Scholarships in Italy for International Students 2026/2027

Italy is one of the most realistic funded-study destinations in Europe for international students, and the reason is structural rather than promotional. Public university tuition is income-based and comparatively low, the state runs a genuine need-based support system — the DSU, or Diritto allo Studio Universitario — that international students can access on the same legal footing as Italians, and two national government schemes, the MAECI grants and Invest Your Talent in Italy, are built specifically for students coming from abroad. Put together, scholarships in Italy for international students in 2026/2027 are not a single competition you either win or lose. They are a layered system, and students who understand the layers — and apply to more than one of them, in the right order — routinely study in Bologna, Milan, Padua, Rome, Turin, and Pisa at a fraction of the cost quoted for the United Kingdom, the United States, or Australia.

It is also a system with traps for the unwary. The most generous route for many students, the DSU regional scholarship, is decided mainly by family income, not grades — yet thousands of applicants lose it every year because their income documents were not legalised and translated correctly, or because they missed a regional deadline that closed in early September while they were still waiting for a visa. The MAECI grant looks simple until you notice the age limits and the fact that the call opens and closes in spring, months before most students start thinking about Italy. Invest Your Talent in Italy is genuinely excellent — but only if your country is on that year’s eligible list and your master’s is on the participating course list. This guide explains the whole landscape honestly: what each scholarship actually pays, who can really apply, which deadlines matter for the 2026/2027 cycle, and how to build an application plan that does not depend on a single result.

As you read, plan your wider research alongside it: browse the full scholarships directory, compare Italy with other destinations in the study abroad section, check where Italian universities sit in the global rankings, and use the StudyGraduate tools to model living costs and track deadlines. If your main interest is a fully funded master’s with an internship, our dedicated guide to fully funded scholarships in Italy and the Invest Your Talent programme goes deeper on that single route.

Scholarships in Italy at a Glance

The table below summarises the main routes covered in this guide. Amounts are taken from the most recent official calls available at the time of writing; where a figure changes every year or differs by region, the table says so rather than inventing a single number.

Why Italy Works Financially — Tuition and Living Costs

Before scholarships enter the picture, Italy’s baseline costs are already moderate. At public universities, annual tuition is set by each institution and is commonly income-adjusted; widely published guidance, including the QS guide to studying in Italy, puts average public fees roughly between €900 and €4,000 per year, with private universities charging substantially more — often €6,000 to €20,000 or above. Your actual public fee depends on your programme and on your ISEE value, the official indicator of your family’s economic situation. Students assessed in the lowest brackets pay very little, and DSU scholarship winners are exempted from tuition altogether. Doctoral candidates who hold a university research grant generally do not pay tuition for the PhD itself.

Living costs vary sharply by city. Milan and Rome are the most expensive; Bologna, Turin, and Padua sit in the middle; smaller university cities such as Pisa, Perugia, Trento, and Lecce are cheaper again. A realistic planning range is roughly €700 to €1,300 per month covering a room in a shared flat (or a subsidised residence place), food, local transport with a student pass, and personal expenses — which is why the same scholarship feels generous in one city and tight in another. Part-time work can help at the margins: non-EU students on a study residence permit may work up to 20 hours per week, capped at 1,040 hours per year, but you should never build a funding plan that depends on finding that work, because student jobs are competitive and often require Italian. After graduation, non-EU graduates can apply to convert their permit into a job-search permit valid for up to 12 months — a genuine advantage, though conversion is an application, not an entitlement, and it must be filed before the student permit expires.

