on your trip."
• Contact a statutory health insurer at least two weeks before the semester (Step 3).
• Bring money for your first month. Your first €992 comes only after your room, your registration and your German bank account (Stage 12; Expatrio: 24 hours to check your papers, then 2 to 3 business days). Bring enough for your first month's rent (€280 in a student hall, €489 on average, by the DAAD's figures), the first part of the deposit, your first nights and your food until then. Carry it on your Personal Travel Allowance (up to US$4,000 a quarter at Access Bank).

Your room. Students arrange their own. The DAAD: "On average, students pay around 489 EUR for their accommodation"; "a room in a shared flat in Munich costs around 790 EUR, while the average price in Jena is 328 EUR"; "In the student residences run by student services a room costs on average 280 EUR per month"; "More than 40 percent of international students who come to Germany move into a student residence." The DAAD's Accommodation Finder, opens in a new tab lists student halls with their Studierendenwerk. A landlord's deposit "usually amounts to three times your monthly basic rent"; German law caps it at three months' rent without service charges and lets you pay it in three equal monthly parts, the first at the start of the tenancy.

Signs of a housing scam, in the DAAD's words. "The bank details are not in Germany and the IBAN does not begin with 'DE'". "Don't give any money in advance. The deposit is only due after the tenancy agreement has been signed. Reservation fees or viewing fees are not common."

From applicants who did it. Housing is the first crisis. On 30 September 2025, 33,005 students were on Studierendenwerk waiting lists in eleven cities, more than 8,800 in Munich alone, and the Studierendenwerke house only about one student in ten (Deutsches Studierendenwerk). An international student in Munich in July 2026: "Student accommodation is hard to get. It's a luck-based lottery system", and "I spent the first night on a borrowed mattress." Apply to the Studierendenwerk the week your appointment date is booked (Stage 5), never pay for a room you have not seen, and ask your International Office for an address you can register at.

Step 2. Register your address (the Anmeldung)

Do. Within two weeks of moving into your room, go to the residents' registration office (Einwohnermeldeamt or Bürgeramt) of your town and register. Book the appointment as soon as you land: Study in Germany says what matters is "that you booked an appointment as required within one or two weeks", and a late registration can bring a fine.

What you need. Your passport with your visa, and the landlord's written confirmation that you moved in (in the law's words, "der Bestätigung des Wohnungsgebers"). The law makes the landlord give it within the two weeks; if the landlord refuses, tell the registration office at once. "Sometimes additional documents such as your certificate of matriculation are required."

Cost. Free.

You are done when you hold your registration certificate from the registration office. The DAAD: "You cannot, for example, open a bank account until you have done this."

After you register. The registration office tells the broadcasting fee service, which writes to you: "For private households, the current fee is 18.36 euros per month" (about ₦27,500), one fee per dwelling. A room in a hall "located on a generally accessible hallway" counts as a dwelling; in a shared flat, one person pays for all. International students are "not usually" exempt.

Step 3. Enrol, and your health insurance

Do.

1. Choose a statutory health insurer (any public insurer, such as the AOK or TK) and ask it for the digital notification to your university, with your university's number (TUM's "H0001558", RWTH's "H0000784"). TUM: "Please contact a statutory health insurance provider in Germany at least 2 weeks before the start of the semester"; "Processing of digital notifications usually takes 2 working days"; "This confirmation is free of charge."
2. Enrol by your university's deadline, in person or online as your letter says, and pay the semester contribution. The DAAD: "Enrollment deadlines are often short. If you are too late or forget documents you will not be able to enrol."

What you need to enrol. "Your passport with visa or residence permit", "Your letter of acceptance", "Proof that you have statutory health insurance in Germany", and your degree certificate and transcript where your university asks for them (TUM asks for them "as authentic documents").

Cost. TU Berlin's semester fee for winter 2026/27: €379.06 (about ₦567,000), of which €226.80 is the Deutschland-Semesterticket. "It is not possible to pay the semester fee in cash ... And it is not possible to pay the semester fee in installments." Pay it from abroad with the full sum arriving (Paying in euros from Nigeria, before Stage 4).

