English-Taught Degrees in Switzerland: The Honest Map

The seminar room is on the second floor of an ETH building above Zürich, and the professor at the front grew up speaking Swiss German. So did three of the dozen students around the table. Yet the lecture, the slides, the questions and the problem set due Thursday are all in English, because the woman two seats down flew in from Bogotá, the man opposite from Hanoi, and the working language of a modern Swiss master’s seminar is not German — it is English. Walk one floor down to a first-year bachelor’s lecture in the same building and you would hear nothing but German. That contrast, repeated across the whole Swiss system, is the single most important thing to understand before you search for an English-taught Swiss degree.

Here is the bottom line, and most guides get the framing wrong. In Switzerland, English is the master’s-level language, not the bachelor’s-level one. Around 90% of ETH Zürich’s master’s programmes and roughly 95% of EPFL’s are taught in English, as are most master’s at USI, Geneva and St. Gallen, while the Geneva Graduate Institute teaches its entire graduate catalogue in English (swissuniversities, ETH Zürich). Bachelor’s degrees at public universities, by contrast, are taught in German, French or Italian — and that is a genuine requirement you cannot negotiate away with fluent English. So the map is simple: come for an English-taught master’s and you have the run of the system; insist on an English bachelor’s and you are down to a handful of private institutions. Entry runs through a TOEFL iBT 100+ or IELTS 7.0+ — higher than most of continental Europe.

This guide is the focused companion to our complete guide to studying in Switzerland — read that for the full picture on visas, the permit B, living costs and scholarships, which apply to every route. Here I stay on one question: where English-taught study in Switzerland actually exists, at which level, which universities run it, what English score gets you in, and how to decide between waiting for the English master’s and learning German or French for the bachelor’s.

English-Taught Study in Switzerland, Key Data 2025/2026

Source: ETH Zürich and EPFL admissions pages; swissuniversities; Geneva Graduate Institute; QS World University Rankings 2026, verified June 2026.

The one rule that decides everything: level, not university

Most countries let you ask “is this university English-taught?” Switzerland does not work that way. The right question is “is this level English-taught?”, because the same university teaches its bachelor’s in a national language and its master’s in English. ETH Zürich is a German-language university at bachelor’s level and an overwhelmingly English-language one at master’s level. EPFL is French at bachelor’s and English at master’s. The University of Geneva teaches French undergraduates and a stack of English master’s. This is by design: master’s degrees are shorter, more specialised and more international, so building them in English is straightforward and the global demand is deep; bachelor’s degrees are longer, more general and the historic heartland of national-language teaching.

The practical consequence is the sequencing move we recommend to families constantly. If you do not speak German or French, take your bachelor’s at home or in another English-medium system, then come to Switzerland for an English-taught master’s. That is not a workaround — it is the path most international students at ETH and EPFL actually take. Around 90% of ETH’s master’s and roughly 95% of EPFL’s are in English, so you can usually find your exact field in English somewhere in the Swiss system at master’s level; the constraint becomes which university and which city, not whether the programme exists in English at all.

For the rare applicant who genuinely needs an English bachelor’s in Switzerland, the menu is short and mostly private, and we map it out below. Work out which of the two situations you are in before you start, though, because they lead to entirely different shortlists.

Where the English programmes actually are

The table below curates the institutions that matter for an English-taught Swiss degree, organised around the question this article exists to answer — what language you actually study in, at which level — rather than overall reputation. Treat the QS number as a rough map of prestige, not a ranking of English programmes; the discriminating column is the teaching language. Each university links to our dedicated guide where one exists, otherwise to its profile in our university Atlas.

ETH Zürich (QS #7) and EPFL (QS #22) are the two federal institutes of technology and the deepest English-taught catalogues in the country at master’s level — ETH around 90% English, EPFL around 95% — across computer science, engineering, the natural sciences, mathematics and architecture. Their bachelor’s, though, are German and French respectively, and that is not optional. The Geneva Graduate Institute (IHEID) is the purest English-taught research institution in Switzerland: graduate-only, teaching international relations, development, international law and economics entirely in English and French, with the UN, WHO and WTO on its doorstep. The Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) in Lugano runs a large share of its master’s in English — informatics, finance, communication, and its celebrated Academy of Architecture — alongside Italian-taught programmes. And the University of St. Gallen (HSG), the country’s business school, teaches its flagship master’s in management, finance and economics in English, including the Master in Strategy and International Management the Financial Times has ranked #1 in the world for 14 of the last 15 years.