The Main Scholarship Routes, Explained One by One

1. MAECI grants — the Italian Government scholarship

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI) offers grants each year to foreign students living abroad and to Italian citizens living abroad (IRE), to foster cultural, scientific, and technological cooperation and to promote Italian language and culture. The grants fund study, training, and research at Italian public or legally recognised institutions, with in-person attendance in Italy required. According to the published call for the 2025/2026 academic year, grants were available for second-cycle degree courses (Laurea Magistrale, 9 months, renewable), higher education courses in arts, music, and dance (AFAM, 9 months, renewable), PhD programmes (9 months, renewable), research projects under academic supervision including co-tutorship (9 months), and advanced Italian language and culture courses (3 months). The 2025/2026 call was published in spring 2025 with a deadline of 16 May 2025, and applications are submitted exclusively online through the Study in Italy portal. On value: recent published terms put the 9-month grant at €10,800 in total, paid in instalments, with health and accident insurance provided by MAECI for the grant period; a 3-month language-course grant was listed at €3,600. Some universities exempt MAECI grantees from tuition, but regional taxes and small charges can still apply, and the grant does not include your airfare. Always read the current call on the official portal — the full 2025/2026 call text is published by Italian diplomatic missions, for example in the official MAECI call for applications (PDF), and a summary of the grant structure is also carried by the European Funding Guide’s MAECI listing.

2. Invest Your Talent in Italy — master’s plus internship

Invest Your Talent in Italy (IYT) is the flagship scheme for taught master’s students in English. Run by MAECI with the Italian Trade Agency (ICE) and Uni-Italia, it combines a scholarship with an Italian language course and a curricular internship in an Italian company. The 11th edition, for 2026/2027, offered an annual scholarship of €10,800 — structured as nine monthly payments of €1,200 — plus exemption from tuition fees (excluding the regional right-to-study tax, stamp duty, and insurance costs) and the internship placement. Applications for that edition were open from 20 April to 11 May 2026, as confirmed on the University of Salento’s official IYT page, one of the participating universities. Eligibility is narrower than MAECI’s: you must be a citizen of — and living in — one of the countries listed in that year’s call (the recent list has included Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam among roughly two dozen countries across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Türkiye), hold a bachelor’s degree, prove English at B2 level or above, meet the call’s age limit (recent calls have required applicants to be born on or after 1 January 2000 — verify the exact date in the current call), and apply to one eligible English-taught Laurea Magistrale in engineering, advanced technologies, architecture, design, economics, or management at a participating university. The scholarship runs for nine months from 1 October and can be renewed for the second year of a two-year master’s if you meet the academic conditions. It is incompatible with other Italian government or public scholarships, including DSU grants, so you cannot stack it. Because of its importance, this programme has its own full guide: see Fully Funded Scholarships in Italy: Invest Your Talent Guide, and apply only through the official Invest Your Talent application portal.

3. DSU regional scholarships — the need-based backbone

The DSU system is the least glamorous and, for many international students, the most valuable part of Italian funding. Under Italy’s right-to-study framework, each region runs an agency — ER.GO in Emilia-Romagna, DSU Toscana in Tuscany, DiSCo in Lazio, EDISU in Piedmont, ESU bodies in Veneto, and university-run offices in much of Lombardy — which publishes an annual call (bando) for enrolled students. Awards are ranked primarily on family income and assets, measured through the ISEE, and for international students through the ISEE Parificato, built from legalised and translated family income, property, and bank documents from your home country. A typical winning package combines full tuition exemption, a cash grant paid in instalments to your Italian bank account, a place in a student residence (or an additional amount if no place is available), and free or heavily discounted canteen meals. Cash amounts genuinely differ by region and by whether you are classified as in sede (living at home), pendolare (commuting), or fuori sede (living away from home, normally with a registered rental contract of at least ten months). To give one verified example of the scale, published 2026/2027 figures for the Milan area put the total annual value for a lowest-bracket fuori sede student at around €8,248 including the meal component, with lower totals for commuter and in-sede students, plus supplements such as a 20% increase for women in STEM in that call. Treat any single figure you see online — including that one — as an example from one region’s call, not a national rate, and read your own region’s bando on the agency’s official site, such as DSU Toscana for Florence, Pisa, and Siena. Two conditions catch students out: you must earn a minimum number of university credits (CFU) by the dates in the bando to keep or unlock the later instalments, and first-year awards are partly provisional until that merit check is passed.