Your health insurance's cost. For 2026, a student pays €87.38 a month for health insurance plus the insurer's own extra contribution, plus care insurance of €30.78 a month under 23 or €35.91 from 23 (AOK). At TK, a student of 23 or over without children pays €87.38 + €23.00 + €35.91, €146.29 a month (about ₦219,000). The DAAD puts the student rate at "about 120-130 euros per month". Student policies "only take effect once the semester begins, meaning on October 01 or April 01" (Bonn): your incoming insurance covers you until then.

Under 30 and over 30. An enrolled student is insured in statutory insurance "längstens bis zur Vollendung des dreißigsten Lebensjahres", at most until her 30th birthday. From 30 the cheaper student rate stops (Study in Germany: "the monthly premium jumps to 190 euros or more per month"). A student can ask to be exempted from statutory insurance within three months, but "Die Befreiung kann nicht widerrufen werden", the exemption cannot be undone. TUM's advice to students from a country with no social security agreement with Germany: "we strongly recommend that you take out statutory German health insurance". Take it.

You are done when you hold your certificate of enrolment (the matriculation certificate), which "can serve as a temporary replacement for your student ID", and your student ID follows.

Every semester after. "All students who intend to continue their studies after the recess period have to re-register by a certain date before the semester begins. If you fail to do this, you may be exmatriculated." At TU Berlin a late re-registration costs €19.94 more.

From applicants who did it. Posters under 30 enrolled with a public insurer for the university; over 30 they "cannot take advantage of cheap student public health insurance" (2025 and 2026).

On a university with its own portal. RWTH: "Enrollment is online only"; its enrolment period for a master's without restricted admission is 1 August to 31 October for the winter semester; "A complete refund of student body and social contributions is only possible until the last working day before the start of lectures." Stuttgart: "Enrollment at the University of Stuttgart is an exclusively online process"; "The processing time is approximately 14 days."

On Baden-Württemberg's tuition. Stuttgart's semester fee is €184 (about ₦275,400) on top of the €1,500 tuition each semester.

Next. Your residence permit and your first semester (Stage 12).

Stage 12. Your residence permit and your first semester

Back to the short stages

You are registered, enrolled and insured. Now open your bank account, get your blocked money flowing, and apply for your residence permit before your visa ends.

Your bank account. Study in Germany: bring your passport, your student ID or admission letter, and your registration confirmation, and "ask to open a current account (Girokonto)"; accounts "are usually free of charge for students". German law gives every consumer lawfully resident in the EU the right to a basic account, which the bank must offer within ten business days of the application.

Your blocked money. Give your provider your new German account. Expatrio: after you upload your documents "it will take us 24 hours to validate them. After the documents are validated, it can take 2-3 business days" for the first payout. Then €992 (about ₦1.49 million) comes each month.

Your residence permit. Apply at your town's foreigners office (Ausländerbehörde) before your visa expires; Study in Germany says "within the first three months".

What you need. The DAAD's list: "Passport, with visa where required", "Certificate of matriculation from your higher education institution", "Registration certificate from the residents' registration office", "Proof of sufficient funds" (your blocked account), "Health insurance", "Payment of a fee of up to 100 EUR (It's best to bring cash.)", and "Possibly passport photographs, tenancy agreement and health certificate".

Cost. Up to €100 (about ₦149,700) to issue it; €93 or €96 for each extension.

Time. The DAAD: "It can take several months until the card is ready." Study in Germany: "After four to six weeks you can personally pick up your residence permit". In Stuttgart, "Due to staff shortage, there is a considerable delay": about a week before your visa ends you receive either a Fiktionsbescheinigung, a paper that keeps you legal while you wait ("A handling fee is usually not charged."), or an appointment, and the card "will arrive via postal mail after 8 weeks". Munich's office states up to 12 months. Applicants report six to eight weeks for an appointment in a mid-size city, and longer in Berlin.

How long it lasts. By law, "in der Regel zwei Jahre", as a rule two years and at least one; a course shorter than two years gets a permit for its length. It is renewed while you can still finish in reasonable time. How long your first permit runs, and so when you show the money again, is set by your town's foreigners office: RWTH's Aachen office issues it "regelmäßig für bis zu 2 Jahre". Munich's office issues it "in der Regel für drei Jahre", as a rule for three years, which covers a two-year master's. No page in this guide states Berlin's term, so at TU Berlin the stricter reading governs you: plan to show a second year's €11,904 before your first year ends. No page in this guide counts your earnings from work as that proof, so do not plan on them.

