Erasmus Mundus Scholarship 2027: Benefits, Eligibility & Deadline for the 2027 Intake

If you want a master’s degree that is paid for, internationally recognised, and studied in at least two different countries, the Erasmus Mundus Scholarship for the 2027 intake is one of the strongest options in the world. It is not a general fund you apply to once and then use anywhere. It is a scholarship attached to a specific Erasmus Mundus Joint Master — a programme designed and delivered together by a consortium of at least three higher education institutions from at least three different countries. You choose a programme, you apply directly to that programme’s consortium, and the best-ranked applicants worldwide are offered the scholarship alongside admission.

This article is the numbers-and-rules deep dive for the 2027 intake. It focuses on exactly how much the scholarship pays, what it does and does not cover, who is eligible, who is excluded, how many programmes you may apply to, and how the deadline window actually works in practice — with verified examples from real 2027-intake programmes. If you want the broader programme overview first, read our guide to the Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters Scholarship. If you want the application process broken into steps, see our step-by-step guide to applying for Erasmus Mundus. This page sits between those two: read it before you shortlist programmes, because the financial and eligibility rules below should shape which programmes you choose and how you budget.

A warning that will save you time: there is no single Erasmus Mundus deadline, no central application portal run by the European Union, and no application fee charged by the EU itself. Anyone who tells you there is one universal closing date, or who asks you to pay to submit an Erasmus Mundus scholarship application through a private website, is not describing the official system. The official starting point is the European Commission’s Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters page, which states clearly that students apply directly to the institution running their chosen programme and can search the official course catalogue from there.

Erasmus Mundus Scholarship 2027 at a Glance

The figures in this table are the published Erasmus+ rules for the current programme period, confirmed on official programme pages. For example, the Euroculture consortium — one of the long-running Erasmus Mundus programmes — states on its official scholarship page that each grantee receives €1,400 per month for living costs during the 24 months of the programme, that health insurance is included, and that all tuition fees are waived. Other consortia describe the same structure in the same words, because the amount is set by Erasmus+, not negotiated programme by programme.

What the Scholarship Actually Pays: Benefits in Detail

The €1,400 monthly allowance

The headline benefit is a monthly allowance of €1,400, paid for the full length of your programme up to 24 months. A two-year, 120-ECTS programme therefore carries a maximum of €33,600 in monthly payments; an 18-month programme carries €25,200; a 12-month programme carries €16,800. The allowance is a grant, not a loan, and nothing has to be repaid if you complete your programme in line with your student agreement.

The most important detail — and the one most often misunderstood in older guides — is what that €1,400 is for. Under the current Erasmus+ rules, the monthly amount is defined as a contribution to your travel, visa, installation and living costs combined. There is no longer a separate travel grant, a separate installation payment, or a separate visa reimbursement paid on top of it. Earlier generations of Erasmus Mundus (the old EMJMD structure) did break funding into separate lines, which is why you will still find websites listing a travel allowance and an installation allowance as if they were extra money. For the 2027 intake, plan on the current structure: one monthly amount, from which you fund your flights between consortium countries, your visa and residence permit fees, your deposit and first month’s rent when you arrive in a new city, and your day-to-day living costs.

That has a practical consequence for your first month. Your largest costs — an intercontinental flight, a housing deposit that can equal one or two months’ rent, and initial setup spending — may fall before or just as your first monthly payments arrive, depending on the consortium’s payment schedule. Keep a personal contingency fund if you possibly can, and ask your consortium, after selection, exactly when the first payment is made and whether any advance arrangement exists. Consortia handle payment calendars individually within the Erasmus+ rules, so the honest answer is: verify the schedule with your programme, in writing, before you book non-refundable travel.

