Scholarships to Study in Finland: The Honest Guide

The most valuable scholarship for studying in Finland is one no committee awards and no portal lists: your citizenship. Enrol at Aalto, Helsinki or LUT as an EU, EEA or Swiss student and the tuition line on your account reads €0 — free at every public university, at bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral level (Study in Finland). That single fact splits the entire funding question in two. For a European, Finland has already handed you the biggest grant there is, and named scholarships only chip at living costs. For a non-European paying €8,000–€18,000 a year, funding is a real hunt — but Finland is more generous than its reputation suggests, with a distinctive national scheme, the Finland Scholarship, and 50–100% waivers at most universities.

Here is the bottom line. EU/EEA/Swiss students pay no tuition and rarely need a fee scholarship; non-EU students pay €8,000–€18,000 a year (helsinki.fi), and that gap is what funding has to close. The headline award is the Finland Scholarship: at most universities it covers 100% of first-year tuition plus a one-time €5,000 relocation grant for the strongest non-EU master’s entrants. Beyond the first year, the route is a university tuition-fee waiver — Aalto, Helsinki, Tampere, Turku, Oulu and LUT all run merit schemes worth 50% or 100% of tuition — which cuts the fee but pays nothing toward living. The caveats most lists bury: the Finland Scholarship covers only the first year and only tuition, the later years rest on a separate university waiver whose size depends entirely on which university you chose, and the deepest exemption of all is that degrees taught in Finnish or Swedish, and every doctoral degree, are free for everyone.

This is the focused funding companion to our complete guide to studying in Finland, which covers the universities, the Studyinfo joint application, qualification assessment and the Migri residence permit in full. Here we go deep on money: why free tuition reshapes the question for Europeans, exactly what the Finland Scholarship pays and who qualifies, which universities waive how much tuition, where Erasmus Mundus fits, and the living-cost levers that matter when no scholarship applies. If you are comparing routes, see our overview of scholarships for European universities and the neighbouring contrast in our scholarships in Sweden guide.

Scholarships and Funding in Finland, Key Numbers 2026/2027

Source: studyinfinland.fi (Finland Scholarship terms); helsinki.fi (non-EU tuition, 50/100% waivers); aalto.fi; individual university scholarship pages 2026/27. Terms change yearly — confirm before applying.

The biggest saving is your passport — for Europeans

Before you open a single scholarship page, work out which side of the fee line you are on, because it decides the entire strategy.

For EU, EEA and Swiss students, the structural saving dwarfs every scholarship on this page. Tuition is €0 at every public university, set by national policy, with no application, no committee and no annual renewal (Study in Finland). A place at Aalto (QS #114) or the University of Helsinki (QS #116) costs a European nothing in tuition, on identical terms to a Finnish classmate, and that holds at bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral level. Against UK international tuition of £24,000–£40,000 or US private fees of $40,000–$70,000, an EU student in Finland has effectively already won a five-figure scholarship without filling in a form. So if you are European, almost every named award below is closed to you by design, because it exists to waive a fee you never pay. Your funding question is narrower and entirely about living costs — covered later in this guide.

For non-EU/EEA students, the picture inverts. Tuition is set per university and runs typically €8,000–€18,000 a year for English-taught bachelor’s and master’s degrees: as a concrete anchor, the University of Helsinki charges €13,000 for its English bachelor’s programmes and €13,000–€18,000 for master’s (helsinki.fi). That is the bill the awards on this page have to chip at. But before you assume you are in that group, check two exemptions that quietly move a lot of non-EU students into the free column: degrees taught in Finnish or Swedish are free for everyone, and all doctoral study is free for everyone. A non-EU student fluent enough to study in Finnish, or aiming straight at a PhD, pays nothing — the most complete scholarship Finland offers, and the one almost no funding list bothers to mention.

The Finland Scholarship — the distinctive national award

If one scheme defines scholarships in Finland, it is the Finland Scholarship. It is the country’s distinctive contribution to international funding, offered by most Finnish universities to the strongest non-EU/EEA students admitted to an English-taught master’s programme, and it is the award worth building your application around.

What it pays. The Finland Scholarship is generous where it counts at the start of a degree (Study in Finland):

• 100% of the first year’s tuition fee, waived in full.
• A one-time relocation grant of €5,000, paid at the start of studies to help with the move to Finland.
• Awarded on academic merit during admission — at most universities there is no separate scholarship form to file.