You are done when you hold your residence permit card, or a Fiktionsbescheinigung while the card is made.

Keep it valid.

• "If you leave Germany for more than 6 months, your residence permit for study purposes will automatically lose its validity!" (TUM).
• At each renewal you show current proof of your money again (Aachen's foreigners office, Part 1). For your second year, put another year's living money in your blocked account or show it in another form before your renewal date. Aachen asks you to apply in the 8 weeks before it expires, not earlier than three months.
• Changing your course: Aachen allows a change of subject "regelmäßig nur dann, wenn der Studiengang in den ersten 18 Monaten nach Beginn des Studiums gewechselt wird", as a rule only within the first 18 months, and never without the foreigners office's approval.
• If your permit is withdrawn for reasons you are not responsible for, you get up to nine months to apply to another university.

Your family. The Federal Foreign Office: a student's family joins her "usually only ... if the student is in possession of a residence permit, if the marriage existed at the time of said permit being granted and if the duration of the foreigner's stay in the Federal territory is expected to exceed one year", and "the student has to be able to support himself/herself and his/her family without assistance of public funds." Aachen adds living space of 12 square metres a person and health insurance for each. No official page states the sum a family must show. Applicants in 2025 describe the family's visa queue as its own, "around 19 months to get a. Appointment for family reunion visa, and another 6-9 months for verification and approval". Come alone first.

From applicants who did it. An international student in Munich wrote in July 2026 that she spent every euro of her monthly payout and worked 20 hours a week to save. A Munich room costs more than the DAAD's average: choose your city on €992 a month.

On a university with its own portal. The same. RWTH's office in Aachen issues the permit "regelmäßig für bis zu 2 Jahre" and asks your registration "möglichst innerhalb einer Woche nach der Einreise", within a week of arrival.

Next. Working while you study (Stage 13).

Stage 13. Working while you study

Back to the short stages

You are settled. Now, if you want to earn, work within the limits of your permit. The DAAD: "International students from other countries are allowed to work 140 full days or 280 half days per year."

The rule. The law counts your work on a "working-day account" of 140 days a year, by whichever of two rules suits you each week: a day of up to four hours counts as a half day; or, during the lecture period, a week of up to 20 hours, and in the semester break any week, counts as two and a half days. Jobs at your university as a student assistant ("studentische Nebentätigkeiten") are not counted, though you tell the foreigners office about them. "Self-employed work or freelancing is only possible if permitted by the Ausländerbehörde." To work more you need the permission of the Federal Employment Agency and the foreigners office, given "only ... in cases of special financial need". "you may be deported if you break them."

Internships. A voluntary internship counts against your 140 days; a compulsory internship in your course does not (TUM; Study in Germany).

The pay. "Since January 2026 it stands at 13.90 EUR per hour" (the minimum wage, about ₦20,800); Stuttgart says it "will be 14.60 EUR in 2027". A minijob pays up to €603 a month (about ₦902,700) with no tax for you, in the Minijob-Zentrale's 2026 figure.

What it covers. The DAAD: "It is virtually impossible for students to fund their entire cost of living through side jobs." Your blocked account pays your living; work adds to it.

When you may start. Aachen's office: work within the 140 days is allowed "regelmäßig mit Beginn des Fachstudiums", as a rule from the start of your course.

From applicants who did it. "A good 60 per cent of international students work alongside their studies" (the DAAD's 2025 survey). A Munich student in 2026 worked a 20-hour-a-week job in her field. Sellers online still cite "120 full or 240 half days": that is the rule before 2024; the 140 days above is the rule now.

Next. After your master's (Stage 14).

Stage 14. After your master's

Back to the short stages

You are close to your degree. Now plan the stay after it. A graduate of a German university has a permit to look for work, and a shorter road to settlement than someone who studied abroad.