Participation costs: tuition, fees and insurance covered separately

Separate from your monthly allowance, the scholarship covers your participation costs. In practice this means the consortium cannot charge you tuition fees or other mandatory costs of participating in the programme — enrolment fees, library and laboratory charges that are compulsory for the programme, and similar institutional costs are covered through the institutional funding the EU pays the consortium. You should never receive a tuition invoice as a scholarship holder. If a programme website lists a fee — for example, a published self-funded fee of several thousand euros per year — that fee applies to self-funded students, not to Erasmus Mundus scholarship holders. Some programmes make this distinction explicit by describing a “tuition waiver” track alongside the scholarship track; read those pages carefully, because a waiver alone does not include the €1,400 monthly allowance.

Insurance is part of this picture. Consortia must provide scholarship holders with full insurance coverage meeting the Erasmus+ minimum requirements, typically covering health, accident and related risks for the duration of the programme, across the countries in your mobility path. You will normally be enrolled in the consortium’s arranged policy rather than asked to buy your own, but check what the policy covers — in particular whether it satisfies the insurance conditions for your student visa or residence permit in each country you will live in, and what happens during travel outside the programme countries. If your visa authority requires specific wording or coverage levels, raise it with the consortium early; they handle cohorts of international students every year and are the right people to confirm it.

What the scholarship does NOT cover

Being precise about exclusions protects you from a budget shock later:

• Costs beyond the monthly allowance. If your rent and living costs in an expensive city exceed what remains of €1,400 after travel and setup spending, the difference is yours. The allowance does not increase for high-cost cities.
• Dependants. The scholarship is calculated for the student alone. There is no additional Erasmus Mundus allowance for a spouse or children, and bringing family members means funding their travel, insurance, visas and living costs yourself — and meeting each host country’s separate financial requirements for dependants.
• Application-stage costs. Language tests, document translations, certifications, passport renewal and similar preparation costs are yours. Most programmes charge no application fee, but your supporting costs are not reimbursed whether or not you are selected.
• Extensions beyond the funded duration. The allowance runs for the programme duration up to 24 months. If you need longer to finish — for example after an approved interruption or a repeated period — do not assume payments continue; the funded period is capped.
• Travel beyond the programme design. Personal travel, tourism and trips home are paid from the same monthly amount. The scholarship funds the mobility built into your programme, not unlimited travel.

Eligibility: The Rules That Decide Whether You Can Apply

The degree rule

The European Commission’s official requirement is simple: you must have a bachelor’s degree (a first degree), or be in your last year of bachelor studies and graduate before the master’s programme starts. You may also apply if you can demonstrate a bachelor’s-equivalent level of learning that is officially recognised under the national legislation and practices of the degree-awarding country. Final-year students are therefore genuinely eligible — you do not need to wait a year after graduating — but your place and scholarship depend on actually graduating on time and being able to prove it with your final certificate and transcript before enrolment. If your university issues final documents slowly, start requesting them early; consortia set hard deadlines for proof of graduation.

Nationality: no restriction, but classification matters

Students from all over the world are welcome, and there is no list of excluded nationalities for the scholarship as a whole. Some programmes note “very few exceptions” for their own cohorts, so always read your chosen programme’s eligibility page, but as a rule a student from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Nigeria, Indonesia or any other country can compete for the same scholarships as a European student. What can differ is how a consortium categorises applicants for scholarship allocation — Erasmus Mundus has historically included additional scholarships targeted at students from certain regions — and individual programmes publish any such targeted places on their own pages. That is another reason the programme website, not a general guide, is the final authority for your application.

The prior-scholarship exclusion

You cannot receive a second Erasmus Mundus scholarship at the same level. Programme pages state this in consistent terms: students who have already obtained a scholarship under the Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters action (including its predecessor EMJMD) or certain Erasmus+ doctoral-level grants are not eligible for an additional EMJM scholarship. Note the precision here — a short-term Erasmus+ mobility grant during your bachelor’s or master’s studies (the classic semester exchange) does not count as an Erasmus Mundus scholarship and does not disqualify you. What is barred is holding the full joint-master scholarship twice. You also cannot benefit from another EU grant simultaneously for the same studies. If you have any previous EU funding history, disclose it accurately in your application; consortia check, and an inaccurate declaration is far more damaging than the funding itself.

