Ghent University: A Guide for International Students

It is a Thursday evening in October and the Overpoortstraat is just waking up. This is the street every Ghent student knows — a few hundred metres of bars, frituren and late-night kebab counters that turns, by ten o’clock, into the loudest stretch of pavement in Flanders. A few minutes north, on the Graslei, the floodlit guild houses lean over the old harbour where the river Leie bends through the medieval centre, and a group of master’s students from the bioscience faculty are sharing a paper cone of fries on the quay steps, arguing in three languages about a genetics seminar. Behind them, lit from within, rises the Boekentoren — the twenty-six-storey Book Tower that Henry van de Velde designed in the 1930s, the university’s great Art Deco library and the building that appears on half the postcards of the city. None of this feels like a campus. It feels like a city that happens to be run, quietly, by its university.

Here is the bottom line. Ghent University ranks #162 in the world in the QS World University Rankings 2026, =112 in the Times Higher Education table and #90 in the Academic Ranking of World Universities — second in Belgium on every list, behind only KU Leuven. It is a public university of roughly 50,000 students, founded in 1817, and it is exceptional in the life sciences: QS ranks its Agriculture & Forestry #9 in the entire world for 2026, with veterinary science, environmental science and bioscience engineering close behind. For an EU citizen, a full year of tuition is about €1,157 (Ghent University); for a non-EU student it runs from roughly €2,200 to €7,800 depending on the programme. Across the College Council families we advise, Ghent is the destination that quietly wins for anyone whose heart is in biology, the environment, food, animals or the sea.

In this guide I will walk you through Ghent University as an international applicant in 2026: what it is genuinely world-class at, the 148 English-taught programmes and which faculties run them, how admission and the diploma equivalence work, the real cost of tuition and of living in Ghent, the Type D visa for those who need it, student life in what may be Belgium’s best student city, and the biotech career cluster on its doorstep. If you are comparing whole countries first, start with our parent guide to studying in Belgium; if you want to weigh Ghent against its rivals, see the best universities in Belgium.

Ghent University, Key Data 2025/2026

Source: QS World University Rankings 2026, Times Higher Education, ARWU 2024, CWUR 2025, Leiden Ranking 2025, official Ghent University tuition and admission pages, College Council Atlas.

Why Ghent University — the life-sciences powerhouse

Belgium’s universities live a little in the shadow of their own modesty, and Ghent is the clearest case of a university that is far better than its global rank number suggests. Three things make it worth a serious look.

The first is what it is actually best at. Overall rankings flatten everything into a single number; subject rankings tell you where a university truly leads. Ghent’s are striking. QS ranks its Agriculture & Forestry ninth in the world for 2026 — ahead of almost every university outside a handful of American and Dutch land-grant institutions — and places its Veterinary Science =27, Sports-Related Subjects =36, Classics & Ancient History #40, Environmental Sciences =59 and Life Sciences & Medicine =62. Behind those numbers sits real research weight: Ghent is a founding pillar of VIB, the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology, one of the most productive life-science research organisations in Europe, and its scientists have spun out companies (Ablynx, Argenx) that became billion-euro biotech names. If your field is biology, biotechnology, the environment, food science, marine science or veterinary medicine, Ghent is not a compromise choice — it is one of the best places in Europe to study them.

The second is the price, which is the same remarkable Flemish bargain as everywhere in the north. An EU student pays about €1,157 for a full 60-credit year — €299 fixed plus €14.30 per credit (Ghent University tuition). A two-year research master’s therefore costs around €2,300 in total tuition, at a university ranked in the world’s top 200. Even for a non-EU student the institutional fee, roughly €2,200 to €7,800 a year by programme, is a fraction of UK or US prices. This is a top-tier life-sciences education at the cost of a single textbook semester elsewhere.

The third is the city, and this is not a throwaway line. Ghent is, by wide agreement, the best student city in Belgium and one of the best in Europe — a medieval canal town where roughly one resident in four is a student, where the historic centre is almost entirely car-free, and where you can cycle from your kot to the faculty, the library and the Overpoortstraat nightlife strip in under fifteen minutes. It is cheaper and more relaxed than Brussels, yet Brussels and the EU institutions are twenty-five minutes away by train. For a more detailed comparison of where to live, see our guide to the best student cities in Belgium.

Be honest about the trade-off. Like the rest of Flanders, Ghent’s bachelor’s teaching is overwhelmingly in Dutch. If you want an English-taught undergraduate degree, Ghent is rarely the answer — read the English-taught degrees in Belgium guide instead. Ghent rewards the master’s-level student above all.

