(GERMANY) — The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) reported that foreign student enrolments reached approximately 420,000 in the 2025/26 academic year, extending a long-running rise in international demand for German higher education.
The tally confirmed continued growth with a +4% year-over-year increase from the confirmed 402,083 in 2024/25, based on reported winter semester 2025/26 enrolments.
DAAD drew the figure from a survey of 212 universities, a snapshot designed to capture where international participation stands in the winter semester and how it shifts from year to year. Universities and policymakers track those movements because they feed directly into planning for teaching capacity, housing pressure, student services, and the broader role international students play in Germany’s research and skilled-work ambitions.
Survey-based counts also come with practical limits. They depend on the institutions that report and on the timing of winter-semester enrolment, so the numbers function as a structured picture of a specific period rather than a full census taken at a single moment.
Even with those limits, the direction of travel has stayed steady. DAAD linked the 2025/26 result to more than a decade of consistent expansion, with numbers nearly doubled since 2013/14, when foreign enrolments stood under 300,000.
One of the clearest signals inside that growth sits in new arrivals rather than the overall student body. First-time foreign students hit about 99,000, up 9% from prior years, a faster rise than the broader enrolment increase.
That “first-time” measure matters because it captures entry into Germany’s system rather than the total number already on campus. It can climb quickly even if overall totals move more slowly, particularly when cohorts arrive in larger numbers but also progress through programmes at different speeds.
DAAD pointed to particularly strong growth in master’s programmes, a trend that often reflects the way international applicants weigh career paths, research opportunities, and the availability of English-taught study options. For applicants, stronger demand at the master’s level can translate into tighter admissions competition and a higher premium on early preparation, realistic programme matching, and clear documentation.
Rising first-time numbers also shape the student experience after admission. When more students arrive at once, universities face immediate pressure on orientation services, academic advising, language support, and administrative processing, even if teaching capacity expands more slowly.
The DAAD survey sits alongside a broader story about how Germany markets itself to students who may not speak German at the point of entry. English-taught programmes have become a central part of that pitch, and DAAD tied part of the recent pull to a wide catalogue of options.
Germany offered nearly 2,400 English-taught programmes as of summer 2025, including 420 bachelor’s programmes and 1,930 master’s programmes. The balance matters for how prospective students read the landscape, because it suggests that English-taught study is far more common at graduate level than at undergraduate level.
For many prospective students, that split can guide where to focus. A larger master’s catalogue may fit applicants who already hold a first degree and want a specialised qualification in an environment they can enter without German fluency, while the smaller bachelor’s pool can narrow choices for school leavers who need an English-taught start.
DAAD reported that 46% of universities plan further expansion, but growth in programme offerings does not always translate quickly into more seats. New courses can take time to approve, staff, and integrate into timetables, and universities can add English tracks to existing degrees without immediately changing the size of each cohort.
International enrolments also cluster by subject, shaping where competition and capacity pressures show up most. Engineering accounted for 43% of foreign enrolments in the DAAD survey, reinforcing Germany’s longstanding profile in technical training and its connections between universities and industrial employers.
Economics, law and social sciences accounted for 25%, while natural sciences and mathematics made up 14%. Those shares matter for applicants because they hint at where international cohorts are largest, where peer networks may be strongest, and where demand could intensify for labs, internships, and supervisors.
DAAD also highlighted that international representation rises at higher qualification levels. Internationals comprised 26% of master’s students and 28% of PhDs at universities, a pattern consistent with internationally connected research groups, cross-border academic careers, and the way doctoral training often links to funded projects and international labs.
Origin trends are shifting as well, and DAAD presented them as more than a league table. They affect language support needs, community networks, administrative workloads, and the pace of demand for scarce housing in university cities.
India led in 2025/26 with 59,000 students, up +20% from 2023/24, overtaking China, which stood at 38,600. DAAD did not attribute the shift to a single cause, and origin rankings can move quickly for reasons that sit outside universities, including changes in currency conditions, geopolitics, and how prospective students weigh visa friction and living costs.
