Erasmus Study FAQ

The application deadlines are defined by the individual departments and can be found on the corresponding sub-page of the department website.

You generally apply in the winter semester for a stay in the following academic year, i.e. one year in advance.

The deadlines for 2025/26 have unfortunately already passed.

The deadlines for 2026/27 fall in the winter semester 2025/26.

First of all, you should contact the Erasmus Departmental Coordinator for your subject or for the subject whose cooperation you would like to utilise to go abroad.

You can find the Erasmus Departmental Coordinators via the following links:

1. Faculty of Law
2. Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences:
   Biology
   Chemistry
   Computer Science
   Mathematics
   Pharmacy
   Physics
   Psychology
3. Medical Faculty
4. Faculty of Arts and Humanities:
   English and American Studies
   German Studies (German only)
   Historical Studies
   Jewish Studies
   Classical Philology
   Art History (German only)
   Linguistics/Computational Linguistics
   Media and Culture Studies (German only)
   Japanese Studies (German only)
   Musicology
   Philosophy
   PPE – Philosophy, Politics and Economics (German only)
   Romance Studies (German only)
   Social Sciences
   Transcultural Humanities (German only)
5. Faculty of Business Administration and Economics

You can find information on the formalities of your Erasmus application on the websites of your faculty or department. In any case, you must submit an online application via MoveOn (German only).

1. Faculty of Law
2. Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences:
   Biology
   Chemistry
   Computer Science
   Mathematics
   Pharmacy
   Physics
   Psychology
3. Medical Faculty
4. Faculty of Arts and Humanities:
   English and American Studies
   German Studies (German only)
   Historical Studies
   Art History (German only)
   Linguistics/Computational Linguistics
   Media and Culture Studies (German only)
   Japanese Studies (German only)
   Philosophy
   PPE – Philosophy, Politics and Economics  (German only)
   Romance Studies (German only)
   Social Sciences 
   Transcultural Humanities (German only)
5. Faculty of Business Administration and Economics

The International Office and the individual Erasmus Departmental Coordinators offer various consultation sessions and advice. You do not need to make an appointment for the consultation sessions at the International Office – simply come to the SSC and draw a number at the reception desk.

You can find the dates for the group consultation sessions on financing stays abroad here.

You can find the consultation session times and contacts for Erasmus study stays here.

In general, you can apply for places at every university with which your Institute or faculty has a cooperation.

You can find an overview of all cooperations in which the individual Institutes are involved here (German only).

Look at the study programmes of all potential universities before selecting your preferred universities. The study programme at a university, which you have not yet considered may be more suitable than those at more popular universities.

Please note that you can only apply for the Social Top-Up additional funding for disadvantaged students as part of your main application. A subsequent application is not possible.

Upload the declaration on honour to the application portal in the last step of your online application.

You can complete Erasmus study stays and traineeships of up to 12 months in total per study phase. Periods funded by grants and periods without grants both count toward this total. 

A bachelor’s study programme, a master’s study programme and a PhD programme all count as separate study phases. If you are studying Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy and Law, you can complete Erasmus study stays and traineeships lasting up to 24 months in total.

Your Erasmus Departmental Coordinator will decide after the application phase whether you can receive an Erasmus grant. You can either be selected to receive a grant or added to the waiting list for a grant, or you will receive a rejection, e.g. when all the places at your preferred universities have already been taken.

Once you have received confirmation of an Erasmus place, whether with or without a grant, your Erasmus Departmental Coordinator will nominate you to the partner university.

Once your department has informed the International Office about grant recipients/places on the waiting list, the International Office will start to allocate grants. If you are on the waiting list and able to gain a place due to other students rejecting/cancelling their stay, you will receive a separate notification clearly stating that you have been awarded a place. The Grant Agreement will state whether you will receive an Erasmus grant and the amount.

Erasmus funding comprises two components: an allowance for travel costs and a basic grant. 

1. Allowance for travel costs:
Since 2025/26, all Erasmus grant holders will receive funding for travel expenses calculated on the basis of distance to the destination. You can also apply for up to two additional funding days as travel days. If you use sustainable means of transport for your outward and return journeys, you can apply for up to six additional funding days and will also receive a higher flat-rate allowance.