The job-search permit. The law: after a degree completed in Germany on a study permit, a permit "zur Suche nach einer Erwerbstätigkeit", to look for work, for up to 18 months; you must be able to support yourself; it cannot be extended beyond the 18 months. The federal service text: "During the job search, any gainful employment is permitted and does not require a permit." Apply to your foreigners office "at least 8 days before your valid residence permit expires", with your passport, your degree and proof that you can "secure your livelihood and health insurance cover without claiming public benefits". No official page states the monthly sum. Fee: €98 (about ₦146,700). The card takes "about 4 to 6 weeks".

The job. When you find work that fits your degree, you change to one of two permits:

• The skilled-worker permit for graduates (section 18b): "Einer Fachkraft mit akademischer Ausbildung wird eine Aufenthaltserlaubnis zur Ausübung jeder qualifizierten Beschäftigung erteilt", a permit for any qualified job.
• The EU Blue Card: for a degree no more than three years old, a gross salary of at least €45,934.20 a year in 2026 (about ₦68.8 million), with the Federal Employment Agency's approval, for a contract of at least six months.

Settlement. After a German degree: a settlement permit after two years on a skilled-worker permit or Blue Card, with 24 months of pension contributions and German at B1. On the Blue Card: after 27 months, or 21 with B1.

German. The DAAD: "unless you are seeking a job in research or IT, employers will probably expect you to be fluent in German." Settlement asks B1. Start in your first semester.

From graduates who did it. The DAAD's survey of more than 20,000 international students (July 2025): "Two thirds plan to stay in Germany after their studies", and "ten years after the start of their studies, 46 per cent of international students are still in Germany". The market for new graduates has tightened: Indeed's Hiring Lab put entry-level openings in September 2026 at "46 percent below 2019 levels", with IT entry-level postings down 77%. Graduates of English-only courses, the same survey found, "need support in improving their language skills". Take a Werkstudent job (a student job in your field) before your final year.

Next. Your first job in Germany, on the permit above.

Part 4. What can stop you

Your deadlines

Write each date down the day it arrives. Most pages print no hour: act days before.

What stops people, and what you do

An HND, or a degree anabin does not rate. An HND does not open a German master's (Part 1); take a bachelor's first. If your degree is not in anabin, search its degree type there, and if a university asks for one, apply to the ZAB for a Statement of Comparability: €208 (about ₦311,400), "3 months for a regular application", which "cannot be expedited".

A grade below the course's line. Apply only where your grade meets the line (Stage 1). A university's admission is its own decision.

A transcript that does not come. Order it through your university's portal the week you choose your courses (Stage 2), never through anyone who offers to "fast track" it. If it has not come within a month, email the records office with your payment reference.

A name that differs across your papers. Swear the affidavit the visa file names before you apply (Stage 2), and apply for your transcript in the name you were admitted with.

An English letter where a test is asked. Sit IELTS Academic (Stage 3). RWTH, Bonn's Computer Science and Stuttgart's INFOTECH do not take the letter.

A uni-assist payment that fails. Use a 3D Secure card, or a transfer to your personal IBAN with "OUR", or another person's payment to your IBAN (Paying in euros from Nigeria). Pay early: a transfer can take two weeks.

A missed deadline. Apply for the next semester with the same uni-assist account.

No admission letter when you want to join the visa list. The missions' University studies page has you upload your papers when you apply online, and your admission letter is on its list; applicants confirm the portal will not take you without one (Stage 7). Apply this month to the courses whose windows are open ("From today"). The missions in Nigeria list no page for a visa to seek a place at university; plan on the student visa with an admission letter.

Your admission expires before your appointment. Defer it, keep it alive by enrolling and paying the semester fee where your university allows, or apply again so that it is current on the day (Stage 8).

Deleted from the waiting list. Applicants report deletion after a missed confirmation email (Stage 8). Check your email every two days, spam included, and answer each confirmation the day it comes. If you are deleted, write to info@lago.auswaertiges-amt.de the same day with your full name, date of birth, passport number and reference number (Stage 8).

The blocked account not confirmed in time. Fund it before you apply online (Stage 6); keep the confirmation with your file.

An incomplete file on the day. Check the 20 items the night before (Stage 9). Your primary school certificate, your birth certificate by year of birth and your affidavits are the papers applicants most often lacked.