Regional distribution offered another lens on that change. Asia-Pacific accounted for 33% of international students, while Africa accounted for 24.7% in total, figures that can influence everything from the languages used in student counselling to the kinds of peer-mentoring and integration programmes universities prioritise.
For German institutions, shifts by origin can also reshape day-to-day operational needs. Student-facing offices must scale support for newcomers, while accommodation pressures can hit hardest when cohorts arrive in concentrated waves around semester start dates.
DAAD’s survey also dug into motivations, turning the numbers into a picture of what students think they are getting from Germany. In a survey of 115,000 students across 130+ universities, 75% of those surveyed chose Germany as their top destination for English programmes, career prospects, and low costs.
Those motivations can serve as a checklist for applicants weighing offers. “English programmes” points to the importance of confirming the actual language of instruction across the full degree, including electives and thesis requirements, while “career prospects” can be tested by looking closely at the local job market tied to a specific field.
The “low costs” perception can also be read carefully. Even when tuition policy makes Germany look comparatively affordable, students still face monthly living expenses that often hinge on the local housing market, health insurance, and recurring semester contributions, alongside the concept of a blocked account that some students factor into their planning.
The same student survey found that two-thirds plan to stay post-graduation. That intention, while common, usually requires careful planning around residence status, job-search timelines, and the realities of securing work that fits a graduate’s qualification and supports longer-term plans.
DAAD’s leadership framed the scale of the international student body as a marker of Germany’s standing. “More than 400,000 international students and doctoral candidates confirm Germany’s position as the most important non-English-speaking host country,” said DAAD President Joybrato Mukherjee.
The DAAD and DZHW report Wissenschaft weltoffen 2025 added longer-term context, pointing to the prior year’s record 116,600 new enrolments. It also said internationals now make up 17% of Germany’s 2.8 million total students, placing international participation at the centre of how the system functions rather than at its margins.
DZHW Scientific Director Dr. Marcus Beiner highlighted benefits to higher education health. The material provided did not include a direct quote from Beiner.
Growing numbers can also bring stresses that shape how safe and welcome students feel off campus. DAAD reported that half of surveyed students experienced off-campus discrimination, with higher levels reported for African, Middle Eastern, and Asian origins.
Mukherjee warned that those reports carry consequences for Germany’s ability to attract and retain talent. “Reports of discrimination must serve as a warning to us. Cosmopolitanism and tolerance are essential prerequisites if we want to convince outstanding young people to work for us as doctors, engineers, or AI experts,” he said.
For prospective students, those findings can shape questions to ask before committing: what support exists on campus, how universities respond to incidents, and what local communities look like beyond the classroom. For universities, the pattern adds urgency to integration efforts that extend beyond academic services, including student welfare, counselling, and programmes aimed at building inclusive campus cultures.
Practical bottlenecks also sit alongside the enrolment gains. DAAD flagged housing and visas as areas that need attention, a combination that can shape arrival timing and early semester stability, especially when demand rises faster than student accommodation supply or administrative capacity.
Some universities expect the upward trend to continue. DAAD reported that 75% of universities anticipate stable or rising numbers, suggesting planning assumptions that keep international recruitment and support high on the agenda.
For applicants, that expectation can function as a signal rather than a promise. Stable or rising demand can mean more competition in high-interest subjects and cities, and it can also mean that administrative processes and housing searches may require earlier action, especially when many students try to secure the same limited resources at the same time.
The DAAD survey, combined with Wissenschaft weltoffen 2025, portrayed a system that increasingly relies on international enrolment for its academic profile and future workforce links, while facing real constraints in capacity, integration, and student experience. The choices prospective students make—field, level, language of instruction, and destination city—now sit inside a German higher-education environment that continues to grow more international, and more contested, with each incoming class.