2. Basic grant
You will receive a daily allowance, which depends on the destination country, for up to 105 days of your stay.

Additional funding is available for socially disadvantaged groups, which you need to apply for specifically as part of the online application for the Erasmus grant. You can find more information under “How can I obtain the Social Top-Up and who is the target group?”
A subsequent application is not possible! The additional grant comprises an additional daily allowance of €8.33 for up to 105 days and for your travel days.

If you use a train/bus, car sharing or other sustainable means of transport (e.g. on foot, by bicycle, etc.) for your outward and return journeys, you can apply for Green Travel funding. To enable you to do so, the International Office will send the travel expense form to you in the course of the preparation phase for your semester abroad.

You do not have to submit any additional proof, but you must commit to retaining proof of the means of transport used and costs incurred for at least five years and presenting this proof in the event of an audit by the DAAD.

If you can prove that the travel allowance does not cover at least 70% of the actual travel costs, you can apply for the reimbursement of exceptional costs for expensive travel. Up to 80% of the total travel expenses can be covered by the reimbursement of exceptional costs for expensive travel. In this case, the travel allowance is not applicable.
Please contact the International Office about applying for this.

Additional funding is available for socially disadvantaged groups, which you need to apply for specifically as part of the online application for the Erasmus grant. A subsequent application is not possible! The additional grant comprises an additional daily allowance of €8.33 for up to 105 days and for your travel days.

The following students are eligible to apply:

1. Students with a child/children
   You are taking at least one of your own children with you and they will remain with you for the duration of the stay abroad.
2. Students with a disability
   You have been issued with a disabled person’s pass with a degree of disability of 20 or more.
3. Students with a chronic illness
   You have been issued with a medical certificate confirming that you have a chronic illness, which will incur additional costs while you are abroad.
4. First-generation academics
   Neither your parents nor any guardians have a degree from a university, college or university of applied sciences, nor have they graduated from a college of cooperative education, either in Germany or abroad.
5. Students in ongoing employment
   You have held an employment position (part-time job (“Minijob”) or job subject to social security contributions) for at least six continuous months before the start of your Erasmus stay and earn an average of between €450 – 850 per month.

If you do not or no longer qualify for the Social Top-Up, e.g. because you have earned too much in the six months before your stay, please inform us as soon as possible. Your grant amount will then be adjusted accordingly. 

There are no negative consequences for cancelling the Social Top-Up beyond this.

Grant holders with a disability or chronic illness and grant holders with a child/children who will incur additional costs while abroad can submit a real-cost application for additional funding. 
You can find out everything you need to know about this on the corresponding sub-pages of the DAAD website under the point “Funding via independent application (“real-cost application”):

• Additional funding for students with a disability or chronic illness (German only)
• Study stay and traineeship abroad with a child/children (German only)

Even if you are not eligible for regular funding under the Federal Training Assistance Act (Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz – BAföG), you should check whether you can obtain BAföG funding for stays abroad. You can find further information here (German only).

Another way of funding your stay abroad is to apply for the German National Scholarship (“Deutschlandstipendium”). You can find further information here.

Although partnerships with universities in Switzerland exist, the country is not an Erasmus member state, i.e. funding from HHU is not possible.

You can however apply for funding via the Swiss partner university instead. Please check the website of the corresponding partner university for options. 

Although the United Kingdom is no longer an Erasmus member state, stays in the country can still be funded. The United Kingdom is a country in group 1, i.e. you can receive a monthly allowance of €600/daily allowance of €20.

The better you plan your Erasmus stay, the more cheaply it can be realised. This starts directly with the selection of your study location. You can find a list of the Erasmus member states and their approximate cost of living here.

However, please note that costs, in particular rental prices, can vary widely between individual cities within a country. You can find a list of European cities and their cost of living here. You can compare your home town with the Erasmus city to check whether you can expect additional costs or savings and how much.

The experience reports written by other students (German only) who have completed their semester abroad at your preferred university are a further helpful resource. Many contain extremely useful information about financing and budget planning.

