Poland has a large higher-education system of public and non-public institutions and a growing number of English-taught programmes, especially in engineering, management, social sciences and medicine. Public universities set their own tuition for international students on English-taught courses; the official Study in Poland portal quotes an average of about EUR 2,000 per year for Polish-language first, second and long-cycle studies and a range of EUR 2,000 to 6,000 per year across institutions, while individual English-taught programmes listed by universities for 2026/27 range from roughly EUR 2,500 to EUR 20,900 per year depending on field (medicine being the highest).
Non-EU applicants apply to the university (usually through an online recruitment system such as IRK or a university e-recruitment portal), receive an admission document, and then apply for a national type D visa at a Polish consulate or, if already in Poland, a temporary residence permit. Since 27 April 2026 temporary residence applications for study are filed electronically through the MOS portal. Under the Act of 4 April 2025, applicants holding school or higher-education documents from countries outside the EU, EFTA and OECD (and without a recognition agreement) face additional requirements such as a NAWA recognition statement, a B2-level language document and, for first-cycle studies, an entrance exam; universities describe these rules on their own admissions pages.
Full-time students with a student visa or temporary residence permit do not need a separate work permit, and graduates of full-time programmes at Polish universities may work without a permit; a one-time nine-month temporary residence permit for graduates looking for work is described by provincial offices. Scholarships for foreign students are limited and nationality-restricted: for example the 2026 Banach NAWA call covered 36 listed countries including Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Ukraine but not Turkey or Russia, and the Visegrad Scholarship (call opens 1 January 2027) lists Azerbaijan and Ukraine among eligible home countries.
Poland may suit students looking for an English-taught degree in an EU country at moderate cost, but fees, deadlines, language-document rules and visa fees differ by university and consulate and change from year to year. Figures in this dataset were read from official pages on 23 October 2026 and should be re-checked with the university and the competent consulate before an application is made.