4. University merit scholarships and fee waivers

Italian universities run their own awards on top of the national and regional systems, and the strongest are at master’s level. Politecnico di Milano’s official scholarships page states that its merit-based scholarships for talented international candidates admitted to a Master of Science include a full tuition-fee waiver, that some also carry an additional gross allowance of up to €10,000 per year, and that scholarship holders pay only a non-refundable administrative fee of about €170 — see the Politecnico di Milano scholarships page for the current call and its early-application conditions. The University of Bologna has for years run international study grants and fee waivers for students with qualifications from outside Italy (historically branded Unibo Action 1 and Action 2, with the study grant listed at €11,000 gross in those calls); the scheme’s name, amounts, and test requirements change between calls, so verify the current edition on the university’s site before relying on any figure. The University of Padua’s International Excellence Scholarship has similarly offered a fee waiver plus an annual scholarship payment (listed at €8,000 in recent calls) for highly talented prospective students on English-taught degrees. Bocconi and other private universities run substantial merit and need-based awards of their own, assessed under their own rules. The common thread: university merit money is decided on your admission file — grades, the match between your background and the programme, and in design and architecture a portfolio — and the application is usually part of, or immediately after, the admission application, with deadlines months before enrolment.

5. Erasmus routes into Italy

Two Erasmus doors lead to Italy. If you are already enrolled at a university outside Italy that has an Erasmus+ agreement with an Italian university, a study mobility grant can fund a semester or year in Italy; amounts are set by your home institution’s national agency. Separately, Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters are full degree programmes run by consortia of universities in at least two or three countries; if a consortium includes an Italian partner and you win one of its scholarships, you receive €1,400 per month for up to 24 months with participation costs covered, and you study in at least two countries. Mundus is open to applicants of any nationality, is extremely competitive, and is applied for directly to each consortium, usually between October and January. It is a master’s-only route, but for strong candidates it is one of the few genuinely fully funded ways to include Italy in a European degree.

Eligibility — Who Can Apply for Scholarships in Italy

Eligibility in Italy is scheme-specific, but the following framework covers most applicants. Nationality and residence: DSU and most university awards are open to enrolled students regardless of nationality. MAECI grants are for foreign students living abroad and Italian citizens living abroad, from the countries listed in each call. IYT is restricted to citizens living in its listed eligible countries. Level and enrolment: MAECI and IYT require admission (or pre-admission) to the relevant Italian programme; DSU requires actual enrolment at a university in the region and is applied for around the start of the academic year. Age limits: MAECI’s published call sets maximum ages by programme — 28 for master’s and AFAM applicants, 30 for PhD applicants, and 40 for research projects, calculated as specified in the call — while IYT applies its own birth-date cut-off. University merit awards sometimes add an under-30 condition. Language: for Italian-taught programmes you normally need certified Italian, commonly B2; for English-taught programmes, English certification as the university requires (IYT specifies a minimum B2 level of English). Italian language-course grants under MAECI required a minimum A2 level in the published call. Academics and finances: merit schemes weigh your previous degree results heavily; DSU weighs family income and assets, and both systems impose credit-achievement conditions after the first year. Finally, holding a degree of the same level as the one you are applying to repeat can exclude you from DSU support, and MAECI and IYT both exclude students already enrolled in Italy in ways the calls specify — read those clauses carefully if they might apply to you.