If there are no experience reports from HHU students available for your preferred university, take a look at the websites of other universities such as the University of Duisburg-Essen, the University of Cologne (German only) or Ruhr University Bochum (German only).

If the application deadline for your department has not yet passed and you can still apply via the online portal, you can submit a new application including the Social Top-Up. Please inform your Erasmus Departmental Coordinator and the International Office if you do this.

If the application portal is closed and the application deadline has passed, you unfortunately cannot apply for the Social Top-Up any more.

Students of Romance Studies can apply for the Scheunemann Scholarship (German only) to obtain €500 of top-up funding. Students of other subjects, including Transcultural Humanities and Literary Translation cannot obtain this funding.

Erasmus students who go to certain Spanish universities can apply for a Santander Scholarship for Incoming International Mobility. The funding amounts to €1,500.

The following HHU partner universities are currently taking part in the programme:

Universidad de Alcalá
Universidad de Alicante
Universidad de Córdoba
Universidad de Deusto
Universidad de Extremadura
Universidad de Jaén
UPM Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela
Universidad de la Laguna

Please contact your partner university to find out more about the programme.

The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) recommends that you have at least medical insurance, personal liability insurance and accident insurance during your stay abroad.

First of all, you should check whether you are covered abroad by any existing insurance. You should also ask your parents or partner whether you are covered by their insurance as a relative.

If you do not have any existing insurance coverage, you can find the most suitable insurance for you via common comparison portals such as Verivox, Check24 or versicherungsvergleiche.de (all German only). Make sure that the insurances also cover you in other European countries.

Following your successful application, the International Office will ask you to submit several documents. These include the travel expense form, the Grant Agreement and the Online Learning Agreement. Your grant can only be paid out once we have received these three documents.

You need to submit the travel expense form and the Grant Agreement no later than one month after receiving the information mail. The deadline is also stated in the information mail. You must submit the Online Learning Agreement before your departure at the latest. If there is likely to be a delay in submitting your documents, please contact the International Office by e-mail (outgoings-europa(at)hhu.de) as quickly as possible.

Please contact the International Office by e-mail as quickly as possible. If you do not submit documents despite an extension to the deadline and a reminder, your grant and/or your study place at the partner university may have already been given to someone else.

As there is great demand for the grants and study places, and there are a lot of students on the waiting list, we unfortunately need to assign the places to others without delay when those with grants/study places no longer respond.

The Grant Agreement (GA) is a kind of contract between you and HHU, which determines the amount of your Erasmus grant. Please complete the first page up to the main language of instruction in full and add your signature on the last page. Please then submit the GA by e-mail.

Please make sure you fill in the form in such a way that we can still complete the fields relating to the grant amount, i.e. please use Adobe Acrobat and ensure that the form fields are not locked by the signature. If there is no other way to do this, please send us the form without a signature and add a brief note in the e-mail. We will then send you the fully completed form so you can sign it.

Please read the Grant Agreement very carefully! If you violate the provisions of the GA, the International Office will demand that you return your Erasmus funding.

The Online Learning Agreement (OLA) specifies which courses you will take at the partner university and how they will be credited to your studies if you pass them. Please contact your Erasmus Departmental Coordinator to select your courses. 

You can find the Learning Agreement here: https://learning-agreement.eu/.

Click on “Log in” and then on “Log in with MyAcademicID”. Search for Heinrich Heine University and enter your university username and password. Then accept the transfer of your data. You are now registered in the system.

Next, you need to create the Learning Agreement. To do this, select “My Learning Agreements” and click on “Create new”. Then select “Semester Mobility”. You should then enter your details and click on “Next”.

On the next page, you should enter the contact details of your Erasmus Departmental Coordinator. They can also inform you of the details of the responsible person at your host university if you do not already know them. You should enter these details on the next page.

Now you can start creating the Learning Agreement. Add each course you would like to take as a “Component to Table A”. In consultation with your Erasmus Departmental Coordinator, you should then add the information about the recognition of the courses at HHU to “Table B”.

Once you have entered all the courses you would like to complete, skip the “Virtual Components” section and proceed to the last page “Commitment”. Here, you have to add your digital signature. Then the OLA is sent to the responsible person at HHU (this happens automatically).