Who can get it, and the catch. The Finland Scholarship is for non-EU/EEA citizens admitted to a fee-charging English-taught master’s programme; EU, EEA and Swiss students are not eligible because they pay no tuition. The number of awards is capped per university, so it is competitive and goes to the top of the admitted cohort. The load-bearing limitation, and the one most applicants miss, is that the Finland Scholarship itself covers only the first year and only the tuition fee (Study in Finland). What carries you into the second year is a separate university tuition-fee waiver, and how much it covers varies sharply by university and is usually tied to completing enough credits in year one. The University of Helsinki, for instance, renews a full tuition waiver for strong students, while the University of Oulu continues only a partial waiver of around 10–40% of the second-year fee — so a scholarship that looks like a two-year free ride at one university can leave a substantial second-year bill at another. The €5,000 grant is a one-off, paid at the start, not a living stipend. Treat the Finland Scholarship as a powerful head start on a master’s, not as a guaranteed two-year full ride — and check exactly what your university continues into year two before you build a budget on it.

University tuition-fee waivers — the route across the whole degree

Because the Finland Scholarship covers only year one, the award that carries a non-EU student through the rest of a degree is the university tuition-fee waiver. Almost every fee-charging research university runs one, worth 50% or 100% of tuition, awarded on academic merit and usually decided automatically from your admission application. They are competitive, and — the point that catches people out — they waive the fee and nothing else: not a euro toward rent, food or the relocation. The table below maps the leading schemes to the universities that fund them; each links to its College Council Atlas profile, where you can see programmes, location and admission data.

Three things to read between the lines of that table. First, the deepest pool of waivers is at master’s level — the University of Helsinki, for example, awards its 50% and 100% waivers to non-EU master’s students but not to bachelor’s applicants, so a fee-paying undergraduate has a thinner set of options and should check each programme’s bachelor’s scholarship page specifically. Second, the headline percentages mislead if you stop at “100%”: a full tuition waiver still leaves you funding €10,800–€14,400 a year in living costs out of pocket, which is why a waiver is not the same as a fully funded place. Third, most of these are awarded automatically from your admission application — there is rarely a separate scholarship form — so the way you “apply for the scholarship” is simply to submit the strongest possible application by the programme deadline. Get admitted near the top of the cohort and the funding follows.

Erasmus Mundus — the fully funded master’s that pays living costs too

Every Finnish scheme above covers tuition only. If you want a fully funded master’s that also pays your living costs, are a non-EU student, and are open to studying across more than one country, the most reliable route is not a Finnish scheme at all — it is the EU’s Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degrees (EMJMD) (Erasmus+).

How it works. An Erasmus Mundus master’s is a two-year programme delivered jointly by a consortium of universities in several countries, frequently including a Finnish partner — Aalto, the University of Helsinki, LUT and others run or co-run programmes across engineering, environmental science, data science and the sciences. You study at two or more of the consortium’s universities and receive a joint or multiple degree.

What it pays. The scholarship is genuinely full: full tuition, a monthly living allowance (commonly around €1,400), travel and installation costs and insurance, for the whole two years, with no nationality or income restriction. For a fee-paying non-EU student who wants more than a tuition waiver, it is the single best route to a fully funded, Finnish-partnered master’s. EU students can win it too, where it adds a living stipend on top of tuition that would already be free in Finland.

The trade-offs. Two of them. Competition is fierce, with acceptance rates around 10% and selection by the consortium on academic merit and fit. And by design you spend only part of the degree in Finland, moving between partner countries, so it is not the route for someone set on a single Finnish campus for two years. You apply directly to the specific EMJMD programme, usually a full year ahead, with deadlines in autumn or early winter for the following September. Our Erasmus+ guide covers the mechanics in detail.

For EU students — living costs, Erasmus+ and the Kela trap

For EU, EEA and Swiss students the funding conversation is short, because the largest cost everywhere else is already zero. With tuition free at every level, the only number to fund is living, roughly €900–€1,200 a month (about €10,800–€14,400 a year), with Helsinki at the top of that range and Tampere, Turku, Oulu and Jyväskylä noticeably cheaper, as our main Finland guide sets out in detail. There is no Finland-specific living scholarship aimed at EU students, so the practical levers are a layered mix rather than a single award.

