University of Pisa for international applicants: Bachelor entry (2026/2027 rules, the latest published)

Pisa admits Bachelor students programme by programme: Computer Science is free access, while Management for Business and Economics is local programmed and Medicine and surgery is national programmed. Management for Business and Economics is the Bachelor that Pisa says is delivered entirely in English, and its ranking needs one test with a minimum eligibility score of 10.

Everything on this page describes academic year 2026/2027, the latest published; Pisa's admission pages name no 2027/2028 cycle, so read the 2027/2028 call for your programme when it appears. The Universitaly pre-enrolment for 2026/2027 closed on 30 September 2026, and the same pattern is the best guide to the timing for autumn 2027.

Polo Fibonacci, University of Pisa

The key facts by topic

Three rules that catch applicants out

• Visa applicants must pre-enrol on Universitaly: you must submit a pre-enrolment application through the Universitaly portal for your chosen degree programme, and you cannot enrol at a university other than the one indicated in your pre-enrolment application.
• Restricted programmes can close earlier: any earlier deadline specified in the relevant admission call applies.
• Missing the call deadline changes your ranking: the applicant will be included in the general ranking list instead of the reserved one.

The fee chapter explains how a flat rate based on the World Bank income class of your country applies when you have income and assets abroad.

Pisa describes itself as ranked among the top 300 universities worldwide and fourth in Italy in ARWU, and in the QS ranking as 343rd globally and 7th in Italy. In the Times Higher Education ranking it maintains its position in the 351-400 band.

These positions are as reported on Pisa's own ranking pages, according to the page as of October 2026. Rankings mostly measure research and reputation; they say nothing about how selective a particular Bachelor is, which the access type decides.

The scale of the university

Pisa lists 59 Bachelor's, 73 Master's and 9 single-cycle Master's degree courses, 20 departments and 45,794 students enrolled in Bachelor's and Master's courses (academic year 2023/2024, data as of 31 December 2023). The city is small: around 90,000 inhabitants plus its students.

Pisa publishes no overall acceptance rate; what it publishes is a number of places for each regulated programme, with a share reserved for non-EU applicants who live abroad. For 2026/2027 Management for Business and Economics offered 150 places for EU and EU-equated citizens and 50 for non-EU citizens residing abroad applying for a student visa.

Places are set programme by programme and are provisional until the ministry confirms them for the health professions, according to the call as of October 2026. Read the call of your own programme: the split between groups changes the competition you are in.

The non-EU visa quota

Pisa sets a ceiling by programme for students who need a visa: a total of 4,500 places is available for 2026/2027. The quota reaches free-access courses too: Economics and commerce has 65 visa places and Law has 55, and Computer Engineering has 10. When a quota fills, the university may decide not to validate any further pre-enrolment applications for that programme.

What this means for your chances

Unused visa places do not stay empty: for Management for Business and Economics, unfilled places reserved for non-EU candidates residing abroad are reassigned to the ranking list of EU and EU-equated candidates. Because the university runs two separate ranking lists, you compete first with applicants of your own group.

Every Pisa course page states one of three access types: free access, local programmed or national programmed. The type decides whether a test only checks your level or decides whether you get a place.

The table lists the access type for the courses in this report, according to the course pages as of October 2026. Check the access type of your own programme before you plan anything else.

Free access: a test that does not block you

In open-admission courses the university uses a non-selective test to assess initial preparation and personal aptitude. In Computer Science there is no restricted number, and enrolling without having passed the TOLC-S leaves you with an additional learning requirement (OFA) to clear in the first year. In Economics and commerce, initial preparation is checked through the TOLC-E, also taken at home as TOLC@Casa.

Local programmed: the university selects

In Computer Engineering, selection uses the score in one or more TOLC-I sections and the final school-leaving score, with three sessions of participation: one by the end of July, one in mid-September and one in mid-October. Aerospace Engineering uses the TOLC-I too, and those who do not pass the test can still enrol but carry an OFA according to the course regulation text. Biological Sciences uses a national admission test agreed with the CBUI, Pharmacy sets OFA thresholds of <7 in Chemistry, <7 in Biology, <3 in Mathematics and <3 in Physics, and the Bachelor in Sciences and techniques of clinical and experimental psychology requires passing an admission test.

