Scholarships to Study in the Netherlands: The Real Guide

The most valuable scholarship for studying in the Netherlands is one no committee awards and no website lists as a scholarship at all. It is the statutory tuition rate. Enrol as an EU or EEA student at TU Delft, the University of Amsterdam or Maastricht and the fee on your account reads €2,694 for the whole 2026/27 year — the same figure at a top-50 research university as at a regional university of applied sciences, because the Dutch government caps it nationally (DUO). That single number splits the funding question in two. For a European, the Netherlands has already done the heavy lifting, and named scholarships only top up living costs. For a non-European paying €13,000–€25,000 a year, funding is a genuine hunt — and the Dutch system offers fewer full rides than its reputation promises.

Here is the bottom line. EU/EEA students pay €2,694 and rarely need a fee scholarship at all; non-EU students pay €13,000–€25,000 and that gap is what funding has to close. The flagship grant is the Holland Scholarship, a one-off €5,000 for non-EEA students at around thirty participating institutions (Studyinnl). Above it sit the country-specific Orange Tulip Scholarship (€3,000–€25,000, run by Nuffic’s overseas offices), the EU-funded Erasmus Mundus master’s awards (full tuition plus a stipend), and a handful of generous institutional schemes — the Amsterdam Excellence Scholarship at €25,000 a year, the Justus & Louise van Effen Scholarship at TU Delft, the Maastricht NL-High Potential Scholarship. The caveat most lists bury: there is no national full scholarship for a bachelor’s degree, and the named awards that do exist are overwhelmingly partial and concentrated at master’s level.

This guide is the focused funding companion to our complete guide to studying in the Netherlands, which covers the universities, the WO–HBO system, Studielink, numerus fixus and the Orientation Year in full. Here we go deep on money: why the €2,694 rate changes the question for EU students, how the Holland Scholarship and Orange Tulip actually work, which universities pay the largest institutional awards, where Erasmus Mundus fits, and DUO student finance for EU students who work. If you are comparing routes, see our overview of scholarships for European universities and our companion guides to scholarships in Germany and scholarships in France.

Scholarships and Funding in the Netherlands, Key Numbers 2026/2027

Source: DUO 2026/27 statutory tuition; Studyinnl / Nuffic (Holland Scholarship, Orange Tulip); European Commission (Erasmus Mundus); University of Amsterdam scholarship pages. Terms change yearly — confirm before applying.

The biggest saving is built into the system — for Europeans

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

For EU and EEA students, the structural saving dwarfs almost every scholarship on this page. The statutory wettelijk collegegeld is set nationally and equal across institutions: €2,694 for 2026/27 (DUO). That buys a place at a QS top-200 research university for less than a single month’s rent in central Amsterdam. There is no application, no committee and no annual renewal — the rate is simply the default. Against UK international tuition of £24,000–£40,000 or US private fees of $40,000–$70,000, an EU student in the Netherlands has effectively already won a five-figure scholarship without filling in a form. So if you are European, the named scholarships in this guide are a top-up, not a rescue, and the funding route that matters most for you is DUO student finance (covered below), not the Holland Scholarship, which excludes you.

For non-EU/EEA students, the picture inverts. Institutional tuition runs roughly €13,000–€22,000 a year for a bachelor’s and €15,000–€25,000 for a master’s, with engineering and business at the top of the range, set per programme and rising most years. That is the bill the awards on this page have to chip at — and they chip rather than demolish, because the Dutch model leans on partial, one-off and merit awards rather than the need-based full rides that Germany’s DAAD or the endowment-funded US aid system are built around. None of that is a reason to skip the search: €5,000 to €25,000 off a fee is worth a few weekends of applications. It is a reason to apply to several schemes at once rather than stake everything on one.

The Holland Scholarship — the flagship, and its limits

If one award defines funding for international students in the Netherlands, it is the Holland Scholarship, sometimes labelled the NL Scholarship. It is the scheme every prospective student finds first, so it is worth understanding precisely rather than as a hopeful line in a list.