The three-application limit

You may apply to a maximum of three different Erasmus Mundus Joint Master programmes in the same intake. This is a hard, well-established rule, and it forces a strategic choice. Three applications, each tailored properly, is a substantial amount of work — each consortium wants its own motivation material written for its own curriculum and mobility path. Applicants who treat the limit as “pick three and send the same essay three times” waste the opportunity. Choose programmes where your academic background genuinely fits the entry profile, where the mobility path and specialisations match the career you describe, and where you meet — not nearly meet — the language and subject prerequisites.

Programme-level requirements on top of the general rules

Meeting the general Erasmus+ rules only makes you eligible to be considered. Each consortium adds its own requirements, which commonly include:

• A bachelor’s in a specified field or with specified content — for example, a minimum number of credits in chemistry, mathematics, public health, economics or another named area.
• A minimum grade, expressed in the programme’s own terms or as an equivalent in your country’s system.
• English proficiency at a stated level, proven by a named test (IELTS, TOEFL iBT, PTE and others are commonly accepted) or by a defined exemption — for example, a degree taught entirely in English, where the programme accepts that as proof. Exemption rules differ sharply: one programme may accept a medium-of-instruction letter, another may not.
• Work or research experience for professionally oriented programmes — required by some, merely welcomed by others, irrelevant to many.
• Specific documents in specific formats, such as references on an official template, a signed declaration on honour, or a research outline where the programme requires one.

There is no general Erasmus Mundus age limit and no general work-experience requirement. Where a programme sets either, it will say so itself. Equally, there is no central grade cut-off — “excellent academic results” is the standard consortia describe, because scholarships go to the top-ranked applicants in each cohort, but the ranking is done by each programme on its own published criteria.

Programmes and Fields: Finding a 2027 Programme That Fits

The official Erasmus Mundus Catalogue lists the joint masters on offer — over 200 programmes in recent intakes, spanning engineering and technology, data science and artificial intelligence, public health, environmental and climate studies, agriculture and food security, law and human rights, public policy, business, education, arts and humanities, life sciences and many interdisciplinary combinations that do not exist as single-university degrees. That breadth is the point of the scheme: a consortium builds a curriculum no one university could deliver alone, and your mobility path — the sequence of universities and countries — is part of the qualification.

Two cautions belong in every catalogue search. First, appearing in the catalogue does not guarantee that a programme is offering Erasmus Mundus scholarships for the 2027 intake: some programmes are near the end of their funding period or continue under the Erasmus Mundus name without new scholarship places. Second, new programmes are added each year as new Erasmus+ selections are made. The correct workflow is: find candidate programmes in the catalogue, then go to each programme’s own website and confirm four things — applications for the 2027 intake are open, scholarships are available for that intake, the scholarship deadline, and the entry requirements. Browse the wider landscape through our scholarships directory and compare institutions in our university directory as you build your shortlist of three.

How to Apply: The Process in Brief

Because this article focuses on benefits, eligibility and deadlines, the process is summarised here; the full walkthrough is in the step-by-step sibling guide linked in the introduction.

1. Shortlist from the catalogue (September–October). Identify programmes in your field, check scholarship availability for 2027, and cut the list to a maximum of three applications.
2. Read each programme’s application page completely. Note the deadline in its stated timezone, the document list, the reference format, the language proof accepted, and whether scholarship consideration requires a separate tick-box, form or statement inside the application — in most programmes, applying by the scholarship deadline is the scholarship application, but verify.
3. Prepare documents early. Degree certificate or proof of final-year status, full transcripts, passport, CV, motivation material written for that programme, references requested weeks in advance, and language scores booked early enough for results to arrive before the deadline.
4. Submit through the programme’s own portal before its scholarship deadline. Not the self-funded deadline, which is later and carries no scholarship consideration in most programmes.
5. Respond to the outcome properly. Programmes notify main-list and reserve-list candidates on their own schedules, typically from late winter into spring. If you receive offers from more than one programme, accept one and decline the others promptly and politely — holding multiple places harms reserve-list candidates and can breach programme rules.
6. Complete enrolment, insurance and visa steps with the consortium. Sign the student agreement, follow the consortium’s instructions for insurance enrolment, and apply for the visa/residence permit for your first study country with the consortium’s supporting documents.