What Ghent is known for — faculties and flagship programmes

Ghent University is organised into eleven faculties, and its international reputation is built on a few of them in particular.

Bioscience Engineering is arguably Ghent’s signature faculty — the home of its world-class agriculture, food technology, environmental engineering and biotechnology work, and the reason QS ranks the university so highly in agriculture and forestry. Its English master’s catalogue is unusually deep here: marine biology, aquaculture, environmental technology and engineering, soils and global change, agro- and environmental nematology, rural development and sustainable natural-resource management, several of them international consortium degrees run with partner universities across Europe.

Veterinary Medicine is the only complete veterinary faculty in Flanders and one of the most respected in Europe, anchoring Ghent’s QS Veterinary Science position of =27 worldwide. The core degree is taught in Dutch, but the faculty’s research and its specialist master’s draw students internationally.

Sciences covers biology, chemistry, physics, geology, mathematics and marine sciences, with the marine and earth-science groups (and the famous Ghent presence in Antarctic and ocean research) feeding into English master’s such as Marine Biological Resources and the geology and environmental tracks.

Medicine and Health Sciences, and Pharmaceutical Sciences drive Ghent University Hospital, one of the largest in Belgium, with research master’s in biomedical sciences and drug discovery available in English (the Master of Sustainable Drug Discovery among them).

Arts and Philosophy, Economics and Business Administration, Law and Criminology, and Political and Social Sciences round out the offering, with English master’s in fields including African studies, global studies, linguistics and literature, the economics of globalisation and European integration, advanced criminology, and statistical data analysis. In total Ghent runs 148 fully English-taught programmes — the overwhelming majority at master’s level — second in Flanders only to KU Leuven.

You can browse the full picture — every faculty, programme, ranking and the campus location — in Ghent’s College Council Atlas profile, the same dataset that powers this guide.

Admissions — the portal, the diploma and language

Ghent admissions are decentralised and document-driven; there is no central platform like UCAS, no interview lottery, and no holistic guesswork about extracurriculars. You apply directly through Ghent’s own OASIS portal (oasis.ugent.be), and the work is in getting the file right and hitting the deadline.

The diploma. A national secondary school-leaving certificate — a matura, Abitur, baccalauréat or equivalent — is recognised as equivalent to the Belgian secondary diploma, and Flemish universities such as Ghent generally accept it directly without the formal équivalence procedure that the French-speaking Walloon universities require. For a master’s, what matters is the fit between your bachelor’s and the programme you want: Ghent assesses whether your previous studies prepare you for the specific degree, course by course, rather than ranking applicants by a single acceptance percentage. Belgian master’s admission is a qualification-match decision, not a published-rate competition. If you are converting your school results, our grade-conversion guide explains how the percentages translate.

Language. For an English-taught programme, expect IELTS Academic 6.5 overall (some programmes ask 7.0), TOEFL iBT around 87–94, or Cambridge C1 Advanced. A previous degree taught entirely in English at a recognised institution can exempt you, with an official certifying letter. For a Dutch-taught bachelor’s you need Dutch at B2, certified through the ITNA test. Ghent verifies every certificate directly with the testing body, so book your test early.

Deadlines. For September intake, applicants who need a visa — that is, most non-EU/EEA students — must submit a complete application before 1 April; EU/EEA students have until 1 June (Ghent University deadlines). But beware: many English-taught and Erasmus Mundus consortium master’s close earlier, frequently at the end of February, and scholarship deadlines are earlier still. A complete application requires a verified diploma, which takes time, so do not leave it to the deadline. Our study-abroad application timeline and motivation-letter guide both apply directly to a Ghent application.

Costs — tuition and a realistic Ghent budget

This is where Ghent, like the rest of Flanders, stops looking ordinary. Take tuition first. An EU/EEA student pays the regulated Flemish rate: €299 fixed plus €14.30 per credit, totalling €1,157 for a full 60-credit year (the Faculty of Economics and Business charges a slightly higher €1,181.40). A non-EU/EEA student pays an institutional fee that depends on the programme: standard tracks start at roughly €2,200 a year, while higher-fee programmes — engineering, bioscience, and the international consortium master’s — reach around €7,000–€7,800, with the most expensive interuniversity master’s at €7,771 for 60 credits (Ghent University tuition). Confirm which tier your exact programme sits in before you budget, because the spread is wide.