Among the cantonal universities, the University of Geneva, the University of Zurich, the University of Basel, the University of Bern and the University of Lausanne all teach their bachelor’s in a national language but run a growing set of English-taught master’s — concentrated in the sciences, economics, public health and international fields. The genuine English bachelor’s options are few and mostly private: Franklin University Switzerland in Lugano is US-accredited and teaches a full English-language liberal-arts bachelor’s, and the Swiss English-medium hospitality schools — the École hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL), Glion and Les Roches — run English bachelor’s in their specialism.

The master’s-heavy reality — and how to use it

The structural fact is worth stating plainly: in Switzerland the English-taught offering lives at master’s level. EPFL teaches roughly 95% of its master’s in English; ETH Zürich is around 90% English at master’s; the Geneva Graduate Institute is wholly English; USI, Geneva, Zurich, Basel, Bern and St. Gallen each run a band of English master’s on top of national-language bachelor’s. This is not an accident of demand but a deliberate internationalisation of the postgraduate layer, and it is overwhelmingly the route by which non-German, non-French speakers enter Swiss higher education.

The strategic implication is the same one we give families weighing Germany or the Netherlands, sharpened by Swiss reality: do your bachelor’s in a language you already have, then take the Swiss master’s in English. An English-taught master’s at ETH or EPFL is one of the best-value postgraduate qualifications anywhere — a global top-25 degree, taught entirely in English, for roughly CHF 4,380 a year in tuition, opening onto a high-wage Swiss labour market. Because the master’s choice is wide, your field is usually somewhere in the system in English; the decision becomes Zürich versus Lausanne versus Geneva, not “does it exist in English.”

If you are set on an English bachelor’s in Switzerland, accept that the public system will not give it to you in English, and look to the private and specialist route instead: Franklin University Switzerland for a US-style liberal-arts bachelor’s, USI for some English-taught bachelor’s elements in Lugano, and EHL, Glion or Les Roches if hospitality and hotel management is your field. If that catalogue feels too thin — and it is, next to what sits across the border — our English-taught degrees in Germany guide covers the continental system with the deepest English bachelor’s offering at public-university prices.

The English requirement — what score you actually need

Switzerland sets a higher English bar than most of continental Europe, and being precise about it saves a wasted application. The standard ask for an English-taught Swiss master’s is TOEFL iBT 100+ or IELTS Academic 7.0+ — where Germany’s English programmes commonly accept 88 / 6.5, Switzerland’s leading universities sit a band above. ETH Zürich and EPFL are at the top of that range for their English master’s; the Geneva Graduate Institute and St. Gallen’s English programmes are similar; some cantonal-university master’s accept the lower 90-ish / 6.5 threshold, so read the specific programme page.

There are two common alternatives and one exemption. Many universities accept Cambridge C1 Advanced or C2 Proficiency in place of TOEFL or IELTS. A previous degree taught entirely in English at a recognised institution can sometimes waive the test — but the proof they want (a medium-of-instruction letter, a transcript notation) and whether the waiver applies at all vary by university, so confirm it in writing per programme before you skip the exam.

The English requirement is the most underestimated step in the whole Swiss application. Most international applicants are fluent by bachelor’s graduation, then walk into the iBT unprepared for how format-specific it is — the integrated speaking tasks and the timed independent writing trip up strong English speakers more than the vocabulary ever does. Our TOEFL app runs full-length practice sections with AI-graded speaking and writing, the closest thing to a mock iBT you can do from home. In our advising experience, candidates aiming for the 100+ band that ETH, EPFL and the Geneva Graduate Institute expect typically need eight to fourteen weeks of focused work to get there from a high-B2 baseline. If you are still choosing between the two big tests, our TOEFL versus IELTS guide compares them for European admissions.

