Erasmus+
Direct answers, grouped by the point at which you actually ask them. Anything that varies by country or by university is flagged as variable and pointed at whoever decides it, instead of quoting a number that would be wrong for half the readers.
You will not find a single grant amount here. National agencies set them, they change every call, and a website that publishes a figure without saying for which country and which year is misleading people whether it means to or not.
Erasmus+ is the European Union programme that funds study and traineeship periods in another country. For a bachelor's or master's student it means taking a semester or a year at a foreign university your own has an agreement with, with a monthly grant and with the guarantee that whatever you pass there is recognised at home. What it is not: a grant you apply for directly in Brussels. You always apply through your own university.
Any student enrolled at a higher education institution holding the Erasmus Charter, normally from the second year of a bachelor's onwards, and also at master's and doctoral level. You do not have to be an EU citizen: the requirement is being enrolled at a participating university. The specific criteria — grade average, language level, minimum year — are set by your own university in its internal call, and they vary a lot.
A study mobility lasts between 2 and 12 months. The cumulative cap is 12 months per study cycle — bachelor's, master's and doctorate count separately — so you can go twice during a bachelor's as long as the two together stay within a year. On single-cycle degrees such as Medicine the cap rises to 24 months. Confirm your own case in the Erasmus+ Programme Guide.
A year ahead. Your university's internal call — the one that hands out the places — usually opens between October and February of the academic year before the mobility. Then comes the nomination, done by your university to the host, and then the application, which you submit yourself. In this catalogue you can see, university by university, when those last two deadlines fall.
The nomination is done by your home university: it formally tells the host university that it has selected you. The application is submitted by you, once nominated, to the host university, with your documents. They are two separate deadlines and the nomination comes first. If you miss the nomination, the application is useless to you even if its window is still open: it is the date that really cuts you off.
It is the three-signature contract — you, your university and the host university — setting out which courses you will take abroad and which ones they will count for when you get back. It is the document that turns a semester abroad into recognised credits: without all three signatures, your university is under no obligation to recognise anything you pass there.
Three, signed at different moments. «Before the mobility» is the table of host courses and their equivalence in your own degree, signed before you leave. «During the mobility» covers the changes, and there almost always are some, because timetables clash or a course does not run. «After the mobility» is the recognition, closed with the Transcript of Records the host university issues with your marks.
Yes, and it is the normal thing to do: that is what the changes section of the Learning Agreement exists for. What is not optional is the paperwork — a change that does not go through that table and those three signatures is not recognised, and shows up at the end as a course you passed that counts for nothing. There is usually a short window from the start of term, of the order of five weeks; your own office will tell you the exact one.
It is the commonest problem and rarely the one it looks like. An identical course almost never exists: what gets recognised are competences and credits, so it usually gets solved by grouping two host courses into one at home, or by covering electives. Your academic coordinator decides, and turning up to that conversation with a reasoned proposal — which syllabus covers what — changes the outcome far more than insisting does.
The European reference is 60 ECTS credits per academic year and 30 per semester, and that is the load expected of a full-time mobility. Your university may set a different minimum in its call — many require a specific number to keep the grant — so the number that binds you is the one in your call, not the European one.
It depends on your home country, the destination country and the call, which is why you will not find a figure here: national agencies set the amounts every academic year, and a website publishing a number without saying for which country and which year is misleading half of its readers. The exact amount you are entitled to is in your university's call and at your national agency. What you can work out here is the other half of the sum: what a month actually costs in the city you are going to.
With the Transcript of Records issued by the host university and the table in the Learning Agreement. Your university converts those marks to its own scale and grants you the credits that were agreed. If the Learning Agreement was properly closed and the changes signed, recognition is automatic: it is not a favour you ask for, it is an obligation taken on at signature.
Learning Agreement
Once you are accepted, you have to match your courses. Upload yours and get the official document ready to sign, with the equivalences already worked out.
Generate my Learning AgreementDeadlines, contacts and cost-of-living figures come from the European Commission's Erasmus+ App, harvested on 19 August 2026 and reused under the CC BY 4.0 licence (Decision 2011/833/EU). go-erasmus is not affiliated with the European Commission or the Erasmus+ programme.