Now living costs, which in Ghent are friendlier than Brussels. A kot (the Flemish word for a student room) typically runs €350–€600 a month; food is €200–€300 if you cook, with Aldi, Lidl and Colruyt the student’s allies; transport is close to free because you cycle, and the SNCB under-26 Train+ card cuts national rail fares by 40%. Add phone, books and a social life and a realistic all-in monthly figure for a student in Ghent is roughly €750–€1,050.

Put the two together. For an EU student, tuition plus living lands at about €10,000–€13,000 a year — and at the cheap end you are studying at a top-200 university for not much more than €10,000 all in. For a non-EU student, the all-in number is roughly €13,000–€20,000 depending on the programme’s fee tier. For the fine detail of monthly spending, our cost of living for students in Belgium guide breaks it down city by city, and the scholarships to study in Belgium guide covers the Erasmus Mundus and Ghent faculty awards that can bring a non-EU bill down to zero.

The Type D visa — for non-EU students only

Here the international reader splits into two paths. If you are an EU or EEA citizen, there is no visa and no permit: you arrive, you enrol, and within the first months you register at the Ghent city administration for a residence document. That is the whole of it.

If you are a non-EU citizen, you need a Belgian Type D long-stay student visa. You first secure an admission letter from Ghent; then you apply at the Belgian consulate, and the document that decides most cases is proof of sufficient means — €1,062 per month for 2026/27 (Belgian Immigration Office), shown through a scholarship, a guarantor or a blocked account. You also provide valid health insurance, a medical certificate and the visa fee, and after arrival you collect a residence permit at the commune, which doubles as your Schengen travel document. None of it is exotic, but the proof-of-funds amount and the consular timing are where applications run late — start in early summer, not late August.

Student life — canals, bikes and the Gentse Feesten

Ghent has a claim, repeated by almost everyone who studies there, to being the best student city in Belgium. It is a medieval town of about 265,000 people built where the rivers Leie and Scheldt meet, and its historic core — the Graslei and Korenlei quays, the medieval Gravensteen castle, the three towers of St Bavo, the belfry and St Nicholas — is one of the most beautiful in the Low Countries and almost entirely car-free. Roughly one resident in four is a student, and the city is organised around them: cheap kots, a flat compact centre made for bikes, and the Overpoortstraat, the legendary nightlife street where the student week runs loud from Wednesday onward.

The social calendar peaks with the Gentse Feesten, a ten-day July street festival of music and theatre that draws well over a million visitors and effectively takes over the city. Ghent is also a foodie capital — it claims to be the vegetarian capital of Europe, with a famous weekly Veggie Thursday — and the daily texture is the Belgian one of frieten from the frituur, Trappist and abbey beers at a couple of euros a glass, and a praesidium or student society for every faculty. Add the central position — Brussels twenty-five minutes away, Antwerp half an hour, the coast and Bruges close by — and the practical case writes itself. The weather is grey and wet for a good part of the year, as everywhere in the Low Countries; the students who thrive build a routine, join a society and make the most of the long summer term.

Careers — a biotech cluster and the EU on the doorstep

A Ghent degree opens onto two strong job markets. The first is the life-sciences and biotech cluster Ghent itself anchors. VIB, the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology, runs major research centres in Ghent; the spin-outs Ablynx (now part of Sanofi) and Argenx grew out of the university’s research; and the Ghent bio-incubators and the Tech Lane Ghent Science Park host a dense ecosystem of biotech, clean-tech, food-tech and AI companies that recruit directly from the faculties. For a graduate in biology, biotechnology, bioscience engineering, environmental science or pharmaceutical research, this is one of the best local labour markets in continental Europe. Ghent’s QS employment-outcomes score of 84.9 sits well above its overall position.

The second is the whole of Belgium and the EU. Brussels — with the European Commission, Parliament, Council, NATO and over a thousand international organisations — is twenty-five minutes by train, so a Ghent degree sits comfortably within reach of the EU-affairs job market for law, political-science and economics graduates. The post-study advantage is decisive for an EU citizen: you can stay and work in Belgium with no permit and no time limit. A non-EU graduate can apply for a search year (zoekjaar) to find qualifying work after the degree. For the wider picture of careers from a Belgian degree, the parent Belgium guide goes deeper on the EU-institutions route.