From the College Council desk. The mistake we correct most often on Switzerland is a strong-English student building a shortlist of English bachelor’s at ETH or the University of Zurich — programmes that simply do not exist in English. The same student, two years later, would have a wide menu of English master’s at the identical universities. Decide your level first. If you want a bachelor’s now and cannot study in German or French, Switzerland is mostly the wrong country until master’s stage; if you want a master’s, it is one of the best in the world.

Getting in — the English-taught admissions route

Swiss admissions have no central portal, so the English-taught route means applying to each university directly. ETH Zürich runs its own master’s application system, EPFL its own, USI, the Geneva Graduate Institute and the cantonal universities each their own; deadlines for an autumn start cluster between December and April, with the most competitive English master’s closing earliest. Build your shortlist around the programmes that exist in English in your field, then read each one’s page for its deadline, its English threshold and its document list.

The file is standard for an English-taught master’s: your bachelor’s transcript and degree (translated where required), your English certificate, a CV, and — more than in Germany — a motivation letter and sometimes a GRE/GMAT score or a research statement, because Swiss master’s selection is genuinely competitive at the top. The Geneva Graduate Institute and the ETH/EPFL excellence tracks weigh the academic file and the statement heavily.

One reassurance and one warning specific to this route. The reassurance: the SAT plays no part in English-taught Swiss admissions — Switzerland uses neither the SAT nor the ACT for bachelor’s entry, so if you are applying to the US in parallel, treat the SAT as a separate US track and prepare it in our SAT app without expecting it to help in Switzerland. The warning: the English-taught master’s is the entry layer, but the underlying bachelor’s diploma still has to be recognised by swissuniversities, and your bachelor’s must be a relevant, recognised degree — a strong English score on an unrelated or unrecognised bachelor’s will not carry an ETH or EPFL master’s application.

English-Taught vs the National-Language Route

The real choice most applicants face is not which English programme but wait for the English master’s or learn German/French for the bachelor’s. Here is how the two routes stack up:

Source: ETH Zürich, EPFL and swissuniversities admissions and language requirements, 2025/26.

The way it usually resolves: if you are entering at master’s level, take the English route — it is dramatically faster to qualify for, the degree is identical, and the careers below open the same way. If you want a bachelor’s and cannot study in German or French, either pay for the private English route (Franklin, the hospitality schools) or, more often, look to a country with a deep public English bachelor’s catalogue and come to Switzerland for the master’s. And if you intend to build a life in Switzerland, learning the local language seriously alongside an English degree pays off fast — it is the difference between studying in the country and living in it.

After the degree — what English-taught graduates do

An English-taught Swiss master’s drops you into one of the densest high-wage labour markets on Earth, and the degree carries the same weight as any Swiss degree — the language of instruction does not appear on the diploma in a way that matters to employers. Over 95% of ETH and EPFL graduates find work within six months, and median starting salaries for a master’s graduate in tech land between CHF 100,000 and CHF 130,000, among the highest anywhere after the Bay Area and Manhattan. Google’s largest engineering office outside the US sits in Zürich; Roche and Novartis anchor Basel; the UN, WHO and CERN ring Geneva, recruiting heavily from the Geneva Graduate Institute and UNIGE.

On staying, the route is the same for English-taught graduates as for any other. EU/EFTA graduates move straight into employment; non-EU graduates receive a six-month job-search permit automatically, which a graduate-level offer converts into a work permit without the usual quota pressure. The full visa, permit B and post-study mechanics are covered in our main Switzerland guide — they apply identically whether you studied in English, German or French.

How College Council helps

English-taught study in Switzerland is exactly the kind of thing that is easy to misjudge from the outside: the public bachelor’s are not in English even at the universities whose master’s are, the English threshold is a band higher than Germany’s, and the genuinely all-English institutions (the Geneva Graduate Institute, Franklin, the hospitality schools) sit outside the headline rankings where most applicants look first. Those are the distinctions we work through with families, drawing on the same university data that powers this guide — every Swiss university and its English programmes, plus tens of thousands more worldwide, are in our Atlas. Start by creating a free College Council account and running your profile through our chances tool to see which English-taught Swiss programmes — and which alternatives across Europe — actually fit your level and your field.

On the testing side, every English-taught route into Switzerland runs on a strong TOEFL or IELTS score, and Swiss universities set that bar high. Our TOEFL app delivers full TOEFL iBT practice tests with AI-graded speaking and writing feedback, the closest thing to a mock exam you can run from home, and if Switzerland is your plan A with a US application alongside it, our SAT app runs the full digital SAT so you can prepare once and apply broadly.