Pisa sorts applicants into two routes: EU and EU-equivalent applicants follow the EU procedure, and anyone requiring a visa must submit a pre-enrolment application on Universitaly for the chosen programme. Which route you are on depends on citizenship, residence and where you earned your school diploma.

Universitaly pre-enrolment for visa applicants

Non-EU applicants who need a study visa must complete the pre-enrolment application on the Universitaly portal by the deadline set in the call for application to enter the reserved ranking list. For the whole university the 2026/2027 deadline was 30 September 2026, with earlier call deadlines for limited-enrolment programmes. The page adds that admission or pre-enrolment does not guarantee either the issuance of a visa or the availability of an appointment.

Registering on the Alice portal

To join an evaluation test or admission competition you register on the Alice portal, create your personal profile and login credentials, log in and choose your course of study. To finish, upload the required documents and pay the registration fee if you have not applied for a DSU scholarship. Non-EU applicants upload a passport-sized photo with a white background, a valid passport and the secondary school diploma, original or certified copy.

Who helps with enrolment

Pisa runs a service called WIS! for students with a foreign qualification: operators answer on +39 338 4706070, and the service is active from 8 July to 31 December 2026, not from 1 to 24 August in the 2026/2027 cycle.

To enrol at Pisa with a foreign certificate you need at least 12 years of schooling overall, and the document that proves it is either a Declaration of Value or the CIMEA Statement of Comparability: both must result in at least 12 years of schooling and the qualification must permit access to higher education locally.

The wording differs slightly between pages, according to the pages as of October 2026. The EU-citizenship page says at least 12 years of schooling and the qualification must allow access to university in the country where it was obtained, while the Universitaly validation step asks for an eligible High School qualification obtained after at least 12 years of schooling, with an official Italian translation.

Declaration of Value or CIMEA

The Declaration of Value is an official document issued by the Italian Embassy in your country, accompanied by an official translation of the diploma in Italian, and it certifies the years of schooling. The alternative is the CIMEA Statement of Comparability, applied for through the DIPLOME platform. Italian diplomatic offices require these documents to issue the study visa (type D national).

When your schooling is shorter or longer

If you have only 10 or 11 years, you must present a certificate of one or two undergraduate academic years or a post-secondary degree; the other ways in are to earn an Italian secondary school diploma or enrol in the Foundation Course Programme. One conflict is worth knowing: the page describing the Italian system gives the school leaving qualification awarded on completion of 13 years of global schooling as the general first-cycle requirement, while the enrolment pages for foreign students use the 12-year rule above. Plan on the enrolment pages and ask WIS! if your certificate sits near the limit.

Foreign degrees

A foreign degree used for admission must include at least the last two years of successful attendance in the foreign education system.

Pisa names rules for some certificates: a US High School Diploma needs at least three AP examinations with scores from 3 to 5, and a UK GCE needs three A-Level examinations in relevant subjects with at least a passing grade.

Italian as a subject

Students with foreign citizenship carry an extra subject: for the US diploma, an Italian language AP is compulsory exclusively for students with foreign citizenship; for UK qualifications, an A level in Italian is only required for students with foreign citizenship. Pisa applies the same logic to the Pre-U: students with foreign citizenship must have an A-Level in Italian.

IB Diploma, Abitur, matura and French baccalaureate

Pisa's pages on foreign certificates name no separate rule for the IB Diploma, the German Abitur, the Polish matura or the French baccalaureate. They fall under the general rule of at least 12 years of schooling overall proven by a Declaration of Value or a CIMEA Statement of Comparability, so ask WIS! if you want written confirmation for your certificate.