The subject test. Revise the basics of your bachelor's degree before your appointment (Stage 9).

A refusal. Read the grounds in the notice. Put right what it names and apply again, or take the case to the Berlin Administrative Court within a month (Stage 10). Your refusal notice releases your blocked money.

Travel insurance in place of incoming health insurance. Buy a policy that meets the German social code and has no long-stay exclusion (Stage 10).

No room on arrival. Apply to the Studierendenwerk the week your appointment date is booked (Stage 5), and arrange your first nights before you fly (Stage 11).

A wait for your residence permit. Apply as soon as you are registered and enrolled; in Stuttgart a Fiktionsbescheinigung keeps you legal while you wait (Stage 12).

Part 5. If you already did some of this

You hold an admission letter, and your visa appointment is months away. You are in Stage 8, the wait. Do these now:

1. Check your letter. It states the course, the start date and English as the language of instruction (Stage 5).
2. The portal. If you have not applied on the Consular Services Portal, fund your blocked account and apply this week (Stages 6 and 7): the list runs from the day you join. If you registered on the old Lagos waiting list, do not apply again: "If you are already on the waiting list, please wait for your appointment."
3. Count your appointment and your semester. From the day you joined: about 15 months on the portal by the September 2026 accounts, or 19 to 25 months on the old list. Add up to three months for the decision (applicants report one week to three months, Stage 10) and two weeks to travel. The first semester that starts after that is the one your admission must be current for (Stage 8).
4. Keep your admission current for that semester, by your university's own rule (Stage 5): defer it, or apply again in that semester's window with the same uni-assist account ("Where the window stands today" has the windows). Enrolling from abroad rests on applicants' accounts only (TUM, 2022 to 2025), and no page in this guide offers it at TU Berlin: plan to enrol in Germany (Stage 5). At TU Berlin, whose pages print no deferral rule, send the one question of Stage 5 this week.
5. Your blocked account. If it is not yet funded, fund it now: the missions accept only the provider's confirmation, and papers cannot follow your appointment (Stages 6 and 9). If it is, leave it in, and read the missions' Financial means page in the month before your appointment (Stage 8).
6. Your passport. Issued in the last 10 years, valid for at least 6 more months, two free pages. A residence permit is never longer than your passport, so renew now if it ends within your two years of study: a new passport takes 42 days (Stage 2). If it changes after you apply online, Stage 8 has the one question to send the missions.
7. Your email. Check it every two days, spam included, and answer each confirmation the day it comes (Stage 8).
8. Your file. Get it together now: the 20 items of Stage 9, especially your primary school certificate, your birth certificate by your year of birth and any affidavit.
9. The subject test. Revise the core courses of your bachelor's degree (Stage 9).
10. Your room. Apply to the Studierendenwerk the week your appointment date is booked (Stage 5).
11. German. Start at A1, with Deutsche Welle's free course (Stage 3).

You hold a VPD. It is valid for one year from its date (three at TUM), for the university it was made for. Apply to that university with it (Stage 4).

You hold an IELTS or TOEFL result. Check it against each course's score and its age (Stage 3, Part 4). TOEFL lasts two years; TU Berlin takes certificates up to three years old.

Your transcript has already gone to another university or a scholarship body. Order a new official copy for uni-assist or your German universities (Stage 2): each recipient needs its own.

You applied for the DAAD's EPOS. Keep your self-funded applications going. If EPOS is awarded, you apply for the visa under Specific qualifications with the award letter in place of the blocked account (Stage 7).

You hold a UK offer too. Your IELTS Academic, your transcript and your passport serve both (Part 1). Decide once you know both answers.

You were refused a German visa before. Read the grounds on the notice. If the grounds were your course or your papers, change the course or the papers before you apply again (Stage 10).

You hold an HND. Part 1, Check that you can start: a bachelor's first.

