Scholarships in Lithuania for International Students 2026/2027

Lithuania is the largest of the three Baltic states and, for international students, often the most affordable place in the European Union to earn a respected degree in English. Its capital, Vilnius, pairs a UNESCO-listed old town with a fast-growing technology and life-sciences sector; Kaunas and Klaipėda offer smaller, cheaper student cities; and universities such as Vilnius University, Kaunas University of Technology and Vytautas Magnus University recruit actively across Asia, the Caucasus, the Middle East and the Americas. At the centre of the funding system sits a genuine government scholarship: the Lithuanian State Scholarship for full-time master’s studies, which pays a monthly stipend and covers tuition up to the national standard study cost. It is also, however, a scholarship with a defined list of eligible countries and only around 70 grants a year — and understanding exactly who it is for is the key to using this guide well.

This article explains scholarships in Lithuania for international students for 2026/2027 in full: the state scholarships for master’s degrees, short-term studies and Lithuanian studies; who is eligible and who is not, country by country; the support Lithuania directs to Ukrainian students and to foreign citizens of Lithuanian origin; university tuition waivers and admission scholarships; how the application system works; the documents, deadlines and selection scoring; and the mistakes that cost applicants a grant they were otherwise qualified for. Figures were verified against the Education Exchanges Support Foundation’s 2026 call as republished by Lithuanian universities, Vilnius University’s official financial-support pages and university scholarship pages at the time of writing. Check the Sources and Verification section before you rely on any figure, because the country list, the quota and the stipend — which is set as a multiple of Lithuania’s Basic Social Amount — are republished with each call.

Students comparing the Baltics should read this together with our guide to scholarships in Estonia for international students. The contrast is instructive: Estonia’s national award is a smaller monthly contribution open at more levels, while Lithuania’s flagship award is larger and covers tuition but is restricted to master’s study and to named countries. Browse the full scholarships directory as well if your citizenship closes the Lithuanian state route — university funding in Lithuania remains open to many nationalities the state list does not cover.

Lithuanian State Scholarships at a Glance

The Ministry of Education, Science and Sport of the Republic of Lithuania funds the state scholarships, and the Education Exchanges Support Foundation administers the calls and the online application system. For the 2026 call for full-time master’s degree studies — the call that funds study in the 2026/2027 academic year — the Foundation offered 70 grants in total, each combining a monthly scholarship with a grant covering the tuition fee up to the national standard study cost. The monthly scholarship is set at 8 Basic Social Amounts (BSA), which equals €592 per month in 2026. Within the 70 grants, 20 are allocated to citizens of Ukraine and 5 to foreign citizens of Lithuanian origin from non-EU and non-EFTA countries, and no more than 10 grants go to citizens of any other single listed country.

Two honesty notes belong right here. First, the eligible-country list for the flagship master’s scholarship does not include several of StudyGraduate’s largest audiences: citizens of Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Nigeria, and citizens of EU member states, are not on the 2026 master’s list, and India appears on the broader short-term studies list rather than the master’s list. If your country is not listed, this article still helps you — university scholarships and waivers in Lithuania are open much more widely — but do not spend weeks preparing a state application you are not eligible to submit. Second, a state scholarship can normally be granted only once, and it cannot be double-funded from other scholarship or exchange sources for the same period; the Foundation and universities state that rule explicitly, and breaching it risks repayment.

Why Study in Lithuania?

Lithuania offers the classic Baltic bargain in a slightly bigger package. Tuition fees for international students are moderate, living costs in Vilnius are lower than in most EU capitals and lower still in Kaunas or Klaipėda, and a large share of master’s programmes — in informatics, engineering, life sciences, business, law, public health and the social sciences — are taught in English. Vilnius University is the country’s oldest and largest university and a research heavyweight; Kaunas University of Technology leads in technology and innovation; Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas is known for liberal arts, interdisciplinarity and a wide scholarship offering; Mykolas Romeris University specialises in law and social sciences; and the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences anchors medical and health study in Kaunas.

For students from the eligible countries, the state scholarship changes the arithmetic completely: tuition covered to the national standard cost plus €592 a month makes a Lithuanian master’s degree one of the best-funded mid-scale opportunities in Europe. For everyone else, Lithuania remains competitive on price alone, and many universities discount tuition for strong applicants. Either way, plan with real numbers — use our budgeting and planning tools and the university directory to compare programmes and cities — and remember that a Lithuanian degree is an EU Bologna degree, with the mobility and recognition that follow from that, while any residence or work outcome after graduation is decided by the Lithuanian Migration Department under the rules in force at the time, never by a scholarship letter.