Subjects expected by programme

Management for Business and Economics expects logic, writing, reading and quantitative skills such as arithmetic, algebra and basic geometry. Computer Engineering expects adequate knowledge of mathematics at upper secondary level, checked with CISIA tests, and Biological Sciences basic knowledge of biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics at upper secondary level.

Non-EU applicants requiring a study visa for an Italian-taught Bachelor must demonstrate knowledge of the Italian language at least at level B2, either with a recognised certificate or through Pisa's own two-stage test. For the English-taught programme, a B2 level Italian language certificate is not required for pre-enrolment.

The 2026/2027 rules below are the latest published, according to the language page as of October 2026. Economics and commerce restates it for non-EU residents: a certificate attesting Italian at not less than B2.

Both stages count

The requirement is considered fulfilled only if both stages are successfully passed. The test and the interview are open only to candidates who have submitted a pre-enrolment application for a University of Pisa programme via the Universitaly portal, and for 2026/2027 the Italian language test takes place remotely.

Dates in the 2026/2027 cycle

The TEST ITA L2 ran in online sessions on 3 June 2026, 7 July 2026 and 22 July 2026, and the oral interview was organised in 3 sessions in July, September and October 2026. Expect a similar spread of sessions for 2027/2028 and read the new dates when Pisa publishes them.

Learning Italian before you arrive

The University Language Centre offers Italian language and culture courses for international students.

The English-taught Bachelor, Management for Business and Economics, requires proficient knowledge of English at least at level B2. An English certificate also earns ranking points: up to 5 points for a certificate awarded between 1 January 2022 and the application date.

The certificate is optional: any English language certification must be uploaded by 11.59 PM of the session deadline, and if not uploaded it will not be assessed. Pisa's English-programmes page lists 17 Master's degree programmes and an MBA taught exclusively in English, so the Bachelor in Management for Business and Economics is the one English-taught Bachelor in this report.

English and the additional learning requirements

If you took the TOLC-E in Italian and scored under 14 in its English section, you must pass a 6 CFU/ECTS English exam (OFA1) before taking any other exam. That does not apply to you if you take another test: there is no OFA1 for those who took ENGLISH TOLC-E, CEnT, SAT, ACT or GMAT, regardless of the score. A separate rule applies to a low total: a total score lower than 11.5 triggers OFA2, which you fulfil by retaking a test and scoring at least 11.5 by the end of the first-year summer session.

Italian-taught Bachelors

For the Italian-taught Bachelors the language rule on Pisa's pages is Italian, covered in the previous chapter. The first test for most of them is a TOLC taken in Italian.

Management for Business and Economics accepts one of six tests: CEnT, TOLC-E with English section, ENGLISH TOLC-E, SAT, GMAT or ACT, also in remote or online mode. To be ranked you need a minimum eligibility score of 10.

SAT, ACT and GMAT for Management for Business and Economics

Each test is valid only if taken between January 2025 and the date of submission of the application, and only the most recent attempt counts. Pisa converts scores to the TOLC-E scale: T = 0.04186 x SAT - 30.977 for the SAT and T = 0.087097 x GMAT - 33.677 for the GMAT. For the ACT the call prints a table, in which ACT 18 equals 10,05 and ACT 19 equals 11,72, and ACT 36 equals 36,00. If you take several different tests, the test with the highest final score will be considered valid.

CEnT and the TOLC-E

The CEnT counts only the Mathematics and Reasoning on texts and data sections. The ENGLISH TOLC-E is no longer delivered, so only candidates who already took it from January 2025 can be included in the ranking.

How the ranking is scored

The committee can give up to 46 points: up to 36 for the test score, up to 5 for an English certificate and up to 5 for passing Economics with 27/30 or more in the University of Pisa Foundation Course. On equal scores, the youngest candidate shall prevail.

Interviews

Pisa's Bachelor calls name no admission interview. The only interview is the Italian-language one for visa applicants, open to candidates with at least 55/72 in the CISIA TEST ITA L2.