Frequently Asked Questions

Summary — is an English-taught Swiss degree right for you?

English-taught study in Switzerland is a genuine, world-class option with one structural rule that decides everything: English is the master’s-level language, not the bachelor’s-level one. At master’s level the choice is wide — around 90% of ETH’s programmes, roughly 95% of EPFL’s, the whole Geneva Graduate Institute, and broad English offerings at USI, St. Gallen and the cantonal universities — for roughly CHF 4,380 a year in tuition and a TOEFL iBT 100+ or IELTS 7.0+ score. At bachelor’s level the public system teaches in German, French or Italian, and the English route narrows to Franklin University Switzerland and the specialist hospitality schools.

Decide your level first, because it dictates the entire shortlist. If you are entering at master’s level and your field exists in English somewhere in the Swiss system — and in STEM, business and international fields it almost always does — few qualifications pay back the tuition as fast. If you want an English bachelor’s, weigh the narrow private Swiss menu against a deeper public English catalogue elsewhere in Europe, and keep Switzerland in mind for the master’s.

Next Steps

1. Decide bachelor’s or master’s — the English offering is wide at master’s and narrow at bachelor’s; your level sets the shortlist.
2. Match your field to an English programme — check ETH, EPFL, the Geneva Graduate Institute, USI, St. Gallen and the cantonal universities for an English master’s in your specialism, since there is no central database.
3. Build a balanced shortlist — create a free College Council account and run your profile through our chances tool.
4. Book your English test early — Swiss master’s want TOEFL iBT 100+ or IELTS 7.0+; prepare in our TOEFL app and compare exams in our TOEFL versus IELTS guide.
5. Plan the money and the permit — English degrees are not free; the main Switzerland guide covers tuition, living costs and the permit B.

Read Also

• Studying in Switzerland: ETH, EPFL and the complete guide — the full picture: universities, costs, visa, scholarships and careers
• Best universities in Switzerland (2026 rankings) — the ranked field, by reputation and subject strength
• Scholarships to study in Switzerland — the excellence awards and federal scholarships that fund English master’s
• English-taught degrees in Germany — the continental system with the deepest English bachelor’s catalogue at €0 tuition
• TOEFL 2026 versus IELTS for European universities — picking the English test Swiss programmes accept

Sources and Methodology

The teaching-language splits, English thresholds and fee tiers are drawn from official ETH Zürich, EPFL, swissuniversities and university sources and cross-checked against College Council’s Atlas dataset of Swiss higher-education institutions. The English-taught offering is concentrated at master’s level and evolves between intake years, so we lead with the verified level-and-language structure rather than per-programme counts, and we recommend confirming the language of instruction on the relevant programme page before applying. University strengths and ranks reference the QS World University Rankings 2026.

1. swissuniversities — Studying in Switzerland (national-language bachelor’s; English concentrated at master’s level; diploma-recognition framework)
2. ETH Zürich — Studies portal and tuition fees (German bachelor’s; ~90% English master’s; CHF 2,190/semester international fee from autumn 2025, CHF 730 Swiss-qualified)
3. EPFL — Master’s programmes and tuition (French bachelor’s; master’s taught in English; CHF 2,240 total/semester for non-resident foreign students from autumn 2025)
4. Geneva Graduate Institute (IHEID) — Graduate programmes (graduate-only; entire catalogue in English and French; international relations, development, international law, economics)
5. University of St. Gallen (HSG) — Master’s programmes (English-taught flagship master’s; FT #1 Master in Management for 14 of the last 15 years)
6. QS / TopUniversities — QS World University Rankings 2026 (ETH #7, EPFL #22, UZH #100, Geneva #155, Basel #158, USI #473)
7. Franklin University Switzerland — Tuition fees (US-accredited, fully English-medium liberal-arts bachelor’s in Lugano; CHF 27,200/year academic tuition at the Swiss/EU rate, higher for non-EU students)
8. College Council — Atlas higher-education dataset (Swiss HEI identity, location and programme data; Wikidata-keyed canonical records) and internal advising experience with international applicant families