The Three State Scholarship Types Explained

1. Full-time master’s degree studies. This is the flagship. You apply for a full-time master’s programme (or the final two years of an integrated programme) at a Lithuanian higher education institution, obtain acceptance or pre-acceptance, and apply to the Foundation for the scholarship. The award combines the €592 monthly scholarship with a tuition grant capped at the national standard study cost approved by the Ministry — if your programme charges more than the standard cost, the difference is yours, so check your programme’s actual fee against the standard cost before you celebrate. Selection weighs your previous academic results and your motivation; university guidance published for the call describes motivation as carrying half of the selection score, which is why the generic motivation letters that circulate among agents score so badly here.

2. Short-term studies. This route funds a semester — in the 2026/2027 call published by Vilnius University, one semester of five months — of study at a Lithuanian university for students enrolled at a higher education institution abroad. Vilnius University’s official financial-support page confirms the amounts: candidates from the first and second study cycles receive €592 per month, candidates from the third cycle and resident studies receive €1,184 per month, the tuition fee is covered by the Republic of Lithuania and transferred directly to the university, and travel and accommodation costs remain the student’s own. The eligible-country list is broader than the master’s list — the published list includes Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Canada, China (PRC and Taiwan), India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kazakhstan, Moldova, New Zealand, Philippines, South Korea, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, the USA and Vietnam, plus foreign citizens of Lithuanian origin — with students at Russian or Belarusian institutions excluded. See the Vilnius University financial support page for short-term studies for the call text.

3. Lithuanian short-term studies and language and culture courses. A separate strand supports study specifically devoted to Lithuanian language, history and culture, including short courses and summer schools in Lithuanian (Baltic) studies, open to students, lecturers and researchers and to foreigners of Lithuanian origin. Amounts, host institutions and deadlines are set in that strand’s own call via the Foundation. If your academic interest is Baltic studies or the Lithuanian language itself, this is a genuinely distinctive opportunity that few other countries replicate at this scale.

The 2026 master’s call itself is summarised, with the full country list, the 70-grant structure, the quotas for Ukraine and for citizens of Lithuanian origin, and the €592 figure, in the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences publication of the 2026 state scholarships call — a good example of how Lithuanian universities relay the Foundation’s calls, and a page worth reading alongside the Foundation’s own system.

Eligibility in Detail

For the master’s scholarship you must: be a citizen of one of the listed countries (or a foreign citizen of Lithuanian origin from a non-EU and non-EFTA country); hold a bachelor’s degree or be completing one in time to begin the master’s, as the call specifies; have applied for and been accepted or pre-accepted to a full-time master’s programme or eligible integrated studies at a Lithuanian higher education institution; meet the programme’s language requirements — good knowledge of Lithuanian, English or the other language of instruction your programme requires; and not have already received this state scholarship, since it can be granted only once. Priority fields vary by call and by Lithuania’s national priorities; recent calls and university guidance note particular national interest in areas such as informatics, life sciences and engineering, but programmes across the arts, humanities, social sciences, health and education also appear among funded studies — read the current call text rather than assuming a field list.

Ukrainian citizens hold a distinct position in the system, reflecting Lithuania’s sustained support since 2022: 20 of the 70 master’s grants are allocated to Ukraine, and universities add their own measures. Vilnius University, for example, publishes a Grand Duchy of Lithuania Scholarship for Ukrainian applicants — awarded to its top Ukrainian applicants for the first ten months of study at €300 per month — alongside faculty-level tuition reductions for Ukrainian students. Those university measures have their own rules and intakes, so a Ukrainian applicant should pursue the state call and the university route in parallel and take the better confirmed offer. Foreign citizens of Lithuanian origin — broadly, people of Lithuanian descent living abroad, with the call defining the qualifying documentation — have their reserved grants in the master’s competition and access to the Lithuanian studies strand, and in some university and state-funded admission routes Lithuanian-origin applicants and certain other defined groups can compete for state-funded study places; eligibility is technical and document-based, so confirm your status with the Foundation or the university before applying rather than relying on family history alone.

