German universities with a summer intake for Master's programs

This list is ranked by one thing only: how many active Master’s programs each university publishes a summer deadline for. It is a measure of choice, not of quality. A university near the top gives you more programs to apply to in April, and that is all it tells you.

Twelve universities are listed because four of them tie at 20 programs and two tie at 18. Cutting the list at exactly ten would have hidden real options.

Two notes on how to read that table. "In English" counts only programs recorded as English, not the ones recorded as bilingual or as English or German, so it is the strict number. And TU Darmstadt has a genuine tie: 13 of its summer programs close on 15 January and 13 close on 31 August. If you plan for January there, you have already missed half of it.

Two things in this table are worth more than the ranking itself.

• Count of English-taught programs, not total programs. Stuttgart runs 37 summer programs but only 8 in English. FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg runs 18 and 13 of them are in English, and Kiel runs 20 with 14 in English. If you do not have German, FAU and Kiel offer you more than Stuttgart does, even though Stuttgart is higher in the list.
• Tuition. TU Darmstadt, Giessen, Bielefeld and Kiel charge no tuition on every one of their summer programs. Stuttgart charges on all 37, because Baden-Wurttemberg bills non-EU students. Our tuition page explains which states charge and why.

The full list of 198 universities is longer than any page should be. Filter it yourself in the course catalogue and the university directory.

The date most people know is 15 January. It is the single most common summer deadline, used by 615 of the 1,307 programs. It is still less than half of them.

452 programs close before 1 January. That is roughly one in three. If your plan is built around 15 January, a third of the summer intake has already closed by the time you start filling in forms.

The most common individual dates after 15 January are 30 November (128 programs), 15 December (76), 15 February (51), 1 December (43) and 15 November (43). TU Munich and Hof University both use 30 November as their main summer date, which is six weeks earlier than the famous one.

Two of these dates fall in the same weeks as the winter semester starting in October, so you may be applying for summer while the previous winter intake is still settling in. Put the earliest date from your own shortlist in your calendar, not the month.

Germany runs two intakes. The winter semester starts in October and is the larger one. The summer semester starts in April.

So summer is about half the size of winter. Out of 2,655 Master’s programs in our catalogue, 1,296 take winter applicants only, 1,137 take both, and 94 take summer applicants only.

What you gain. Six extra months if you are not ready for a July deadline. Fewer applicants competing for the same seats in many programs. And 94 programs that you cannot reach through the winter intake at all.

What you give up. Roughly half the catalogue. The programs that only run a winter intake include many of the well known ones. You also join in April, which means your first semester runs into the German summer break and your batch is smaller.

Summer is a good choice in two situations: your documents, your APS certificate or your language score will not be ready in time for a strong winter application, or the specific programs you want run a summer start anyway. It is a poor choice if the three programs you actually care about are winter only. Check that before you decide to wait.

The list above tells you where the choice is. It does not tell you whether your program is on it. Four steps settle that.

1. Search the program, not the university. Summer intake is decided per program. A university near the top of the table can still run your specific subject as winter only. Open the program page in our course catalogue and read the admission semester field.
2. Read the year on the deadline. Our catalogue stores full dates, and a summer deadline can point at the next intake or the one after. The day and month are stable year to year. The year is not, so confirm it on the university’s own page before you submit.
3. Count backwards from the earliest date on your list, not the average. If one program closes on 30 November and the rest close on 15 January, your real deadline is 30 November.
4. Check the slow steps first. If you studied in India, China, Vietnam or Pakistan you will usually need an APS certificate, which runs on its own timetable. 1,148 Master’s programs in our catalogue ask for it at the point of application. Our APS guide covers the process, and applicants with an Engineering, Commerce, Finance, Economics, Business or Management degree applying for Summer Semester 2027 or later also need the new dMAT test. Per APS India’s dMAT page, checked 27 July 2026, the first test is on 26 September 2026 and certificates are available from 12 October 2026. You can check whether it applies to you with our dMAT eligibility check.

Where these numbers come from

Every count on this page is from our own catalogue of active, published Master’s programs at active universities, queried on 27 July 2026. Deadlines change and a university’s own page is always the final word, so confirm the date on the program page before you submit.