For Management for Business and Economics in 2026/2027 the call ran a separate calendar for each group: non-EU applicants living abroad applied until 5th of July and EU applicants until 23rd of August. Treat it as last cycle's pattern: the 2027/2028 call sets its own dates.

All dates in this chapter are from academic year 2026/2027, the latest published, and have passed. Read the call of your programme when the 2027/2028 one appears.

Application and upload

Apply online exclusively via the Alice portal by 11.59 PM of each application deadline. The test result is mandatory: the CEnT, ENGLISH TOLC-E, TOLC-E with section in English or SAT/GMAT/ACT certification must be uploaded by the deadline, under penalty of exclusion from the ranking. Non-EU visa applicants also need Universitaly: they must have submitted the pre-enrolment application on the Universitaly portal by the selection deadline to enter the reserved ranking.

Open-admission courses

In open-admission courses you register from 8 July to 30 September 2026, then a late fee applies: 50 euros from 1 October to 2 November 2026, 100 euros from 3 to 30 November 2026 and 150 euros from 1 December 2026. The non-EU page gives a longer window: 8 July to 31 December 2026. One page is out of date: the EU-citizenship page still prints 24 July to 30 September 2025, while the degree page gives 8 July to 30 September 2026.

After the ranking

Winners must meet the deadline indicated for the course they were admitted to. The non-EU students then must produce the student visa, letter D, issued by Italian diplomatic offices abroad.

Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary medicine at Pisa are entered through the open semester: since academic year 2025/2026 access runs through a new mechanism called Semestre Aperto. Health-professions degrees, including Nursing, use one national exam for 16 professions, with at most 2 programmes to choose.

The dates below are from the 2026/2027 cycle, the latest published, according to the pages as of October 2026. Medicine and surgery lasts 6 years, Veterinary medicine 5 years. Pisa offered 365 provisional places in Medicine, of which 4 for non-EU citizens residing abroad.

The open semester for Medicine

Admission to the second semester requires all the credits of the open semester and a useful position in the national merit ranking. When you apply you choose at least 10 sites for enrolment in the second semester. The fee comes back automatically if the university ISEE 2026 is 26.000 euro or less.

Health professions and Nursing

The 2026/2027 health-professions exam was held on 16 September 2026 at 11.00, with registration closing on 3 September 2026 at 23.59 and a fee of 60 euros. The test has 60 questions with five options and lasts 100 minutes; 1,5 punto per ogni risposta esatta.

The call says the final places will be communicated after a ministerial decree. Within Nursing 185 places sit in the Pisa section, and you must rank the 5 training sections.

Non-EU applicants for health professions

Visa applicants must pass the Italian-language test before the admission competition, except in cases of exemption, and to be placed in the reserved ranking they must have pre-enrolled on Universitaly by the competition registration deadline; otherwise they go into the ranking for the ordinary places. Winners had to complete enrolment by 6 October 2026.

A Pisa Bachelor lasts three years and involves the acquisition of 180 university credits. The one taught entirely in English is Management for Business and Economics; the others are taught in Italian.

Robot at the Centro Piaggio, University of Pisa

The programmes below are the ones covered in this report, according to the course pages as of October 2026.

Management for Business and Economics

The course is delivered entirely in English and involves international lecturers. It has an international double-degree agreement with Nürtingen-Geislingen University, and students can obtain credits from an internship.

English elsewhere

Apart from the Bachelor, Pisa's English-programmes page lists 17 Master's degree programmes and an MBA taught exclusively in English, and some courses of the single-cycle programme in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology are in English.

Pisa runs a Career Service with a Job Board where students and graduates can browse job and internship opportunities. It publishes an annual summary report of the Career Service activities, and its Excelsior system covers the employment needs of more than 1.3 million companies.

How many graduate each year

In 2023 the university had 7050 graduates. Pisa's pages in this report give no graduate-salary or employment-rate figure, so ask the Career Service for the numbers of your department.