University Scholarships and Tuition Waivers

If the state list excludes you — or alongside it, if it does not — Lithuanian universities run their own funding, and this is where applicants of all nationalities compete. The pattern repeats across institutions: tuition fee waivers or percentage reductions for the strongest international applicants, often decided on admission ranking and motivation, sometimes requiring a separate application and maintained only while academic performance stays high. Vytautas Magnus University publishes a detailed scholarships page covering its tuition-fee scholarships for international students together with the state calls; read the current Vilnius University guide to funding opportunities as well, which collects its tuition waivers for specific master’s programmes, its €1,000 Admission Scholarships for talented first-year bachelor’s and master’s students in its Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, and faculty special scholarships such as the Law faculty’s award for the International and European Law master’s covering half or full tuition for citizens of named countries including Albania, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, North Macedonia and Ukraine.

Kaunas University of Technology, Mykolas Romeris University, Klaipėda University and the specialist academies publish equivalent pages each admission cycle. Amounts and percentages change, deadlines are often tied to admission rounds, and the number of awards is limited — VDU’s page, for instance, warns that scholarships are limited, that late or incomplete applications are not considered, and that a scholarship is terminated if the student accumulates academic debt until the debt is cleared. Treat university funding as a competition with rules, not a discount code: apply in the earliest round, submit the motivation the scholarship actually asks for, and keep your grades above the continuation threshold once you arrive. You can shortlist institutions through our study abroad guides before drilling into each university’s own scholarship page.

How to Apply, Step by Step

Step 1 — Confirm your eligibility honestly. Check your citizenship against the current call’s country list, confirm you have not held the scholarship before, and confirm your bachelor’s completion timeline. If you are claiming Lithuanian origin, identify the documents that prove it under the call’s definition.

Step 2 — Choose the university and programme, and apply for admission. Apply directly to the Lithuanian institution through its admissions route (many universities use the DreamApply platform or their own portal). State scholarship applications require official acceptance or pre-acceptance, and universities need weeks to evaluate foreign qualifications — an application started in the final week before the scholarship deadline is a plan to miss it.

Step 3 — Register in the Foundation’s application system. Create your account in the Education Exchanges Support Foundation’s online system, start an application under the full-time master’s degree scholarships scope, and select the current year’s call.

Step 4 — Write the motivation as if it were half your score — because it is. University guidance for this call describes the evaluation as split between academic performance and motivation. A competitive motivation names your academic preparation, explains why this programme and this university in Lithuania, connects the degree to a credible professional or research trajectory, and says what you will contribute. Specific beats eloquent; two focused pages beat four generic ones.

Step 5 — Upload complete documents and submit before the deadline. Documents must be in English or Lithuanian as the system requires, in the accepted file formats, and complete — in the 2026 call the deadline published by universities was 20 April 2026. After the deadline, applications cannot be changed or completed. Selected candidates are informed individually, typically by email, in the summer before the autumn intake.

Required Documents

Expect to provide: a completed online application in the Foundation’s system; your motivation letter or motivation section; a recommendation letter as the call specifies; copies of your bachelor’s diploma and transcript (with official translation where required, and qualification recognition where the university requires it); proof of the language of instruction at the level your programme requires; a copy of your passport or identity document; and the university’s acceptance or pre-acceptance letter naming you, the programme and the study period. Applicants of Lithuanian origin add documentation of origin as defined in the call; short-term applicants add confirmation of enrolment at their home institution and a study plan agreed with the host. Keep scans clean and consistent — the name order on your passport, diploma and acceptance letter should match, and any discrepancy should be explained once, in writing, in the application itself.

Deadlines and Timeline

If you miss the state deadline, the rational response is not to abandon Lithuania but to re-sequence: take a university waiver decision for the coming intake if the finances genuinely work, or defer and build a stronger state application for the next call with a year of preparation. What you should not do is enrol on the assumption that a state scholarship can be obtained retrospectively for a programme already started — the call is built around new admissions.

Selection Tips and Common Mistakes

Because motivation carries such weight, the strongest applications read as if Lithuania was chosen, not defaulted to. Panels and university committees reward applicants who know the programme’s curriculum and staff, who can explain what a Lithuanian base adds — EU research networks, a specific laboratory or centre, Baltic and Eastern European regional expertise, an industry cluster in Vilnius or Kaunas — and whose plans after graduation are plausible rather than grandiose. Academically, transcripts are read in context, but a clear upward record and a bachelor’s closely aligned with the master’s field make the committee’s work easy. Apply to a programme you are genuinely qualified for: a state grant attached to an admission you cannot sustain helps no one, and scholarships end when academic debt begins.