What it pays. A one-off grant of €5,000, paid in the first year of study and not renewed in later years (Studyinnl). It is funded jointly by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the participating institutions, which is why the amount is fixed and modest rather than a full ride.

Who can get it. Non-EEA students starting a full bachelor’s or master’s degree at a participating Dutch research university or university of applied sciences. You must be an international student from outside the European Economic Area, and you generally must not have studied in the Netherlands before. Around thirty institutions take part, including TU Delft, Leiden, Groningen, Twente, Radboud, Tilburg and many universities of applied sciences — but not every university every year, so check the current participant list.

How to apply. You do not apply to a central portal. Each participating institution runs its own Holland Scholarship selection, with its own form and deadline — most fall around 1 February for a September start, before the standard admission deadline. You usually need to have applied for admission first. Selection is competitive and based on academic merit plus, at some universities, a short motivation.

So read it for what it is: €5,000 covers a meaningful slice of one year’s living costs (€10,800–€19,200 depending on city), but it is one-off and it never touches tuition in years two and three. It is the floor of a funding plan, not the ceiling — the award you combine with an institutional grant and, if your country qualifies, the Orange Tulip Scholarship, rather than the one you rely on alone.

Orange Tulip — bigger money, but only for some nationalities

The Orange Tulip Scholarship (OTS) is the most generous Netherlands-specific option, and the catch is in its design: it is country-specific. Run by Nuffic’s overseas NESO offices (Netherlands Education Support Offices), OTS is not one award but a set of national programmes, each with its own list of participating universities, companies and award values.

Who can apply. Only students from countries where a NESO office runs an OTS programme. The list includes Indonesia, China, Mexico, Vietnam, Brazil, India, Russia, South Korea, Thailand and Colombia, among others, and it shifts year to year. If your country is not on it, OTS is simply closed to you, which is why the Holland Scholarship remains the universal non-EEA option.

What it pays. Values run from €3,000 to full tuition, often €25,000 or more, because individual universities and corporate partners fund packages within each country’s programme. Some OTS awards cover partial tuition; the best cover full tuition for a master’s. Because the providers differ by country, the OTS-Indonesia catalogue looks nothing like OTS-Mexico, so you read your own country’s programme page on the NESO site.

How to apply. Through your country’s NESO office, by its own deadline (which varies widely — some close in spring, some earlier). You typically need an admission application or offer in hand first.

For a student from an OTS country, this is usually the single most valuable Netherlands-only scholarship available, more generous than the Holland Scholarship and worth prioritising. For everyone else, it does not exist — which is the most important thing to know before you build your plan around it.

Institutional scholarships — where the real money is

Beyond the two national schemes, the largest individual awards come from the universities themselves. These are merit-based, competitive, and concentrated at master’s level, but they are where a non-EU student can realistically close most of the fee gap. The table below maps the leading named awards to the universities that fund them; each university links to its College Council Atlas profile, or to our full guide where one exists.

Three things to read between the lines of that table. First, almost every named award is master’s-level: at bachelor’s level your realistic options are the Holland Scholarship, the Orange Tulip Scholarship (if your country qualifies) and the occasional partial faculty award, and the UvA Amsterdam Excellence Scholarship is a master’s scheme too. Second, the full-tuition awards (van Effen at Delft, NL-High Potential at Maastricht, the Eric Bleumink Fund at Groningen) are the prizes — single-digit acceptance rates, decided on academic record plus a sharp motivation. Tailor each application properly: name the programme, the research group and the specific reason for the Netherlands, because a generic letter loses to a focused one every time, and aim at the one or two whose bar you can realistically clear rather than carpet-bombing all of them. Third, deadlines cluster early, often 1 February or 1 December for the most competitive tracks, and almost always require you to have applied for admission first. Read the international-scholarships page of every university on your Studielink list and file each application by its own deadline, not the admission deadline.