Required Documents: The Typical Set

Exact lists vary by programme, but a complete Erasmus Mundus application for the 2027 intake will usually require:

• Completed online application form on the programme’s portal
• Bachelor’s degree certificate, or official proof of final-year status and expected graduation date
• Full academic transcripts, with certified English translations where the originals are not in a language the programme accepts
• Passport or national identity document (valid well beyond the programme start)
• CV — Europass format is frequently recommended
• Motivation letter or structured motivation answers, specific to the programme
• Two (sometimes three) recommendation letters, academic and/or professional as the programme specifies, sometimes on the programme’s own template
• English proficiency certificate, or the programme’s accepted alternative proof
• Signed declaration on honour where required, confirming the accuracy of the application and, in many programmes, confirming you have not exceeded the three-application limit and have not previously held an Erasmus Mundus scholarship
• Programme-specific extras where required: research proposal, writing sample, portfolio, or proof of relevant experience

Deadlines and Timeline for the 2027 Intake

The European Commission states that in most cases applications are submitted between October and January for courses starting the following academic year. That window is real, but it is a window, not a date. Each consortium sets its own scholarship deadline inside (and occasionally just outside) it, in its own timezone, and missing yours by an hour ends the application. The table below gives verified examples from official programme pages for the 2027 intake — use them to understand the pattern, then confirm your own programme’s date on its own website.

Read across those examples and the working rules for the 2027 intake become clear. Applications open from around October 2026. Scholarship deadlines cluster from late December 2026 to late January 2027. Self-funded deadlines, where they exist, fall weeks or months later and are irrelevant if you need the scholarship. Results typically arrive between February and May 2027, with reserve lists sometimes moving into the summer. Programmes start in August or September 2027. Your personal deadline is the earliest date among the programmes you apply to — build your preparation calendar backwards from that date, not from the latest one. Keep your whole plan organised alongside other applications using our study-abroad tools.

Visa and insurance timeline after selection

Selection is not the finish line. As a non-European student you will normally need a student visa or residence permit for your first consortium country, and then new residence arrangements each time your mobility path moves you to another country. Consortia support this process — they issue admission and scholarship confirmation documents, advise on the competent consulate, and enrol you in the programme’s insurance — but they cannot issue visas, and processing times belong to national authorities. Apply as soon as your consortium tells you the documents are ready, keep copies of everything, and do not book irreversible travel until your visa is granted. Students whose first country has no consulate in their home country may need to apply in a third country; your consortium will have seen this before, so ask early rather than discovering it late.

Selection Criteria and How to Improve Your Chances

Consortia rank applicants on their own published criteria, but the same elements recur: academic excellence and the fit between your previous studies and the programme’s content; the quality and specificity of your motivation — why this consortium, this curriculum and this mobility path, not simply why Europe; relevant experience, research or professional, where the programme values it; references that know your work in detail; and complete, correct documentation submitted on time. Some programmes interview shortlisted candidates, as EPOG’s published schedule shows.

Practical ways to strengthen an application, without gimmicks: choose programmes where your degree content genuinely matches the prerequisites and say explicitly, in your motivation material, how specific modules you have taken prepare you for specific parts of their curriculum; explain the mobility path — what each partner university contributes to your intended specialisation; connect the degree to a concrete post-graduation plan in your home country, your region, or an international organisation, with named problems you intend to work on; give referees your CV, your draft motivation text and the programme’s criteria at least a month before the deadline; and submit days early, because portals slow down and document-format problems are fixable only while the window is open. Finally, respect the three-application limit as a quality filter: three excellent, tailored applications outperform any broader scatter — and breaching the limit can invalidate your applications.

