Study in Italy: Guide for International Students

Why Study in Italy?

Italy is the only major European destination where your tuition fee is calculated from your family’s income rather than your nationality. At a public university the national band runs from roughly €156 to about €4,000 a year — and students whose assessed income falls below the university’s threshold pay nothing at all.

What Italy is known for academically

Architecture, design and fashion; engineering, particularly at the two large polytechnics; medicine and the life sciences; economics and finance; archaeology, art history and conservation, where Italy has no real rival; and agriculture and food science. The university system is also among the oldest in the world, and several institutions have been teaching continuously for many centuries.

The two things that make Italy different

The honest trade-offs

Italy asks more of you administratively than almost anywhere else in Europe. The income assessment requires documents from your home country, translated and legalised, months in advance. The residence permit must be applied for within days of arrival. And the money you must prove before a visa is issued has risen steeply — more on that in the Costs and Visa tabs.

The other trade-off is language. English-taught degrees exist in good numbers at master’s level, but undergraduate teaching is overwhelmingly in Italian, and the job market afterwards runs on Italian.

How the Italian University System Works

Italy has three kinds of higher education institution, and the difference decides both your fees and your admission route.

How Italian degrees are structured

Italy follows the European system, measured in CFU credits, which are the Italian name for ECTS credits:

• Laurea — the first degree, three years, 180 credits
• Laurea magistrale — the second-cycle degree, two years, 120 credits
• Laurea magistrale a ciclo unico — single-cycle degrees in medicine, dentistry, veterinary science, pharmacy, law and architecture, running five or six years
• Dottorato di ricerca — the doctorate, normally three years, funded by a scholarship

One term you will meet constantly

Programmes are often described as ad accesso libero (open access) or ad accesso programmato (restricted, with a fixed number of places and an entrance examination). Medicine, dentistry, veterinary science and architecture are restricted nationally; many other programmes set their own local entrance tests. Check which applies before you plan anything else.

The academic year

Teaching usually runs from late September or early October to the following summer, in two semesters with examination sessions between them. Applications and the ministry’s visa procedure run far ahead of that — the whole cycle is explained in the Italy student visa guide.

What You Can Study

Every level is open to international applicants, but the language reality differs sharply between them.

Laurea — the first degree

Three years. The English-taught offer at this level is limited and concentrated in a handful of universities and subjects, so most international undergraduates study in Italian and must prove their Italian before enrolling. Restricted-access programmes add an entrance examination, sometimes sat in your own country.

Laurea magistrale — the master’s

Two years, and the natural entry point for most international students. This is where the English-taught catalogue is concentrated, particularly in engineering, computer science, data science, economics and management, and international relations. Read the full Master’s guide.

Dottorato — the doctorate

Three years, entered by public competition, and funded by a scholarship that is set by ministerial decree and exempt from personal income tax. Browse live PhD, postdoc and faculty openings on the UpperCareers jobs board, or find a matching supervisor with the Supervisor Finder. Read the full PhD guide.

Other qualifications worth knowing

Italy also offers first- and second-level master universitario programmes, which are one-year professional qualifications rather than the two-year laurea magistrale. They are useful but are not the same degree, and the difference matters for further study and for some permit routes — read the programme page carefully before assuming a “master” is a master’s degree in the European sense.

Language: Italian or English?

Can I study in Italy in English?

Yes, but mainly at master’s and doctoral level. Several hundred degree programmes across Italy are taught entirely in English, concentrated in the larger universities of the north and centre. At undergraduate level the choice is far narrower and teaching is mostly in Italian.

Proving your language

Universities set these requirements individually under their own autonomy, so two programmes in the same city can ask for different evidence. The programme page is the only authority.

Why learn Italian even for an English-taught degree

Three practical reasons. Day-to-day administration — the residence permit, the tax code, the bank, the doctor — runs in Italian. Part-time work and internships are far easier to find with the language. And the graduate job market largely expects working Italian outside a handful of international employers. Many universities offer free or subsidised Italian courses to their international students; starting in your first semester rather than your last is the single most useful habit you can form.

What It Costs

Tuition is calculated from income, not nationality

At a state university your fee is set from your ISEE — an official indicator of your household’s economic situation, combining income, assets and family size. The national band runs from roughly €156 to about €4,000 a year. Below each university’s “no-tax area” threshold you pay no tuition at all; above the top threshold you pay the maximum.