The common mistakes are consistent. Applying despite your country not being on the list is the first and most avoidable. The second is starting the university admission too late to hold an acceptance letter by the scholarship deadline. The third is a copied motivation letter that names the wrong university or a programme the applicant has not applied to — an error committees report every cycle, and a fatal one when motivation is half the score. The fourth is assuming the tuition grant covers any fee in full, when it is capped at the national standard study cost. The fifth is double-funding the same period from two scholarship sources, which the rules prohibit. The sixth is neglecting the residence permit timeline after good news arrives. None of these require talent to avoid — only the careful, early, document-based preparation this guide, and our application guides, keep recommending.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much is the Lithuanian state scholarship for master’s studies in 2026?

The monthly scholarship is set at 8 Basic Social Amounts, equal to €592 per month in 2026, and the grant covering the tuition fee is limited to the national standard study cost approved by the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport. If your programme’s fee exceeds the standard cost, you pay the difference. Because the amount is defined by the BSA, it can change in future calls — confirm the figure in the current call.

Which countries are eligible for the Lithuanian state master’s scholarship?

For the 2026 call: Armenia, Azerbaijan, China (People’s Republic of China and Taiwan), Georgia, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kazakhstan, Moldova, New Zealand, Philippines, South Korea, Ukraine, the United States of America, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, plus foreign citizens of Lithuanian origin from non-EU and non-EFTA countries. There are 70 grants in total, including 20 for Ukraine and 5 for citizens of Lithuanian origin, with no more than 10 for any other single country.

Can Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani or Nigerian students get a Lithuanian state scholarship?

India is included in the broader short-term studies list but not in the 2026 full-time master’s list, and Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nigeria are not on the master’s list. Students from those countries can still compete for university tuition waivers and admission scholarships in Lithuania, which are open to strong applicants regardless of the state list, and should check each new state call because lists are republished and can change.

What does the short-term studies scholarship pay?

For 2026/2027, students from the first and second study cycles receive €592 per month and third-cycle (doctoral) and resident studies candidates receive €1,184 per month, for a one-semester (five-month) stay in the published call. Tuition is covered and paid directly to the university. Travel and accommodation are not covered, and the scholarship cannot be combined with other funding for the same period.

Do I need to speak Lithuanian to study in Lithuania?

Not for English-taught programmes. You need good knowledge of Lithuanian, English or the other language required by your chosen programme, evidenced as the university requires. Lithuanian language study is separately supported through the Lithuanian studies scholarships and summer courses, and learning some Lithuanian helps considerably with daily life and part-time opportunities.

Can I receive the Lithuanian state scholarship twice, or combine it with another scholarship?

No. State scholarships can be granted only once, and they cannot be double-funded from other sources such as other scholarships or academic exchange programmes for the same study period. Vilnius University’s official guidance states this rule explicitly. Declare other funding honestly in your application.

When is the deadline for the Lithuanian state master’s scholarship?

In the 2026 call the deadline published by Lithuanian universities was 20 April 2026, with applications submitted through the Education Exchanges Support Foundation’s online system after securing university acceptance or pre-acceptance. Calls are annual; confirm the exact date of the current call in the Foundation’s system, and start your university admission months earlier.

What support exists for Ukrainian students in Lithuania?

Ukraine holds the largest single allocation in the state master’s competition — 20 of the 70 grants. Universities add their own support: Vilnius University’s Grand Duchy of Lithuania Scholarship pays its top Ukrainian applicants €300 per month for the first ten months of study, and some faculties offer Ukrainian students tuition reductions. Apply through both the state call and your university’s own schemes and compare the confirmed offers.

Sources & Verification

Facts in this article were checked against: the Education Exchanges Support Foundation’s 2026 call for Lithuanian state scholarships for full-time master’s studies as published by the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (eligible countries, 70 grants with Ukraine and Lithuanian-origin quotas, €592 monthly scholarship equal to 8 BSA, tuition grant capped at the national standard study cost); Vilnius University’s official financial-support page for short-term studies (eligible countries, €592 and €1,184 monthly amounts, tuition paid to the university, no double funding); Vilnius University’s funding opportunities guide (state grants summary, Grand Duchy of Lithuania Scholarship of €300 per month for the top 25 Ukrainian applicants, €1,000 Admission Scholarships and faculty special scholarships); Vytautas Magnus University’s scholarships page (state calls relayed, university tuition scholarship rules and termination conditions); and Mykolas Romeris University’s relay of the 2026 call (20 April 2026 deadline). Programme fees, standard study costs and future call dates must be confirmed in the Foundation’s application system and on your university’s pages.

Disclaimer: Scholarship amounts, deadlines, country lists and eligibility rules change yearly. Always confirm deadlines and amounts on the official website before applying. StudyGraduate is an information portal, not an agency — we never promise selection, admission, or visa approval.