How much money can you get on the Erasmus+ programme?
Erasmus+ is the EU’s programme for education, training, youth and sport, and it pays a monthly grant to students, trainees and staff who spend time abroad with it. This guide sets out how much you can get, what determines the amount, when the money arrives, and what else the programme covers beyond the standard study grant.
What Erasmus+ is, in one page
Erasmus+ was launched in 2014 as a single programme bringing together seven previous schemes, among them the Lifelong Learning Programme (Erasmus, Leonardo da Vinci, Comenius, Grundtvig), Youth in Action, Erasmus Mundus and Tempus. The current programme period runs from 2021 to 2027 with a budget of more than €26 billion; the previous period (2014-2020) had €14.7 billion, itself a 40 % increase on the period before it. Between 2014 and 2020 the programme supported more than 6.2 million mobility participants; the 2021-2023 window added around 1.6 million more, and the 2026 call is planned to fund roughly 1,275,000 participants across over 100,000 organisations. Since the original Erasmus started in 1987, more than 13 million people have taken part.
The programme is open to organisations in 33 countries: the 27 EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey. Certain actions are also open to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. The United Kingdom currently funds outgoing students through the separate Turing Scheme, with a planned return to Erasmus+ from 2027/28.
You cannot apply to the EU directly. Erasmus+ works through eligible organisations - most often your home university, college or training institution - and your grant is set and paid by the national agency of the sending country. That is why the exact monthly amount you see quoted varies from one source to another: the EU sets the bands, the national agency sets the rate within them.
You can also take part without drawing the mobility grant at all, as a so-called „zero-grant” student. You keep full Erasmus+ status, including the tuition-fee waiver at the host university, and you must meet all the usual conditions and submit all the required documents; the days you spend as a zero-grant student still count against your 12-month funding allowance per study cycle.
Three „Key Actions” structure the programme:
- KA1 - Individual learning mobility: higher education students, vocational learners, trainees, doctoral candidates, teachers, trainers, youth workers and volunteers. The Master Loan Guarantee, joint master’s scholarships and youth exchanges sit here.
- KA2 - Cooperation for innovation and exchange of good practices: partnerships between institutions at every level of education and training.
- KA3 - Support for policy reform: coordination, innovation and dialogue on education policy.
A sport strand was added when Erasmus+ was created - a strand that did not exist under any of the seven predecessor programmes - and it now covers 600 collaborative partnerships, 3,000 partner organisations and an annual EU Sport Forum.
What you can do with Erasmus+
The options as an individual learner or trainee:
- Study abroad at a partner university for 2 to 12 months per study cycle (Bachelor’s, Master’s, PhD), up to 360 funded days in total. You pay no tuition, enrolment or exam fees at the host university; small charges for insurance or the student union may apply.
- Traineeship in a business or organisation abroad, 2 to 12 months. Recent graduates are eligible within 12 months of graduation, provided they are nominated before they finish.
- Short doctoral mobility of 5 to 30 days for PhD candidates.
- Joint master’s degrees through Erasmus Mundus, with a full scholarship (see below).
- Master Loan Guarantee, an EU-backed loan of up to €12,000 for a one-year master’s or €18,000 for a two-year master’s, offered through participating banks in some (not all) programme countries. No collateral from you or your parents, a favourable interest rate and delayed repayment.
- Vocational learners get the same mobility opportunities as higher-education students and can spend part of their training abroad.
- Volunteering and youth exchanges to work on projects in another European country.
- Teachers, trainers, lecturers and youth workers can go abroad to teach or train. More than 4 million education staff have taken part in mobility since the programme began.
How much money you can get
The Erasmus+ grant is a monthly contribution towards the extra costs of living abroad. It is not designed to cover your full living costs - typical student living costs across Europe run at €800 to €1,200 a month - so you keep your usual national student finance, family support or savings on top.
The amount depends on where you go, not where you come from. The Commission groups host countries into three bands by living cost, and adds a fixed premium for traineeships over studies because the trainee has fewer of the usual student concessions.
Monthly rates 2025-2026
| Country group | Monthly rate for studies | Monthly rate for traineeships |
|---|---|---|
| Group 1 - higher cost of living: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden | around €550 per month | €700 per month |
| Group 2 - medium cost of living: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain | around €400 per month | €550 per month |
| Group 3 - lower cost of living: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey | around €350 per month | €350 per month |
The traineeship premium is €150 per month on top of the study grant. Across all groups and both mobility types, monthly grants fall in the range of about €330 to €750. The exact rate is set annually by the national agency of your sending country, so two students from different countries doing the same exchange can receive different amounts.
