ETH Zürich Scholarships for International Students 2026

ETH Zürich’s main scholarship options on its official student finance pages are for regular Bachelor’s and Master’s studies rather than general online-only degree study.

ETH Zürich’s scholarships generally follow the subjects that ETH teaches, especially at Master’s level for ESOP and at Bachelor’s/Master’s level for social scholarships. That means scholarships can align with engineering, computer science, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, materials, environmental sciences, architecture, earth sciences, health sciences, biotechnology, neuroscience, and management/technology/economics. Business is available mainly through ETH’s Management, Technology, and Economics programmes rather than a broad standalone business school model. Humanities are more limited than at comprehensive universities, but ETH does have Humanities, Social and Political Sciences and some public policy offerings. Medicine is especially restricted: ETH offers Human Medicine at Bachelor’s level, but this programme is only open to students with a Swiss passport or Swiss settlement permit, subject to limited exceptions, so international students generally should not assume they are eligible for medicine there.

The recipient stories on Global Scholarships reflect this science-and-technology profile well. Emma Craig is studying Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, and Vicente Algaba Martínez is studying Health Sciences and Technology with a major in Neuroscience.

For ETH Zürich scholarships such as ESOP, the official scholarship information is framed around academic excellence and degree level rather than a nationality list. In practice, this means students from many countries can apply if they meet the academic and programme requirements. For example, in our recipient list, Emma Craig is from South Africa, and Vicente Algaba Martínez is from Spain.

Sometimes yes, but not always. At Bachelor’s level, the main teaching language is German, and applicants may need to submit a German C1 certificate by the application deadline. At Master’s level, many programmes are taught in English, while some require English, some German, and some both. ETH Zürich officially states that applicants do not need to submit English proof if their entire Bachelor’s degree was taught only in English and that is officially confirmed by their university. So IELTS or TOEFL is not automatically required in every case, but language proof is often necessary unless you qualify for an official exemption.

The recipient stories make this more personal. Emma Craig said, “My classes are all conducted in English,” and she also explained, “I tried to avoid programmes that required an English competency test, and so I did not complete the TOEFL or IELTS.”

ETH Zürich is highly selective and looks for excellent academic results, especially for Master’s admission. The university does not present one universal GPA cutoff that applies to every programme, because admissions are programme-specific and holistic. For ESOP specifically, ETH states that applicants should have a very good result in their Bachelor’s degree, described as the top 10% of the Bachelor’s programme as a self-assessment benchmark. So there is no single universal minimum grade published for all scholarships, but in practice you should expect to need outstanding grades.

The recipient stories reinforce that point. Emma Craig said her final average was “more than 10 percentage points above the threshold for a first-class pass” and that she met the scholarship criterion of being in the “top 10%” of her programme. Vicente Algaba Martínez reported a Bachelor’s final grade of 1.2 with honours before starting his ETH Zürich Master’s.

There’s no centralized age-limit for major ETH Zurich Scholarships, but individual scholarships might set up an age limit.

A strong academic background for ETH Zürich means excellent grades in a relevant field, a degree from a solid university, and good alignment with the target programme. For Master’s admission, ETH explicitly says it is looking for excellent Bachelor graduates from internationally recognised universities and evaluates academic performance, fit with the chosen field, university ranking/context, and sometimes standardized tests, motivation letters, and recommendation letters. For ESOP, the clearest minimum benchmark published by ETH is being in roughly the top 10% of your Bachelor’s programme and applying in the first application window.

The stories show what that can look like in real life. Emma Craig came from a BSc in Chemical Engineering with First-Class Honours and said that her prior scholarships and recommendation letters helped her stand out. She also said her referee wrote “a highly personal and detailed reference” and that a tailored recommendation letter can be “a key differentiator.” Vicente Algaba Martínez entered ETH Zürich after a Biotechnology degree with a 1.2 final grade and honours, which is the kind of high academic profile ETH tends to reward.

For undergraduate applications, ETH Zürich’s application process for applicants with non-Swiss school-leaving certificates says applicants should gather documents such as a current passport photograph, a copy of a valid passport or identity card, a curriculum vitae or resume, the upper secondary school-leaving certificate, and school reports from the last three school years. Because Bachelor’s studies are mainly in German, applicants may also need to submit a German C1 language certificate by the deadline.

For graduate applications, ETH Zürich requires a more extensive set of documents. Official pages for Master’s applications mention an online application through eApply with required uploads such as a CV, official academic records/transcripts, and other programme-specific items. The general documents page states that applicants must upload official transcripts from all universities attended. For ESOP, ETH also requires a pre-proposal for the Master’s thesis, and if the study programme does not already ask for references, ESOP applicants must name two professors as reference persons for letters.

The recipient stories help personalize this. Emma Craig said that for ESOP “the main application components included my undergraduate transcript, GRE scores, two recommendation letters, and a Master’s thesis pre-proposal.” She also emphasized that her recommendation letter mattered a great deal. That makes her story especially useful for graduate applicants preparing a competitive scholarship file.

Yes. For undergraduate applications with a foreign school-leaving certificate, ETH Zürich charges an application fee, and the fee is non-refundable. ETH’s Bachelor application FAQ states that for applicants with a foreign certificate, the fee is CHF 150. For graduate applications, ETH Zürich charges CHF 150 per degree programme for applicants with an international Bachelor’s degree. Applicants with a Swiss Bachelor’s degree generally pay CHF 50, while those progressing directly from an ETH Bachelor’s to a consecutive ETH Master’s normally do not pay an application fee.

For both undergraduate and graduate applicants, it is a good idea to budget separately for the application fee and for later visa, relocation, and living costs, since ETH’s scholarship pages make clear that not every scholarship route covers everything from the start.