Part 6. The time, stage by stage

• Stage 1, your courses: no official time; a few weeks.
• Stage 2, your papers: no university page states a transcript time except ABU (24 to 48 hours for an e-copy, 5 to 7 days for a hard copy). A new passport: 42 days after enrolment.
• Stage 3, your English: IELTS on computer, results in 1 to 5 days; TOEFL scores 3 days after the test.
• Stage 4, uni-assist: 4 to 6 weeks as a rule; 1 to 2 weeks for certificates from Africa on 12 October 2026; a VPD 4 to 6 weeks. Submit at least 8 weeks before the deadline.
• Stage 5, the universities' answers: August and September for an October start; February and March for April.
• Stage 6, the blocked account: days for the transfer; the confirmation when the money lands.
• Stage 7, applying online: days to fill in and upload.
• Stage 8, the wait in the Lagos queue: no official time; about 15 months on the portal by the September 2026 accounts, 19 to 25 months on the old list, and weeks in the Specific qualifications category.
• Stage 9, the appointment: one to two hours on the day, by applicants' accounts.
• Stage 10, the decision: "several weeks, in individual cases even months"; applicants report one week to three months.
• Stage 11, your first two weeks: register within two weeks; health insurance notification about 2 working days.
• Stage 12, your residence permit: "four to six weeks" to "several months" for the card.
• Stage 13, work: 140 full days or 280 half days a year.
• Stage 14, after the degree: up to 18 months to find work.

The whole journey. No official page states it. From your first application to your first semester, the Lagos queue decides it (Stage 8). Apply now to the April 2027 courses whose lines you meet, join the list with your first admission letter in February or March 2027 (January with a Bonn admission), and keep an admission current for the semester your appointment reaches. If you join in February or March 2027 and the wait is the 15 months applicants reported in September 2026, your first semester in Germany is October 2028; on the old list's 19 to 25 months, it is October 2028 at the earliest and as late as October 2029 ("Where the window stands today"). The course itself is four semesters.

Part 7. The money, all of it

Every amount in the order you meet it, for one year at TU Berlin, applying to three courses through uni-assist, for you alone.

What the €992 a month pays for, in Germany. Your room (on average €280 in a student hall and €489 for students overall, by the DAAD's figures), your health insurance (€146.29 a month at TK from age 23), the broadcasting fee if you have your own flat (€18.36 a month), your food and the rest. The DAAD's 2023 survey put students' average spend at €876 a month, of which rent €410 and food €198. Your semester contribution already pays for the Deutschland-Semesterticket.

What the total leaves out. The blocked account's fees for each month you wait for your appointment, and the cost of keeping your admission alive each semester you wait (the two lines under the total); your flight; your incoming health insurance for your first weeks (no page states a price); the VFS service fee; your travel to Lagos and a night there for your appointment, if you live outside Lagos; your WAEC result checker card (WAEC Direct prints no price); the prepaid courier envelope for your visa file; your room's deposit (up to three months' basic rent, in three parts); your first nights before your room; the letter that you studied in English (₦5,000 at UNILAG); a statement of result if your certificate is not ready; and your second year: your permit renewal asks for new proof of money (Stage 12), another €11,904 at today's rate, and two more semester contributions.

At other universities.

• RWTH Aachen (its own portal): no uni-assist fee, and a semester contribution of €375.19: about ₦2.25 million in fees, about ₦20 million with the blocked account.
• Baden-Württemberg (Stuttgart): add €3,000 (about ₦4.49 million) of tuition for the year, paid before your visa appointment, with Stuttgart's semester fee of €184 in place of TU Berlin's: about ₦6.37 million in fees, about ₦24.2 million with the blocked account.
• TUM: add €8,000 or €12,000 for the year at today's rates, €4,000 or €6,000 a semester; from winter 2027/28 new students pay €4,600 or €6,800 a semester. TUM's study grant gives €500 to €1,800 a semester, credited against the fee, and its waiver scholarships waive the tuition for strong or needy entrants; neither is automatic.

What helps, and what does not. A university's own fee waiver or grant lowers the tuition, never the blocked amount. The Deutschlandstipendium (€300 a month) and the federal education loan (Bildungskredit) are named by the Hochschulkompass; neither page says whether a student from outside the EU can hold them.

Your family. No official page states the sum a family must show. A spouse joins only once you hold your residence permit and can support the family, with 12 square metres of living space a person (Stage 12).

The guide's date is 12 October 2026. Every fee, date and rule in it is from the official page that sets it; where a page had not yet printed something, the guide names the day it was read.