The most you pay at Pisa is 2,900 euros a year for students progressing regularly, and if your income or assets are abroad the university assigns a flat-rate contribution: the 2,900 euros fee multiplied by a coefficient for your country, plus the 140 euros regional tax for 2026/2027.

The coefficient follows the World Bank income classification of your country. The totals the university prints per income class are in the ladder below; add the 140 euros regional tax and 16 euros stamp duty printed beside each total.

Examples from the country table follow.

Fees based on ISEE

Fees at Pisa are calculated based on your ISEE, the Italian family-economic indicator. With an ISEE up to 26,000 euros and a regular study record, you only pay a 140 euros regional tuition fee and 16 euros stamp duty at first enrolment. Without an ISEE, or with 100.000 and above, the amount is 2.900 euros. The table band for regular students runs 0 to 26.000 euros: 0; 26.001 to 27.000 euros: 280 euros.

Instalments and late fees

Tuition is paid in five instalments: 30 September 2026, 18 December 2026, 1 March 2027, 15 April 2027 and 31 May 2027. First-year non-EU students needing a visa follow a shorter schedule: 31/12/2026 for the regional tax and stamp duty, then 01/02/2027 30%, 01/03/2027 25% and 15/04/2027 25%, and they must pay the first instalment by 31 December 2026. Instalments after the first paid late carry a late payment charge equal to 5%. The university ISEE is due by 2 November 2026, with a late fee of € 75.00 between 3 November 2026 and 31 December 2026 and € 100.00 between 1 January 2027 and 30 June 2027.

Reductions that do not apply to you

The merit reduction of up to 150 euros for a school grade of 95/100 or higher does not reach foreign certificates: it does not apply if the qualification granting access was obtained outside Italy. Non-Italian students get no reductions for off-site students. Special calls have their own fees: the health-professions exam costs 60 euros.

The main aid at Pisa is the DSU Toscana scholarship, which is open to students from any country and, as a recipient, makes you fully exempt from the annual comprehensive fee.

The DSU grant provides exemption from tuition fees, free accommodation in university residences or a rent subsidy, free meals in DSU canteens and a monetary allowance. The amount varies with economic conditions and student status. Note that DSU and UNIPI are two different institutions.

The merit scholarship in numbers

In the merit scheme, the first year pays 6,500 euros gross and a total exemption from university fees. Awards depend on CV assessment, interview outcome and CGPA, and the page says no separate application is needed. The page is dated 2024-2025, so confirm the 2027/2028 terms with the university.

Pisa suggests a monthly budget of 800 to 850 euros for a single room in a shared flat or 1,000 to 1,100 euros for an entire flat.

Pisa publishes a suggested monthly budget for students, according to the page as of October 2026.

Housing through DSU

DSU runs a Cerco Alloggio service for off-site students with verified offers of beds, rooms and flats. A DSU scholarship includes a place in a residence and free canteen meals. DSU also gives scholarships, accommodation, housing advice and discounts for cultural and sports events.

Daily costs

Eating out is priced at 10 to 20 euros for lunch or dinner and 5 to 15 euros for a buffet aperitivo. A city bus ticket costs 1.70 euros, and the city is easy to get around on foot or by bicycle.

Pisa is a student town: around 90,000 inhabitants share it with the university's students, and it is located in Tuscany, just a few kilometres from the sea.

Welcome for international students

The WIS! team organised a Welcome Day for international students: the last edition on the page was On Thursday, 2 October 2025 , from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM. Check the 2027 edition on the same page. For enrolment questions, WIS! supports the enrolment of students with a foreign qualification.

Getting around

The pages describe the city as easy to get around on foot or by bicycle, which is the most popular means of transport. For student services beyond the university, DSU Toscana offers scholarships, accommodation, housing advice and discounts for cultural and sports events.

After Universitaly validation, you apply to the Italian diplomatic office for a Type D national visa for study and university enrolment, and Pisa accepts only visas issued by 30 November 2026 for the 2026/2027 enrolment.