Benefits and Coverage — What the Money Actually Pays For

It helps to separate four kinds of value, because Italian awards mix them differently. First, tuition exemption: DSU winners and IYT holders are exempt from programme tuition (with small fixed charges — regional tax, stamp duty, insurance — typically still payable; Politecnico di Milano merit holders pay only about €170 in administrative fees). Second, cash for living costs: MAECI’s €10,800 over nine months and IYT’s €10,800 over nine months are paid in instalments, not upfront, and DSU cash is likewise instalment-based and partly conditional on credits earned. Third, services in kind: DSU residence places and canteen meals are worth real money — a residence place plus a daily free meal can be worth several thousand euros a year compared with market rent — and they are allocated by ranking, so in high-demand cities such as Rome and Milan not every winner receives a bed immediately. Fourth, insurance and extras: MAECI provides health and accident insurance for the grant period; IYT holders must arrange their own health policy, and neither MAECI nor IYT pays your international travel or visa costs. A sober budget therefore treats a €10,800 grant as covering most, but not all, of a nine-month stay: you will still need personal funds for the deposit and first weeks before instalments arrive, for travel, and for the financial proof required for your student visa, which is assessed separately from any scholarship letter.

Programmes and Fields of Study

Italy offers the full disciplinary range, but funding concentrates where the schemes point. IYT covers only its listed English-taught master’s in engineering and advanced technologies, architecture and design, and economics and management at participating universities — the participating list in recent editions has included Politecnico di Milano, Politecnico di Torino, Sapienza University of Rome, the Universities of Padua, Pavia, Trento, Bologna-linked programmes and many others, with the exact course list republished each edition. MAECI spans all fields at master’s and PhD level, including AFAM institutions for art, music, and dance, and Italian language and culture courses. DSU follows your enrolment wherever you study in the region, across bachelor’s, master’s, and single-cycle degrees such as medicine, dentistry, and architecture. Beyond the famous names, Italy has genuine field strengths worth targeting: engineering and design in Milan and Turin, economics and social sciences in Bologna and Rome, medicine and life sciences in Padua, Milan, and Pavia, agrifood sciences, cultural heritage and conservation — a field where Italy is a world reference — and a growing set of English-taught data science and artificial intelligence master’s degrees. Choose the programme first and the scholarship second: every scheme in this guide attaches to a real admission, and a well-matched programme strengthens both your admission file and your scholarship ranking.

How to Apply, Step by Step

1. Choose programmes and universities (12–18 months ahead). Shortlist two or three programmes, check whether they are public or private, Italian- or English-taught, and which funding routes attach to them — IYT course list, MAECI eligibility, the region for DSU, and the university’s own merit call.
2. Prepare legalised documents early. Order transcripts and degree certificates, and start legalisation or apostille and certified Italian translation for the family income and property documents you will need for the ISEE Parificato. This is the slowest step for most international applicants and the one that decides DSU outcomes.
3. Apply for admission. Follow each university’s international application procedure, which for many non-EU applicants includes pre-enrolment through the Universitaly portal and a Declaration of Value or CIMEA comparability statement for your qualifications, as the university instructs.
4. Apply to the spring government calls. Submit MAECI through the Study in Italy portal and IYT through its official application portal inside their spring windows, if you are eligible. Do not wait for admission results if the call allows pre-admission evidence — follow the call text exactly.
5. Apply for university merit awards within the admission process where the university requires a separate scholarship form or early application (Politecnico di Milano’s merit scheme, for example, is tied to its early-bird application period).
6. Handle the visa. With your admission and any scholarship letters, apply for a national (type D) study visa at the competent Italian consulate or visa centre, with the financial proof the consulate requires.
7. Apply for DSU on arrival or online as your region directs, within the bando window (usually July to September), then request your ISEE Parificato through a CAF (fiscal assistance centre) with your legalised documents, and open an Italian bank account for instalment payments.
8. Enrol, register your rental contract if you claim fuori sede status, and protect your award by earning the CFU credits the bando requires by its August and November checkpoints.