The catch for international students

If your family’s income and assets are outside Italy, you need an ISEE parificato — an equivalent calculation built from documents issued in your home country. Not every university offers it to non-EU applicants; some instead apply a flat rate based on your citizenship and subject area. One large public university, for example, publishes a flat-rate range from €390 to €4,550 a year for non-EU students who do not submit financial documents. The full mechanism is in our ISEE and DSU scholarship guide.

If you submit nothing, you are placed in the highest band automatically. Skipping the assessment is the most expensive mistake an international student in Italy can make.

The regional tax and other fixed costs

On top of tuition, every student pays a regional right-to-study tax of roughly €120 to €200 a year, which funds the regional agency that awards scholarships and runs student housing and canteens. It is a fixed charge and does not depend on income. There is also a small stamp duty on enrolment.

Living costs

Health cover

Non-EU students normally enrol voluntarily in the Italian national health service, which gives access to a family doctor and the public system for an annual contribution — currently in the region of several hundred euros a year for students. EU students use their European health card. Confirm the current amount with your university’s international office, because the student rate has been revised in recent budget legislation.

Scholarships and Funding

Italy’s main student funding is not a national competition — it is a regional entitlement, and it is open to international students who meet the income and merit conditions.

Regional right-to-study scholarships

Each region runs an agency that awards scholarships on income and academic merit. The ministry sets a national minimum each year and the regions may pay more. The minimum amounts depend on where you live relative to your university:

Most international students qualify as fuori sede, which is the highest band. Winning a scholarship also normally brings a full tuition exemption, free or heavily subsidised canteen meals, and priority for a place in university housing. Around a quarter of a million of these scholarships are awarded across Italy each year.

Other funding

• Ministry of Foreign Affairs scholarships — awarded to foreign students and Italians living abroad for degree and doctoral study.
• University scholarships — merit awards and tuition waivers published on each institution’s own pages.
• Doctoral scholarships — not a competition for students but the standard funding of a doctorate; see the PhD guide.
• Erasmus+ — for mobility periods and joint European programmes.

Visa and Residence Permit

The two-stage system

Non-EU students need a national (type D) visa for study obtained before travelling, and then a permesso di soggiorno — a residence permit — applied for within eight working days of arriving in Italy. EU citizens need no visa but must register locally if staying beyond three months.

Universitaly comes first

Before the consulate will process your visa, you must complete pre-enrolment on Universitaly, the ministry’s official portal, and your chosen university must validate it there. This is not optional and there is no workaround: without a validated pre-enrolment there is no student visa.

The money requirement has risen sharply

The ministry’s procedures for international students set the financial means you must prove. That figure was raised substantially for the current cycle, to €10,179.85 for a year. Anyone planning from an older guide — many still quote a figure under €6,000 — is budgeting against a number that no longer applies.

After you arrive

You have eight working days to start your residence permit application. You collect the “yellow kit” from a designated post office, submit it with your documents, and attend a fingerprinting appointment at the police headquarters. The first permit costs roughly €116 in combined fees, and it is renewed annually for the length of your programme.

Working During and After Your Studies

Working while you study

A student residence permit allows employment of up to 20 hours a week and 1,040 hours a year. The work must remain secondary to your studies, and the annual cap applies across the whole year, not per employer.

Two practical notes. Self-employed and freelance work sits outside this allowance and generally requires a different permit category. And earnings cannot be used to satisfy the financial requirement at visa stage, which is assessed before you arrive.

Staying after you graduate

Graduates of recognised Italian institutions can apply for a residence permit to look for work or start a business. It is granted for no less than nine and no more than twelve months and cannot be renewed.

Converting to work

Once you have a qualifying job you move to a work residence permit; higher-paid qualified roles may instead route through the EU Blue Card, which brings mobility rights across member states. Because thresholds and quota rules change, check the current position with the immigration desk rather than relying on any guide.

Official Websites Every Applicant Should Bookmark

These are the Italian ministries and public bodies behind almost every fact in this guide. Where they and this guide ever differ, the official page is right.

Every site above is run by an Italian ministry, a public agency, or a regional public body. Because fees, scholarships and permits are administered at university and regional level, your own institution’s and region’s pages are the final authority on anything that varies.

Frequently Asked Questions