How College Council helps

We built College Council to take the two things that most often derail an application off your plate: language preparation and a decentralised process that is easy to get wrong. Ghent does not ask for the SAT, but every English-taught programme demands a real language score — typically IELTS 6.5–7.0 or TOEFL iBT 87–94 — and our TOEFL app runs full TOEFL iBT practice tests with AI-graded speaking and writing feedback, the closest thing to the real exam you can do from home. If your shortlist also spans the US or one of the European universities that take it, our SAT app runs the full digital SAT with adaptive practice; see our list of European universities that accept the SAT.

Beyond the apps, the hard part of a Ghent application is judgement: which of the 148 English programmes actually fits your bachelor’s, how to time the end-of-February consortium deadlines against the 1 April visa deadline, and how to read each programme’s own requirements. Register on College Council and you get the whole map in one place — every university, the admission requirements and how to get in, the same dataset that powers this guide. Create your account or check your chances and start from a realistic, sourced shortlist rather than a browser full of tabs. You can also explore Ghent and every Belgian university in the College Council Atlas.

Frequently Asked Questions

Summary — is Ghent right for you?

Ghent University is the value choice within a value country, with a genuine specialism behind it. It ranks #162 in the world overall, but that number undersells what it is: a top-10 university for agriculture, a top-30 for veterinary science, the anchor of one of Europe’s best biotech clusters, and the heart of what may be Belgium’s finest student city — all for €1,157 a year if you hold an EU passport. If your field is the life sciences, the environment, food, animals or the sea, few universities in Europe are a better choice at any price, let alone this one.

Be clear-eyed about the limits. The English-taught bachelor’s offering is thin — Ghent is a master’s destination for international students — and most undergraduate teaching is in Dutch. But if you want a serious European degree in the sciences at a reasonable price, an English-taught master’s menu 148 programmes deep, and a canal town that treats its students as the main event, Ghent belongs high on your list.

Next Steps

1. Match a programme to your bachelor’s — browse the 148 English-taught options in Ghent’s Atlas profile and shortlist by faculty and fee tier.
2. Note the two deadlines — most non-EU master’s want a complete file by 1 April, but consortium and Erasmus Mundus tracks often close end of February; confirm on the programme page.
3. Book your language test — most English programmes want IELTS 6.5–7.0 or TOEFL iBT 87–94; prepare in our TOEFL app.
4. Map the money — EU €1,157 plus living, or for non-EU the institutional fee plus the visa proof-of-funds; check the scholarships to study in Belgium for awards.
5. Register on College Council — we hold every university, the admission requirements and how to get in. Create your account or check your chances.

Read Also

• Study in Belgium: a comprehensive guide for international students — the full country picture, fees, visa and careers
• The best universities in Belgium — how Ghent compares with KU Leuven, UCLouvain and the rest
• KU Leuven: detailed guide for international applicants — Belgium’s #1 university in depth
• English-taught degrees in Belgium — where to study in English, bachelor’s and master’s
• Best student cities in Belgium — Ghent, Leuven, Brussels and Antwerp compared

Sources and Methodology

Rankings are drawn from the QS World University Rankings 2026, Times Higher Education, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) 2024, CWUR 2025 and the Leiden Ranking 2025, cross-checked against College Council’s Atlas record for Ghent University (Wikidata Q1137665, ROR 00cv9y106). High-stakes current-cycle figures — tuition, deadlines, visa rules and proof of funds — were verified against official Ghent University and Belgian government pages in June 2026. EU and non-EU fees differ sharply and are indexed yearly, so always confirm the exact figure for your programme and intake year.

1. Ghent University — Tuition fees (EU/EEA €299 fixed + €14.30/credit = €1,157 for 60 credits, 2025/26; non-EEA institutional fees by programme)
2. Ghent University — Application deadlines (visa-requiring students before 1 April; EEA before 1 June, September intake)
3. Ghent University — Faculty of Economics and Business tuition (EEA €1,181.40; non-EEA €7,079.40 for 60 credits)
4. QS / TopUniversities — Ghent University profile and QS World University Rankings 2026 (overall #162; Agriculture & Forestry #9, Veterinary Science =27, by subject)
5. Times Higher Education — World University Rankings (Ghent University band =112, overall score 65.4)
6. ShanghaiRanking (ARWU) 2024 — Ghent University #90 worldwide, #2 in Belgium
7. Belgian Immigration Office (IBZ) — National entries (Visa D) (Type D student visa; proof of means €1,062/month, 2026/27)
8. VIB — Flanders Institute for Biotechnology — Ghent University research partnership and biotech spin-out ecosystem (Ablynx, Argenx)
9. College Council — Atlas higher-education dataset (Ghent University identity, programmes, rankings) and internal advising experience with international applicant families