Required Documents

Across schemes you will need: a valid passport; degree certificates and full transcripts, legalised or apostilled and translated where required; a comparability or value declaration for foreign qualifications as the university requests; language certification (Italian and/or English at the level the programme and scheme specify); a CV in Europass or the format the call requests; a motivation or study-plan statement tailored to each scheme; and, for research and PhD routes, a research proposal and an acceptance or supervision letter from the Italian institution. For DSU and the ISEE Parificato, add your family’s income certificates for the reference year, property ownership certificates (including a declaration of no property where applicable), and bank balance certificates for all family members in the household, each legalised by the competent authority and the Italian consulate and translated into Italian. For MAECI and IYT, follow the call’s exact upload list — both are online-only applications, and a missing or wrongly formatted document is a common reason for exclusion at the eligibility-check stage.

Deadlines and Timeline for 2026/2027

If you are reading this after a window in the table has closed, do not treat the route as gone: MAECI, IYT, DSU, and university merit calls are annual, and the most productive response is to build your document set now for the next cycle while keeping any still-open routes — above all DSU, where relevant — moving for your actual enrolment year.

Selection Criteria and How to Improve Your Chances

Merit schemes (MAECI, IYT, university awards, Erasmus Mundus) rank on academic results first, then on fit: the coherence between your previous studies, the chosen programme, and your stated goals, supported by language level and, for IYT, the credibility of your interest in the internship and in Italy’s industrial strengths. DSU ranks on documented need, which means your “strategy” there is documentary, not rhetorical: complete, consistent, properly legalised family papers, submitted inside the window, followed by the required credits. Practical steps that move real applications: apply to more than one route in parallel (an IYT application, a university merit application, and a DSU application can coexist until award stage, subject to incompatibility rules at acceptance); keep grades as high as possible in your final degree year, because several schemes assess the qualification you present at application; obtain your language certificate early rather than relying on a medium-of-instruction letter where a test score is requested; write a specific motivation statement that names the programme’s actual curriculum and Italy-based opportunities instead of generic praise of Italy; and diarise the DSU credit thresholds from day one, because losing a DSU award in year two for missed credits is one of the most common — and most avoidable — outcomes in the whole system.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Starting with the scholarship instead of the programme. Every major Italian scheme attaches to a real admission or enrolment; a scholarship application without a matching programme application goes nowhere.
• Missing the spring government windows. MAECI and IYT close months before the autumn intake. Students who begin in June have usually missed both for that year.
• Weak DSU paperwork. Unlegalised income documents, missing property declarations, or figures that do not match across documents delay or destroy ISEE Parificato assessments and DSU rankings.
• Assuming DSU amounts are national. Amounts, meal rules, and housing rules are set region by region; budgeting from another region’s figures leads to shortfalls.
• Ignoring credit requirements. DSU instalments and renewals, IYT renewal for year two, and MAECI renewals all depend on academic progress actually achieved by set dates.
• Double-holding incompatible awards. IYT cannot be combined with other Italian public scholarships including DSU; accepting overlapping awards can lead to revocation and repayment.
• Paying an agent for a “guaranteed” Italian scholarship. All applications in this guide are free and submitted through official portals; no intermediary can allocate MAECI, IYT, or DSU awards.
• Underestimating visa financial proof. A scholarship letter helps, but consulates assess your overall documented means; keep bank evidence consistent and sufficient for the first year.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can international students really study in Italy almost for free?

Yes, in a specific and honest sense: at a public university, a student who wins a DSU regional scholarship is exempt from tuition and receives cash, meals, and possibly housing support, and an IYT or MAECI holder has tuition largely covered plus €10,800 across nine months. “Almost free” still excludes airfare, visa costs, initial deposits, and personal spending, and DSU depends on documented family income — it is a realistic outcome for well-prepared, lower-income applicants, not an automatic one.

What is the difference between MAECI, Invest Your Talent, and DSU?