Erasmus Mundus — the fully funded master’s route

If you want a fully funded Dutch master’s and you are open to studying across more than one country, the most reliable route is not a Dutch 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 European countries, frequently including a Dutch partner — Twente, Wageningen, Groningen, Maastricht and others run or co-run dozens of them across engineering, environmental science, public health, data science and the humanities. 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. It is one of the few funding packages open to international students that covers everything.

The trade-offs. Two of them. First, competition is fierce — acceptance rates run around 10%, and selection is by the consortium on academic merit and fit. Second, by design you spend only part of the degree in the Netherlands, moving between partner countries, so it is not the route for someone set on a single Dutch campus for two years. You apply directly to the specific EMJMD programme, usually with a deadline a full year ahead (autumn to winter for the following September). For students who can win one, it is the best-value master’s in Europe.

DUO student finance — the EU student’s real lever

For EU and EEA students, the funding mechanism that actually moves the needle is not a competitive scholarship at all. It is Dutch student finance (studiefinanciering), administered by DUO, and most EU students do not realise they can access it.

The rule: if you take a part-time job of at least 32 hours a month (roughly 8 hours a week) in the Netherlands, you become eligible for the same student-support package as a Dutch student. That package includes a basic grant, a favourable student loan at a low interest rate, and the student travel product that gives free or discounted train and tram travel (DUO). Combined with the €2,694 statutory tuition and €12–€16 an hour from part-time work, this turns a Dutch degree into one of the most affordable in Europe for a working EU student — without applying to a single merit scholarship. The catch is that you must genuinely work the hours and apply through DUO in your first weeks; the moment you take paid work you also need to switch to Dutch basisverzekering health insurance, as the main guide explains.

Non-EU students are locked out of DUO finance entirely, which is one more reason the merit search weighs heavier on them. The work rules still help, though: non-EU students may work 16 hours a week year-round or full-time over the summer, which offsets living costs even without a grant.

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 EU and non-EU funding strategies diverge so sharply.

Source: DUO 2026/27 statutory tuition; institutional fee ranges and living-cost estimates from the complete Netherlands guide. Living costs vary by city: Amsterdam and Utrecht run highest, Groningen and Maastricht lowest.

The pattern is clear. For an EU student, no scholarship is needed to cover the fee, and DUO finance plus part-time work does the rest, so the all-in cost is already among the lowest in Western Europe. For a non-EU bachelor’s student, the available awards (Holland Scholarship plus a partial faculty grant) typically shave €5,000–€10,000 off a €24,000–€41,000 bill — meaningful, but not transformative, so a realistic family budget still has to cover most of it. For a non-EU master’s student, the full-tuition institutional awards and Erasmus Mundus can genuinely close the entire gap, which is why the master’s level is where the serious scholarship effort pays off.

A pattern we see in advising: the families who close the Dutch funding gap rarely do it with a single award. They build a layer cake. The base layer is structural — the €2,694 EU rate, or for a non-EU applicant a €5,000 Holland Scholarship plus a faculty grant. On top of that goes DUO finance or term-time work, then a country-specific Orange Tulip where the nationality fits, then a faculty top-up for the right programme. Each layer is small; together they cover the bill. The Dutch system is built for exactly this, which is why no single line on the awards table is the answer on its own — and why the order matters: settle your fee status, apply through Studielink before the 1 May admission deadline so you qualify for the schemes that demand an offer first, then file every award you are eligible for by its own (usually earlier) deadline, with Erasmus Mundus run a year ahead on its own track.

How College Council helps

We built College Council to remove the two things that most often derail a Dutch application and its funding: weak test preparation and a chaotic, last-minute process. Dutch universities do not require the SAT, but every English-taught programme demands a strong English-language score, and the competitive scholarships are won on the strength of the file as a whole. 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 do from home, and the right tool to lift a baseline 60–70 into the 90–100 band that selective Dutch programmes and excellence scholarships look for. If your plan also spans a US application where the SAT is central, our SAT app runs the full digital SAT with adaptive practice, so you prepare once and apply across both systems.