Erasmus+ mobility is the most common: if you study in Finland as part of an exchange from your home university, Erasmus+ pays a monthly mobility grant on top of your free tuition. Home-country academic-exchange grants are the next lever — many EU countries run a national agency that funds a full master’s or doctoral stay abroad with a monthly stipend, and deadlines usually fall in spring, so check your own country’s scheme early. Departmental funding, foundation awards and the occasional merit prize fill in the rest.

One warning that catches EU students out. Kela, the Finnish social-insurance institution, offers housing and study support, but generally not to short-stay EU students purely on the basis of studying in Finland — eligibility usually depends on longer-term residence or having worked in Finland. Do not build a budget around Finnish state aid you are not yet entitled to. In practice, most EU students fund Finland through savings, family support, an Erasmus+ or home-country grant, and part-time work, which is unrestricted for EU citizens — and that combination works precisely because the tuition, the costliest line everywhere else, is already free.

What it costs, and what a scholarship actually changes

A scholarship only makes sense against the real number, so put the two together. The components below show why the funding strategy splits so sharply by passport — and why even a 100% waiver does not finish the job.

Source: helsinki.fi non-EU tuition (€13,000 bachelor’s, €13,000–18,000 master’s); studyinfinland.fi (Finland Scholarship, free EU tuition, Finnish/Swedish and doctoral free for all); living-cost estimates from the complete Finland guide. Living costs vary by city: Helsinki runs highest, regional cities noticeably lower.

The pattern is clear. For an EU student, no scholarship is needed for the fee, and Erasmus+ or a home grant plus part-time work covers most living costs, so Finland is already among the cheapest quality destinations in Europe. For a non-EU master’s student, the Finland Scholarship is the best opening move — it wipes first-year tuition and helps with the move — but you must plan for second-year tuition, where a separate university waiver carries you only as far as that university chooses, and you fund living throughout. For a non-EU student on a 100% university waiver, the tuition vanishes but roughly €10,800–€14,400 a year of living costs stays squarely on you. And for the non-EU student studying in Finnish or Swedish, or doing a PhD, the whole tuition question disappears. Naming which of these you are in October is the difference between a plan that holds and one that collapses when the results land in spring.

I will say the thing the brochures never do. In my experience advising families, the international students who fund Finland well are not the ones who treated a single award as the whole plan. They are the ones who, from the day they were admitted, did three unglamorous things. They confirmed their fee status — EU, fee-paying, or one of the free carve-outs — before building any expectations. They submitted a top-of-cohort application by the programme deadline, because the Finland Scholarship and the merit waivers are decided on that file, not a separate form. And they treated even a 100% waiver as exactly that: securing housing and a part-time income plan for the living costs no Finnish tuition scholarship ever touches. The ones who struggle are almost always the ones who assumed “Finland is free” applied to them, or assumed the Finland Scholarship would carry both years automatically — then discovered too late that it covered only year one, that the year-two waiver at their university was only partial, and that no plan stood behind the gap.

How College Council helps

We built College Council to remove the two things that most often derail a Finnish application and its funding: weak test preparation and a chaotic, last-minute process. Finland is unusually test-friendly — Aalto and others accept the SAT for direct bachelor’s entry, on a total of 1200 for Business and Economics or 1350 with a Math score of at least 700 for Science and Technology — and the competitive scholarships, the Finland Scholarship and the merit waivers, are won on the strength of the whole admission file. Our SAT app runs the full digital SAT with adaptive practice and detailed analytics, so if your target is an Aalto SAT route you prepare against the real bar. For the English requirement every Finnish university imposes — typically IELTS 6.5 or TOEFL iBT around 90–92 — our TOEFL app delivers full TOEFL iBT practice tests with AI-graded speaking and writing feedback, the right tool for moving a baseline 60–70 up into the band that selective programmes, and the best scholarships, actually demand. Pick the right exam in our TOEFL versus IELTS guide.

The harder part is judgement: whether your passport unlocks the Finland Scholarship or only a university waiver, which six programmes to rank on Studyinfo for the best funding odds, and how to write a master’s application that lands at the top of the admitted cohort where the money is. Those are the questions we work through with families, grounded in data — College Council holds every Finnish university, its admission requirements and how to get in. Create a free account and check your chances against real programmes, or start at app.college-council.com/register.