Top-ups on the base rate
- Fewer opportunities top-up: +€250 per month if you come from a disadvantaged background (financial hardship, disability, care leaver, migrant background and similar categories defined by the national agency).
- Disability supplement: up to €100 per month on top of that, for documented additional needs, assessed case by case.
- Green travel bonus: a one-off €50 if you travel to and from your host country by train, coach or carpool rather than by plane, with proof of the journey, plus up to 4 extra funded travel days that do not count against your maximum funding period.
Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters
If you are accepted onto an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master, you are on a different track from the standard exchange grant. These are two-year master’s programmes delivered by a consortium of 2-3 European universities in at least two EU countries. The scholarship is €1,400 per month for up to 24 months - roughly €33,600 in total - and covers tuition, travel and living costs. Around 3,000 scholarships are awarded per year across more than 160 joint master’s programmes, and the programme’s total budget for 2021-2027 is about €1 billion. You apply directly to the consortium running the master’s, not to a national agency.
A worked example
A student going from Germany to Ireland for a 6-month study exchange sits in Group 1: roughly €550 a month, so about €3,300 over the semester. The same student on a 6-month traineeship in Ireland instead gets €700 a month, or €4,200. Going to Poland for a 6-month study exchange puts them in Group 3 at around €350 a month, or €2,100 total; a Polish national agency for a Polish outgoing student, by contrast, quotes €540-750 per month for study and €690-900 for traineeships, plus €250 per month social support for financial hardship or disability. Same programme, different national rulebook - which is why you always check with your own sending institution.
How the payments are made
Grants are calculated monthly but paid in lump sums, typically in two instalments (some universities split into three). Around 70-80 % of the total arrives before you leave, once you have:
- signed and returned your grant agreement,
- submitted a signed Learning Agreement - a legally binding document signed by you, your home university and the host university before you go, which sets out which courses you will take and secures ECTS recognition when you come back,
- provided your bank details for the transfer (some universities will not pay into foreign accounts, so you may need an account in the host country if you do not have one already).
The remaining 20-30 % is paid after you return, once you have handed in a Certificate of Attendance from the host institution and completed the final Erasmus+ participant report. Failing to meet these conditions - for instance, going home early without an approved reason - can trigger a request to repay part of the grant.
Language is part of the deal too. Erasmus+ provides free Online Language Support (OLS) before and during your stay, and you take a short language assessment at the start and end of the mobility - developing language skills is one of the programme’s stated aims.
Application windows for 2026
You apply through your home institution, not directly to the EU, but the institution has to hit the Commission’s own deadlines. The key ones for 2026:
- 19 February 2026, 12:00 CET - individual mobility in higher education (KA1).
- 12 February 2026, 12:00 CET - mobility of sport staff.
- 29 September 2026, 12:00 CET - Erasmus accreditations in VET, school education and adult education.
Your home university will have earlier internal deadlines - usually several months before the EU cut-off - so ask the international office in good time.
Why the EU pays for all this
Erasmus+ is not just goodwill. The EU has framed it as part of its long-term plan for growth and jobs: it wants a workforce that is multilingual, skilled and willing to move for work. The Commission has said that 42 % of Europeans lack basic digital skills, and the „skills gap” - the mismatch between the jobs the economy will create and the people it has to fill them - runs across many sectors. The policy targets it attaches to that gap include getting 40 % of young people into higher education and reducing early school leavers to under 10 %.
The current programme also puts more weight on inclusion than its predecessors. The share of participants coming from disadvantaged backgrounds rose from around 10 % in 2014-2020 to 18.8 % in 2024, and the fewer-opportunities and disability top-ups are the financial side of that shift. The proposal on the table for the next programme period (2028-2034) is a merged Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps with a budget of about €40.8 billion in current prices - roughly 30 % higher than the current period on a comparable basis - though the higher education sector is pushing for at least €60 billion. Both figures are proposals, not decisions.
What this means for you
The realistic picture is this: the Erasmus+ grant is a top-up, not a full stipend. If you go to a Group 1 country to study, expect around €550 a month; to Group 3, around €350. Add €150 if it is a traineeship rather than a study placement, €250 if you qualify for the fewer-opportunities top-up, up to €100 more for a disability supplement, and €50 once for travelling green. You pay no tuition at the host university, you keep your national student support at home, and if you need more you can top up with the Master Loan Guarantee of up to €12,000 (one-year master’s) or €18,000 (two-year master’s).
The exact amount you will receive is set by the national agency in your country, so treat the numbers above as the frame and your home university’s international office as the authority on your specific case. The definitive reference is the official Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2026 published by the European Commission.