What the entry and stay pages cover

The pages cover the student entry visa, the residence permit, healthcare and the tax code. Book the visa appointment as soon as your pre-enrolment is validated, because places at consulates are not under Pisa's control.

Pisa suits applicants who can match a programme to its access type: a test-based ranking for Management for Business and Economics, a free-access route for Computer Science, and a national exam for the health programmes. The rules on this page are from 2026/2027, the latest published.

Where to compare Pisa with other Italian universities

Compare the English-taught route with other Italian options before you commit, because Pisa's English-taught offer at Bachelor level is a single programme (the English-programmes page lists Master's degrees and an MBA). If you want a wider choice in English, the other Italian university reports cover more programmes.

Official pages of University of Pisa, UCAS, gov.uk and the ranking publishers. Applicant reports, where shown, are self-reported and labelled.

Pre-enrolment on Universitaly - Non EU citizenship ~ UNIPI · The University in figures ~ UNIPI · Management for business and economics ~ UNIPI · https://alboufficiale.unipi.it/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Bando-MBE-202627-ENG-rettificato-1-1.pdf · Italian language proficiency assessment for non-EU citizens ~ UNIPI · Tuition fees for Degree Courses ~ UNIPI · Computer science ~ UNIPI · Medicine and surgery ~ UNIPI · Bachelor’s and Single-Cycle Master’s Degree Courses - Non EU citizenship ~ UNIPI · University of Pisa - Pre-University Schooling ~ UNIPI · Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) ~ UNIPI · Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) ~ UNIPI · Times Higher Education (THE) ~ UNIPI · Living in Pisa ~ UNIPI · Ingegneria aerospaziale ~ UNIPI · Scienze e tecniche di psicologia clinica e sperimentale ~ UNIPI · Pharmacy ~ UNIPI · Medicina e chirurgia ~ UNIPI · https://alboufficiale.unipi.it/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/DR-e-bando-PS-2026_2027.pdf · Biological sciences ~ UNIPI · Laurea triennale/Bachelor's Laurea Magistrale in · Nursing (licensing to nursing practice) ~ UNIPI · Economics and commerce ~ UNIPI · Law ~ UNIPI · Computer engineering ~ UNIPI · Aerospace engineering ~ UNIPI · Sciences and techniques of clinical and experimental psychology ~ UNIPI · Veterinary medicine ~ UNIPI · Enrolment for international students ~ UNIPI · Bachelor’s, Master’s and Single-Cycle Degree Courses - EU citizenship ~ UNIPI · The University in Italy: education system, credits and grades ~ UNIPI · Courses of Italian language and culture for international students ~ UNIPI · Programmes taught in English ~ UNIPI · Degree Courses (First-level and single-cycle degree courses) ~ UNIPI · Corsi di laurea (I livello e magistrali a ciclo unico) ~ UNIPI · Medicina, Odontoiatria e Veterinaria: Semestre Aperto ~ UNIPI · Concorso per le professioni sanitarie ~ UNIPI · AlmaLaurea ~ UNIPI · Surveys and data on the labour market ~ UNIPI · Tutition Fees Reduction ~ UNIPI · Classificazione dei paesi in base al reddito · Tuition Fees for International Students ~ UNIPI · DSU Scholarship ~ UNIPI · MAECI Scholarships ~ UNIPI · Invest your talent in Italy scholarships ~ UNIPI · Unipi Merit Scholarships ~ UNIPI · Borse di studio e Posti Alloggio DSU Toscana ~ UNIPI · Right to Education - Scholarships, Housing, Canteens ~ UNIPI · Welcome Days ~ UNIPI · Residence permit for students and doctoral scholars ~ UNIPI · Entry and Stay Information for Non-EU Citizens ~ UNIPI

Photos: Palazzo della Sapienza, University of Pisa: photo Antonio D'Agnelli, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons · Polo Fibonacci, University of Pisa: photo Antonio D'Agnelli, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons · Robot at the Centro Piaggio, University of Pisa: photo Antonio D'Agnelli, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons