Estonia

• TalTech's Cyber Security Engineering and Integrated Engineering are free for EU/EEA citizens. Non-EU students pay 7,000 and 6,000 euros a year for the same degrees.
• Where you do pay, it is cheap by European standards: Tartu's Business Administration is 4,200 euros a year, Tallinn University's Liberal Arts in Humanities 4,200, and the Academy of Music and Theatre charges EU students 1,750.
• Living costs are modest — dormitories from 150 to 350 euros a month, and public transport in Tallinn is free once you register your residence.
• You need no work permit and there is no cap on your hours, as long as you keep passing a full course load.
• Tallinn University's Baltic Film, Media and Arts School teaches film, television and audiovisual production in English.

• Only 27 English-taught bachelor's degrees are on the national list, at ten institutions. Estonia's English-taught provision is overwhelmingly postgraduate — plan on reading the whole list rather than filtering a big catalogue.
• The Estonian Academy of Arts has no English-taught bachelor's degree at all. Every one of its bachelor's programmes is taught in Estonian and needs B2 Estonian to apply. Its ten English programmes are master's and doctoral only.
• Most English-taught bachelor's degrees charge tuition to EU citizens too. The TalTech engineering exception is the exception, not the rule.
• Enrolling at a university does not give you Estonian health insurance. International students are not covered by the health insurance fund unless they are employed or hold permanent residence — bring your EHIC and consider supplementary cover.
• The University of Tartu's and TalTech's own deadlines, application fees, entrance tests and any minimum IB points are not confirmed here. Email them directly before you plan around either.
• The official living-cost figures are from a 2019 survey and are almost certainly understated today.

Accepted

Yes

• The full IB Diploma certifies completion of secondary education and gives access to Estonian higher education without a separate nostrification step.
• Only the full Diploma appears to count — DP Course Results are reported not to be sufficient. This rule comes from summaries of the Estonian ENIC/NARIC material rather than from a page that could actually be loaded, so confirm it with Harno before relying on it.
• A minimum IB score and an IB-to-Estonian grade conversion are not confirmed here for any Estonian institution; if you need one, ask Harno, Estonia's recognition centre.
• Whether Estonian universities make conditional offers on predicted IB grades is unknown. Nobody publishes an answer either way, so ask directly.
• Tallinn University is the one institution with fully readable selection rules: you need completed secondary education at at least 60 percent of the maximum possible result, you sit an admission exam that may have several parts and runs several times during the application window, and the enrolment threshold is 65 points out of 100.

1. Read the national list of English-taught bachelor's degrees at studyinestonia.ee end to end. There are 27, and that is faster than searching.

2. Decide early whether the free TalTech engineering route is for you, because it changes the cost of the whole plan.

3. Create one DreamApply account at estonia.dreamapply.com — nine institutions share it, including Tartu, TalTech and Tallinn University.

4. Check each university's own deadline separately. They are not aligned. Tallinn University closes 1 March 2027; the others had not published 2027 dates by September 2026.

5. Submit your secondary school certificate, transcript, proof of English, passport ID page and any programme-specific documents. If you hold an IB Diploma, Tallinn University accepts your graduation documents as English proof with no test.

6. Pay the application fee where one applies — 100 euros at Tallinn University, covering up to two programmes. Other institutions' fees are not published.

7. Sit the admission exam if your programme has one. Tallinn University runs its exam several times during the application period.

8. Once admitted, apply for a dormitory place, then register your residence with the local government within three months of arriving and apply for an Estonian ID card within one month of getting your right of residence.

Admission is decentralised — you apply to the institution, not to a central body, even though nine of them share the DreamApply interface. Tallinn University is the only institution whose selection mechanics are fully published: a 60 percent secondary school result to be eligible, an admission exam, and a 65-out-of-100 enrolment threshold. What the University of Tartu and TalTech use for selection is not confirmed here; ask them.

• 1 November 2026

  Tallinn University: bachelor's applications open

  Via n Estonian institution

  Details

  Source

• 1 March 2027

  Tallinn University: bachelor's applications close

  Hard deadline Via n Estonian institution

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  One university's date, and the only 2027 one published so far. Four months before IB results.

  The only confirmed 2027-entry deadline anywhere in Estonia. Treat it as your anchor date and assume other universities will land in a similar window until they publish.

  Source

• 6 July 2027

  IB results released

  Via n Estonian institution

  Details

  After Tallinn University's deadline. Ask each institution how it treats results that arrive after you apply.

• Not yet announced for this intake

  Academy of Music and Theatre: 2027 dates

  Via n Estonian institution

  Details

  The Academy says it will publish them in December 2026.

• Set by each institution

  Every other institution: its own closing date

  Via n Estonian institution

  Details

  Sharing the DreamApply portal does not mean sharing a deadline. For 2026 entry EUAS kept EU applications open until 20 September; TalTech's 2025 bachelor round closed on 1 June. Check each programme page from late 2026.

• Date not published
  2027 entry

  Other institutions, bachelor's

  Details

  Not published as of September 2026. For 2026 entry, Study in Estonia described bachelor's deadlines as typically April to May, and DreamApply's own overview says typically around 1 June. Check each university individually from late 2026.

  Source

• Date not published
  recurring

  Tallinn University dormitory offers

  Details

  Published as "June", with no day given. You get a link to the housing application form after official acceptance. For 2026/27 the first access day was 22 August.

  Source

English-taught bachelors

27 on the official national list as of 24 September 2026 (one, Commercial Aviation Management, has no 2026/27 intake), at ten institutions. Study in Estonia's quotable national figure is 'more than 150 degree programmes fully taught in English', but that counts every level and is dominated by master's degrees. Tallinn University has the widest bachelor's choice with six.

Proving your English

Tallinn University states it most clearly: students who have completed International Baccalaureate studies can submit their graduation documents as proof of English proficiency, so no IELTS is needed. It also exempts anyone who completed previous education fully in English in an EU or EEA country, which covers a Danish IB school. If a test is required, it asks for IELTS Academic 6.0 with at least 5.5 in each component, Cambridge B2 First, C1 Advanced or C2 Proficiency at 169 overall, or PTE Academic 59. Estonian Business School asks for English at at least B2.

Local language needed?

Not for English-taught programmes

• Estonian-language programmes at public universities are generally free through state-funded places, but they are not a realistic route unless you have university-level Estonian.
• The Estonian Academy of Arts requires B2 Estonian for every bachelor's programme it runs.
• Tallinn University's TOEFL minimum is not given here; check it on its admissions page if you need the TOEFL route.
• Test results must generally be no more than two years old at the start of studies; Cambridge certificates are valid for ten.

Tuition, EU/EEA

Varies sharply by programme. Free for EU/EEA citizens on TalTech's Cyber Security Engineering and Integrated Engineering. Otherwise: University of Tartu Business Administration 4,200 euros a year, Science and Technology 6,000, Medicine 13,200; TalTech International Business Administration and Law 5,000 each; Tallinn University 4,200 to 5,400 depending on programme; Estonian Business School 7,730 to 8,100; Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre 1,750; Estonian University of Life Sciences Veterinary Medicine 9,800; Baltic Methodist Theological Seminary 2,600. Nationally, Study in Estonia quotes a range of 1,500 to 15,000 euros. (2026/27 — 2027/28 fees were not published as of September 2026)

Tuition, non-EU

Higher where a distinction is made: TalTech Cyber Security Engineering 7,000 euros a year and Integrated Engineering 6,000 where EU students pay nothing; Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre 7,700 against 1,750 for EU students; Estonian Entrepreneurship UAS about 500 euros more than for EU students. Most other programmes charge the same to everyone. (2026/27)

Application fee

100 euros at Tallinn University, non-refundable, covering up to two programmes. A student applying from Denmark pays it unless one of the waivers applies — the waivers are for people educated in Estonia, Estonian citizens, long-term residence holders and, for the 2026/27 intake, Ukrainian citizens. Other institutions' fees are not confirmed here; check each one.

Living costs

Study in Estonia says around 300 to 500 euros a month, with dormitories at 150 to 350 and private flats at 350 to 750. Food comes to roughly 300 a month for comfortable living, and a university cafeteria lunch costs 5 to 8 euros. (2019 survey data, published on a current page)

• The survey behind the 300-to-500-euro figure is 2019 iGraduate data and is seven years old. Budget above it.
• Public transport in Tallinn is free for registered residents, including international students. Registering your residence is what unlocks it.
• In Tartu a monthly student transport ticket is 7.67 euros and a single student ticket 51 cents. The intercity bus from Tallinn to Tartu costs 8 to 12 euros.
• Doctoral studies in Estonia are free of tuition regardless of nationality.

Funding you could actually get

• Danish SU can follow you here if you can claim it (Danish citizens, or EU/EEA citizens with equal status under EU rules) and meet the ties-to-Denmark requirement. In 2026 it is DKK 7,426 a month before tax if you live away from your parents. The programme must be SU-approved, and outside the Nordics SU is capped at four years (48 klip). There is no extra SU if you are delayed. If you cannot claim SU, look first at your own country's student finance: several EU/EEA systems fund a full degree in another country.
• The biggest saving available to you is not a scholarship at all — it is the zero tuition on TalTech's Cyber Security Engineering and Integrated Engineering for EU/EEA citizens. Do check with TalTech whether that free status carries conditions on academic progress.
• The Estonian National Scholarship pays 350 euros a month, but at bachelor's level it can only be applied for in fields related to Estonian language and culture, and eligibility is limited to a list of countries. Whether Denmark is on it is not confirmed here.
• Compatriots Scholarships are for young expatriate Estonians on Estonian-language curricula, so they do not apply.
• University tuition waivers are the realistic route where you do pay. Tallinn University publishes a table: 50 to 100 percent for Baltic Film, Media and Arts from the second semester, 100 percent for two Governance, Law and Society awards, and 50 percent awards in several humanities programmes, all merit-based. Euro amounts and most deadlines are not published.
• The University of Tartu is described as offering tuition reductions of 25, 50 or 100 percent granted a semester at a time, and from 2026/27 no longer offers waivers to newly admitted students from outside the EU/EEA — which structurally improves an EU applicant's odds. This is not confirmed on Tartu's own pages here, so check it with Tartu.
• Estonian performance stipends, the need-based study allowance and the Estonian student loan are not confirmed here — whether a non-Estonian EU/EEA citizen in an English-taught programme qualifies for any of them is unknown. Do not count on them.
• Ignore anything you read about Dora Plus. Sources conflict about whether it still exists, and it was in any case a master's and doctoral mobility instrument, not a bachelor's tuition scholarship.

Residency

As an EU citizen you register your place of residence with the local government of wherever you live, within three months of entering Estonia. You then apply for an Estonian ID card within one month of obtaining the temporary right of residence. The ID card fee, its validity period and the personal identification code process are not confirmed here; check them with the Police and Border Guard Board. Registering is worth doing promptly for a practical reason: in Tallinn it makes public transport free.

Working

You need no separate work permit and there is no limit on your hours. The one condition is academic: you must pass a full course load, roughly 30 ECTS a semester, and finish within the nominal duration. The minimum wage was 820 euros gross a month in 2024 and the average full-time salary 1,832 euros gross in 2023 — both figures are dated.

Housing

Tallinn University's dormitory at Karu 17 is on the main city-centre campus, double rooms only, at 215 to 230 euros a month for a 14 square metre room and 245 to 260 for a 17 square metre one. Rent includes communal costs, wireless internet, bed linen and laundry, and the deposit runs from 470 to 550 euros. Offers go out in June after acceptance. In Tartu, Tartu Student Village runs eight residences through campus.ee, but its prices are not published. Nationally, Study in Estonia puts the average dormitory cost including utilities at around 350 euros a month. Private rentals go through kv.ee and city24.ee.

Healthcare

This is the one thing students get wrong. Enrolling at an Estonian university does not give you Estonian health insurance — international students are not covered by the Health Insurance Fund unless they are employed or hold permanent or long-term residence. Bring your EHIC, the blue card, and understand that it covers public treatment at Estonian rates with the same patient co-payments Estonians pay, and nothing private. Supplementary cover is sensible. Emergency services on 112 are free and available around the clock, and specialists including psychiatrists, dentists and ophthalmologists can be seen without a referral. Taking a part-time job is one way into the state system.

Your IB is still a foreign qualification here, so the IB entry rules still apply to you.