MAECI is the Italian Government’s general grant for foreign students across master’s, PhD, AFAM, research, and language study, applied for in spring through the Study in Italy portal. Invest Your Talent is a narrower, master’s-only scheme for citizens of its listed countries, taught in English, with an internship and a €10,800 scholarship. DSU is not a competition for a fixed number of national awards but a regional, need-based entitlement system for enrolled students, ranked on family income and paid as exemption plus cash and services.

Do I need to speak Italian to get a scholarship in Italy?

Not necessarily. IYT and many university merit awards attach to English-taught programmes and require English certification (IYT specifies at least B2). Italian-taught programmes require certified Italian, commonly B2, and MAECI language-course grants required at least A2 in the published call. Even on an English-taught degree, basic Italian substantially improves daily life, part-time work options, and internship outcomes, and IYT includes an Italian language course for that reason.

How much is the DSU scholarship worth?

There is no single national amount. The package combines tuition exemption with a cash grant and services whose value depends on your region, your ISEE bracket, and your student status (in sede, pendolare, or fuori sede). Published 2026/2027 figures for one major northern call put the total annual value for a lowest-bracket student living away from home at around €8,248 including the meal component, with lower totals for commuters and students living at home. Read your own region’s bando for the figures that will actually apply to you.

Can I combine scholarships in Italy?

Only within limits. Invest Your Talent is explicitly incompatible with other Italian government or public scholarships, including DSU grants. MAECI grants have their own compatibility rules in the annual call. University merit awards and DSU sometimes interact through fee rules set by the university and region. When two awards are offered, check both calls’ incompatibility clauses before accepting, because holding incompatible awards can trigger revocation and repayment.

When should I start applying for 2026/2027 — and what if I missed a deadline?

For autumn 2026 entry, the sequence ran from autumn 2025 (admissions, Mundus) through spring 2026 (MAECI and IYT) to summer 2026 (DSU and visas). If you missed the government calls, DSU may still be available around enrolment if your region’s window is open, and the government schemes reopen annually — the strongest move is to prepare legalised documents and language certificates now so the next cycle is a submission exercise, not a scramble.

Does a scholarship guarantee my Italian student visa?

No. A scholarship award is strong supporting evidence, but the visa decision rests with the consulate on your complete file — admission, pre-enrolment, accommodation, insurance, and documented financial means for the first year. No scholarship body can guarantee a visa outcome, and you should treat any person or agency promising one as a warning sign.

Can I work in Italy while studying on a scholarship?

Generally yes within the student-permit limits — up to 20 hours per week and 1,040 hours per year for non-EU students — provided the work does not undermine the credit progress your scholarship requires. IYT’s curricular internship is part of the programme itself and is separate from casual part-time work. Check your specific grant conditions, because some awards restrict outside employment during the funding period.

Sources & Verification

The facts in this guide were checked against official and primary sources at the time of writing, including: the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAECI) call for applications for grants for foreign students and IRE for 2025/2026, published via the Study in Italy portal and Italian diplomatic missions (including the official call PDF and embassy notices confirming the 16 May 2025 deadline, programme types, and age limits); the Invest Your Talent in Italy official programme and application portal, and the University of Salento’s official IYT page confirming the 11th edition’s €10,800 scholarship and 20 April – 11 May 2026 application window; Politecnico di Milano’s official scholarships page (full tuition waiver, allowance up to €10,000 per year, approximately €170 administrative fee, and its DSU and IYT references); DSU regional agency publications, including DSU Toscana; the European Funding Guide’s MAECI listing (€10,800 for nine months; €3,600 for the three-month language course); and the QS guide to studying in Italy for public tuition ranges. Where a scheme’s current-cycle document was not yet published, this guide cites the most recent published call and says so.

Disclaimer: Scholarship amounts, eligible countries, deadlines, and conditions change with each annual call. StudyGraduate is an information portal, not an agency or a university, and we cannot promise selection, admission, funding, or visa approval to any applicant. Always confirm every deadline, amount, and requirement on the official website of the scholarship or university before you apply or make financial commitments.