Common Mistakes That End Applications

• Applying after the scholarship deadline but before the self-funded one and assuming scholarship consideration follows automatically. In most programmes it does not.
• Applying to more than three programmes, or signing a declaration that you have not when you have.
• Budgeting for a separate travel grant based on outdated EMJMD-era guides. Under current rules the €1,400 monthly allowance covers travel, visa, installation and living costs together.
• Assuming every catalogue programme offers 2027 scholarships. Verify scholarship availability on the programme’s own site first.
• Copy-pasting one motivation letter across programmes with different curricula, partners and mobility paths. Panels read for fit.
• Missing language-proof rules — booking a test the programme does not accept, or assuming a medium-of-instruction letter is accepted where it is not.
• Leaving references to the final week. Referee upload links expire, referees travel, and late references make applications incomplete.
• Ignoring the timezone and the exact closing time — 13:00 CET is not midnight in your country.
• Paying a third party who promises an Erasmus Mundus place or charges to “submit” your application. Applications are made by you, directly to the consortium, and EU scholarships are not sold.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much is the Erasmus Mundus Scholarship in 2027?

€1,400 per month for the duration of your programme, up to 24 months — a maximum of €33,600 for a two-year programme — plus coverage of participation costs, meaning scholarship holders are not charged tuition or mandatory programme fees, and insurance is provided by the consortium. The monthly amount is intended to cover your travel, visa, installation and living costs combined.

Is there one deadline for the Erasmus Mundus Scholarship 2027?

No. The European Commission gives a window — in most cases applications are submitted between October and January for courses starting the following academic year — but every consortium sets its own scholarship deadline. Verified 2027 examples range from 31 December 2026 (PlantHealth first call) to 27 January 2027 (EPOG). Your deadline is the one on your programme’s official website.

Can final-year bachelor’s students apply?

Yes. The official rule is that you must hold a bachelor’s degree or be in your last year of bachelor studies and graduate before the master’s programme starts. Your offer will depend on graduating on time and providing your final documents by the consortium’s enrolment deadline.

Can I apply if I had an Erasmus Mundus scholarship before?

No — a previous Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters (or predecessor EMJMD) scholarship makes you ineligible for another one at this level. A short-term Erasmus+ exchange grant during earlier studies is a different action and does not disqualify you.

How many Erasmus Mundus programmes can I apply to?

A maximum of three different programmes in the same intake. Choose them for genuine fit and tailor each application; many programmes require a signed declaration that you have respected this limit.

Does the scholarship pay for my flights separately?

Not under the current rules. Travel is one of the costs the €1,400 monthly allowance is designed to contribute to, along with visa, installation and living costs. Older guides describing a separate travel allowance reflect the previous programme generation.

Is there an age limit or a work-experience requirement?

There is no general Erasmus Mundus age limit and no general work-experience requirement. Individual programmes may require or prefer experience for their own cohorts — check the programme’s entry requirements.

Can I stay in Europe after the programme?

The scholarship itself gives no post-study residence right. Many European countries operate their own post-study work or job-seeker permits for graduates, with rules that differ by country and change over time. If staying is part of your plan, research the current rules of the specific country where you would finish your degree — and never treat a post-study route as guaranteed.

Sources & Verification

This article was checked against official sources at the time of writing: the European Commission’s Erasmus+ page Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters (students) (application window, direct-to-consortium applications, bachelor’s/final-year rule, degree types, scholarship coverage of participation costs, travel, visa and living allowance); the official Europubhealth+ application and selection page (8 January 2027 scholarship deadline, 24 March 2027 self-funded deadline); the official Euroculture scholarship page (€1,400 per month for 24 months, insurance included, tuition waived, prior-scholarship exclusion); and the official EPOG admission page (27 January 2027 deadline, March interviews). Programme-specific dates are examples for the 2027 intake, not universal deadlines.

Disclaimer: Scholarship amounts, rules and deadlines change between cycles and differ by programme. Always confirm the amount, the deadline and the eligibility rules on the official website of the programme you are applying to before you apply. StudyGraduate is an information portal, not an agency, and cannot promise selection, admission or visa approval to any applicant.