Erasmus 2026: The Complete First-Timer's Guide (How It Actually Works)

So you are thinking about Erasmus, or you have just been accepted and the reality is starting to sink in. Good. Going on exchange is genuinely one of the best things you will do at university, and almost nobody comes back wishing they had stayed home. But the official EU explainer reads like a tax form, and ESN's e-book is solid but long. This is the version we wish someone had given us: plain English, real numbers, and the stuff that actually decides whether your semester is incredible or lonely.

What is Erasmus, in plain terms?

Erasmus (officially Erasmus+) is the European Union's student exchange programme. You stay enrolled and registered at your home university, but you spend one or two semesters studying at a partner university in another country. The credits you earn abroad transfer back and count towards your degree, so you do not lose a year. You usually pay no extra tuition to the host university, and on top of that you get a monthly grant to help with living costs.

That is the whole idea in one sentence: same degree, different country, someone helps pay for it. The catch, and it is a good catch, is that the academic side is the smallest part of the experience. The semester is really about living somewhere new, travelling cheaply, and the people you meet.

The single biggest mistake first-timers make is treating Erasmus like a holiday or like normal term. It is neither. It is a short, intense window where you build a whole social life from zero, fast. Plan for that and everything else falls into place.

How does the Erasmus grant and money side work?

You do not pay tuition twice. Your fees stay with your home university (or are waived if you are in a free system), and the host university charges you nothing for the courses. On top, Erasmus+ pays a monthly grant that depends on the cost of living in your destination country, usually somewhere in the region of €350 to €600 a month, with top-ups for students from lower-income backgrounds and for "green" travel by train or bus instead of flying.

That grant rarely covers everything, so most students top it up with savings, a bit of family help, or part-time work. The number that matters is your total monthly budget, and that depends entirely on the city. Here is what a realistic student month looks like across popular Erasmus destinations, pulled straight from our city pages so the figures match.

Figures are in each city's local currency. The spread is enormous: a room in Lisbon or Krakow costs less than half a room in Paris, and a beer in Budapest is a fraction of a Paris pint. If money is your main worry, read our deeper breakdowns on the cheapest Erasmus cities and the full Erasmus cost of living guide before you commit.

How do I choose my Erasmus city?

This is the decision that matters most, and most people get it backwards. They pick based on the course catalogue or what their friends chose. Pick instead for the life you want for six months, because the courses are broadly similar everywhere and the city is what you will remember.

Ask yourself three honest questions. Do you want sun, beach and a relaxed pace, or big-city energy and culture? How much money do you realistically have per month? And how international do you want the student crowd to be? Some cities are wall-to-wall Erasmus students who all speak English, others are more local and push you to use the language.

If you want pure value, look east: Budapest and Krakow give you a proper capital-city experience for a fraction of western European prices. If you want sun and a gentle introduction, Lisbon, Barcelona and Madrid are hard to beat. If you want culture and creativity, Berlin, Vienna and Paris deliver. Browse the full set of student cities at our cities page, where every city has its own breakdown of costs, neighbourhoods and universities.

Ratings are the average student score from our city pages. Every one of these cities scores highly, so you genuinely cannot pick a bad one. Pick the one that fits your budget and the vibe you are after.

How do I sort housing before I arrive?

Do not turn up with nowhere to live. We have seen people land with a suitcase and a hostel booking for three nights, then panic-rent the first overpriced room they see. Lock in housing before you fly, or at least line up viewings.

The cheap student trick is to find a room in a shared flat in a student neighbourhood: Gracia in Barcelona, Arroios in Lisbon, Friedrichshain in Berlin, the Latin Quarter in Paris. For most cities, our sister brand Socials Homes sorts proper student rooms so you arrive to keys, not chaos. If you are heading to Budapest or Riga, look at Fuse Stays instead, which runs all-inclusive student co-living in both. Either way, book early: rooms in the good neighbourhoods go fast in August and January.

What should I do in the first two weeks?

This is the part nobody tells you and it decides your whole semester. Erasmus friend groups form in the first ten to fourteen days and then quietly close. If you hide in your room for the first fortnight "settling in", you will spend the rest of the semester on the outside looking in. So front-load the social effort.

• Say yes to everything in week one. Every pre-drinks, every walking tour, every awkward intro dinner. You can be selective in month two.
• Go to the Welcome Festival. This is the single fastest way to meet your whole city's intake of new students in one go, before everyone has paired off. More on that below.
• Join your city's WhatsApp community on day one. It is where the spontaneous plans happen: who is going to the beach, who needs a flatmate, who is doing a weekend trip to a nearby city.
• Get the boring admin out of the way fast. Local SIM, transport pass, residence registration if your country needs one, and a bank card that works locally. Do it in week one so it never hangs over you.
• Learn ten words of the language. Hello, please, thank you, the bill, a beer. Locals warm up instantly when you try.

For the full playbook on the social side, read our guide on how to make friends on Erasmus. It is the post we send to every nervous first-timer.

How does the academic side actually work?

Lighter than you fear. Before you go, you agree a Learning Agreement with both universities: a list of courses you will take abroad that map onto credits at home. Get this signed before you travel and keep a copy, because it is the document that guarantees your credits transfer. Most Erasmus students take a normal course load but treat the academics as the floor, not the ceiling: pass comfortably, do not chase top marks, and protect your time for everything else.

Teaching styles vary a lot by country, exams might be oral, group-based or a single big final, and timetables can be looser than you are used to. Ask the local students how it works in week one rather than assuming it runs like home. And check early whether your home university grades the exchange pass/fail or on a converted scale, because that changes how hard you need to push.

What do students get wrong about Erasmus?

After helping thousands of students settle into new cities, the same avoidable mistakes come up again and again.

• Only hanging out with people from home. It is the comfortable option and it quietly ruins the experience. Mix from day one.
• Picking the city for the course. The courses are similar everywhere. Pick for the life.
• Underbudgeting the fun, overbudgeting the rent. Trips, nights out and spontaneous weekends are where the money and the memories go. Leave room for them.
• Waiting until they "feel ready" to socialise. You never feel ready. Go to the first event anyway.
• Not travelling locally. The cheap nearby trips, a two-hour train to the next city, are half the point. Do them with your new friends.
• Treating the grant as the budget. It is a top-up, not the whole sum. Know your real monthly number before you go.

Where does The Student Life fit in?

We are not the university and we are not the paperwork. We run the life side of Erasmus: a Welcome Festival in each city to meet your whole intake at once, a per-city WhatsApp community for the day-to-day plans, and a city page for every destination with the real costs, neighbourhoods and what the scene is actually like. You sort the academics with your uni. We make sure you land somewhere that already has a crowd waiting for you.

Frequently asked questions