The harder part is judgement: which four Studielink choices give you the best scholarship odds, whether your profile clears each excellence-award bar, and which full-ride gambles are worth a tailored application. Those are the questions we work through with families. Create a free College Council account and check your chances — we hold every Dutch university, its admission requirements and its funding routes, mapped against your own profile. And if you want to explore what is out there, browse the Netherlands in our university Atlas, where each institution above has a full profile with rankings, programmes and student data.

Frequently Asked Questions

Summary — how to fund a Dutch degree

The Netherlands funds international students on a logic of its own, and your strategy falls out of where you stand. For an EU or EEA student, most of the work is done before you fill in a form: the €2,694 statutory rate is the largest grant you will ever be handed, and DUO finance plus part-time work covers most of what remains. For a non-EU student, the prizes are real but unevenly placed — a one-off €5,000 Holland Scholarship and a partial faculty award are the bachelor’s-level ceiling, while the full-tuition excellence schemes and Erasmus Mundus live almost entirely at master’s level. The point the country’s reputation obscures is that it hands out fewer full bachelor’s rides than you would expect, so win this game by combining several partial awards, filing each by its own deadline, and planning around the modest result rather than the headline one.

Next Steps

1. Confirm your fee status first — EU/EEA students aim at DUO finance and the €2,694 rate; non-EEA students begin the merit search the moment they apply for admission.
2. Apply for admission early via Studielink — most scholarship deadlines fall before the 1 May admission deadline, and require an application first.
3. File the Holland Scholarship and (if eligible) Orange Tulip — the two national non-EEA schemes, each at its own university or NESO deadline.
4. Target one or two institutional full awards — write a tailored application for the excellence scholarship you have a realistic shot at.
5. Map your chances honestly — create a free College Council account to match your profile against every Dutch university’s funding routes, and explore the country in our Atlas.

Read Also

• Studying in the Netherlands: the complete guide — the parent guide: universities, WO–HBO, Studielink, numerus fixus, the Orientation Year
• University of Amsterdam: complete study guide — the home of the €25,000 Amsterdam Excellence Scholarship
• Scholarships for European universities — the continent-wide overview
• Scholarships to study in Germany: DAAD and beyond — the free-tuition contrast
• TOEFL 2026 vs IELTS for European universities — the English test scholarships are won on

Sources and Methodology

Scholarship values, eligibility and deadlines were verified against official Dutch government, Nuffic/Studyinnl, European Commission and individual university scholarship pages in June 2026, and cross-checked against College Council’s Atlas dataset of Dutch higher-education institutions. Institutional scholarship 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. The Holland Scholarship is a one-off award paid in the first year only; the statutory EU tuition rate is set nationally by the Dutch government.

1. DUO (Dienst Uitvoering Onderwijs) — Tuition fees (statutory EU/EEA tuition €2,694 for 2026/27) and Student finance (studiefinanciering eligibility, including the 32-hours-a-month work threshold for EU students)
2. Studyinnl / Nuffic — Holland Scholarship (€5,000 one-off, non-EEA, ~30 participating institutions) and Orange Tulip Scholarship (country-specific awards €3,000–€25,000 via NESO offices)
3. European Commission — Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters (full tuition, monthly living allowance, travel and insurance for two-year joint master’s)
4. University of Amsterdam — Amsterdam Excellence Scholarship (€25,000/year, master’s) and UvA scholarships overview
5. Individual university scholarship pages — TU Delft (Justus & Louise van Effen Excellence Scholarship), Maastricht University (NL-High Potential Scholarship), Leiden University (LExS), University of Groningen (Eric Bleumink Fund), Erasmus University Rotterdam (Trustfonds / ESL / RSM), University of Twente (UTS), Wageningen, Utrecht and VU Amsterdam — values and eligibility confirmed June 2026
6. College Council — Atlas higher-education dataset (Dutch HEI rankings, location and programme data) and internal advising experience with international applicant families