Explore every Finnish university in our Atlas. Beyond the universities above, the College Council Atlas holds the full set of Finnish institutions with programmes, location and admission data — the same dataset behind this guide. Browse it before you lock in your six Studyinfo choices and your scholarship targets.

Frequently Asked Questions

Summary — how to fund a Finnish degree

Finland funds international students on a logic of its own, and your strategy falls out of your passport. For an EU, EEA or Swiss student, the work is done before you fill in a form: tuition is €0 at every level, the largest grant you will ever be handed, and Erasmus+ or a home-country grant plus part-time work covers most of what living costs. For a non-EU master’s student, the Finland Scholarship is the best opening move — 100% of first-year tuition and a €5,000 relocation grant — and the merit waivers at Aalto, Helsinki, Tampere, Turku, Oulu and LUT carry the rest of the degree, though every one of them touches tuition alone and the second-year figure swings sharply from one university to the next. For the non-EU student studying in Finnish or Swedish, or doing a PhD, the tuition question simply disappears. The point Finland’s “free education” reputation obscures is that free means free for Europeans and for two non-EU exceptions; for everyone else it is a fee gap to close, and you win the game by knowing exactly which route your passport opens — and by getting admitted near the top of the cohort, where the money is.

Next Steps

1. Confirm your fee status first — EU/EEA/Swiss students aim at living-cost grants and work; non-EU students check whether a Finnish/Swedish-taught degree or a PhD makes you free before chasing any waiver.
2. Build your Studyinfo shortlist and apply by the deadline — list up to six English-taught programmes for the January window, or apply directly for master’s, because the Finland Scholarship and merit waivers ride on that file.
3. Target the Finland Scholarship and a continuing waiver together — the first wipes year one, the second carries years two onward, but check whether your university’s year-two waiver is full or only partial before counting on it; aim for both, not just one.
4. Plan the living budget no waiver covers — secure housing the day you are admitted and line up Erasmus+, a home grant or part-time work for the €10,800–€14,400 a year.
5. Map your chances honestly — create a free College Council account to match your profile and passport against every Finnish university’s funding routes, and explore the country in our Atlas.

Read Also

• Study in Finland: the complete guide for international students — the parent guide: universities, Studyinfo, costs, the Migri residence permit
• Scholarships for European universities — the continent-wide overview, including Erasmus Mundus
• Scholarships to study in Sweden — the SISGP full ride and Nordic funding contrast
• Study in Scandinavia: free tuition and top universities — Finland beside Sweden, Denmark and Norway
• European universities that accept the SAT — where your SAT score opens doors, including Aalto

Sources and Methodology

Scholarship values, eligibility and deadlines were verified against official Study in Finland, University of Helsinki, Aalto and individual university scholarship pages in June 2026, and cross-checked against College Council’s Atlas dataset of Finnish higher-education institutions. University tuition-fee waiver amounts and criteria change every cycle and several awards are programme-specific, so always confirm the exact figure and deadline on the relevant university page for your intake year. EU/EEA/Swiss tuition is set to €0 by national policy; degrees taught in Finnish or Swedish, and all doctoral study, are free for everyone.

1. Study in Finland — Tuition, work rights and FAQ (EU/EEA free tuition; non-EU €8,000–€18,000; Finnish/Swedish-taught and doctoral degrees free for all; 30 hours/week work; living €900–€1,200/month) and Bachelor’s and Master’s scholarships (Finland Scholarship — first-year tuition + €5,000 relocation grant; scholarships funded and set by individual universities, often partial)
2. University of Helsinki — Tuition fees and scholarship programme (bachelor’s €13,000; master’s €13,000–€18,000; 50% and 100% non-EU master’s waivers; Finland Scholarship)
3. Aalto University — Tuition fees and scholarships (50% and 100% tuition-fee waivers; Finland Scholarship) and delivering SAT and ACT test scores (SAT 1200 Business; SAT 1350 with Math 700 Science and Technology)
4. Studyinfo (Opintopolku) — Joint application portal (spring 2026 joint round 7–21 January, up to 6 choices, English-taught bachelor’s; scholarships decided on the admission file)
5. European Commission — Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters (full tuition, monthly living allowance ~€1,400, travel and insurance, no nationality restriction) and Erasmus+ for students
6. College Council — Atlas higher-education dataset (Finnish HEI rankings, location and programme data) and internal advising experience with international applicant families