Special feature for the UK: As the United Kingdom is no longer an Erasmus project member state, you need to get the Learning Agreement completed as a printed form. Please contact us so that we can send you the form.

We will send the travel expense form to you by e-mail once the International Office has received the nominations from all departments.

You need to state your expected means of transport and your planned travel dates. In the case of your travel dates, it is important that you inform us how many days you will be travelling for and in which month. If you cannot provide any exact dates yet, you can state “2 days in January 2026” or “1 day in October 2025”.

You can change your mind and travel using a different means of transport at any time. Please notify us of this by e-mail.

If you decide to use a non-sustainable means of transport instead of a sustainable means of transport, e.g. you originally intended to travel by train but will now be flying, the Green Travel funding will be withdrawn and the number of additional funding days reduced to max. two.

If you decide to use a sustainable means of transport instead of a non-sustainable means of transport, e.g. you switch from air travel to car sharing, it is unfortunately no longer possible to grant Green Travel funding and the funding amount will therefore not change.

Once your choice of courses has been finalised, which usually happens in the first few weeks of your stay, you should record any changes in the (Online) Learning Agreement. Please do not create a new Learning Agreement in this case. Instead, you should modify the old one, as far as this is possible.

Near the end of your stay, you should make sure you get the Confirmation of Stay signed by the responsible person at the partner university. You can find a template here in the download area.

To obtain the final instalment of your grant, you need to do three things:

1. Submit the Confirmation of Stay: You can find a template for the Confirmation of Stay here in the download area. Get the Confirmation of Stay signed by the partner university and then submit the form via the e-mail address outgoings-europa(at)hhu.de.

2. Complete the EU Survey: After the end of your stay as stated in the Grant Agreement or Confirmation of Stay, you will receive an invitation to complete the EU Survey by e-mail.

3. Upload your experience report: The experience report should be at least two pages long and help future Erasmus students identify and master the challenges of an Erasmus stay. You can find a guide to writing an experience report here (German only). 
Please upload your experience report here (German only).

Once you have completed these steps, please inform us by e-mail. This is important as we do not receive a separate notification that you have submitted the EU Survey and the experience report.

The International Office must have received the documents stated no later than one month after your return.

You must also submit the Transcript of Records and confirmation of recognition of the courses completed abroad after your stay. Due to the longer processing times involved, these documents may be submitted later than one month after your return.

1. Transcript of Records (ToR): The partner university will send the ToR either directly to you or to HHU, in which case it will then be forwarded to you. Please submit this document to the International Office and start dealing with getting your courses recognised as quickly as possible.

2. Confirmation of recognition: Your department is responsible for the recognition of courses completed abroad, although the exact contact person varies depending on the department. The Erasmus Departmental Coordinators are a good starting point.
Once the recognition process has been completed, please submit confirmation of recognition to the International Office. 
Students from the Faculty of Law, the Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, and the Medical Faculty will receive the confirmation after applying to their departments for recognition.
Students from other departments can submit a copy of their Transcript of Records, which they can find in the student portal, as confirmation.
Please indicate on the Transcript of Records which courses and/or exams were completed abroad.
If you do not intend to arrange for the courses you completed abroad to be credited, please write a brief, informal explanatory statement including reasons. 
Please sign the statement and send it to us by e-mail.

The Confirmation of Stay is the document, which certifies your final duration of stay at the host university. Funding can only be provided for the duration of stay stated on this document.

Please ensure that the form has been signed by the responsible person at the host university and that the signature date is not more than one week before your departure date.

Who should I contact about getting courses completed abroad credited?

As soon as you have received the Transcript of Records, you can get the courses completed abroad credited to your studies at HHU.

Your department is responsible for this, although the responsible contact person varies depending on the department.

English Studies: The Students’ Office English and American Studies (B.A.) is responsible for recognition of your courses completed abroad. In the majority of cases, this is guaranteed within the framework of the ERASMUS+ programme, but it is also possible for stays abroad not funded via ERASMUS. Nevertheless, it is always helpful to agree the courses you have selected with representatives from the Students’ Office in advance.

Biology: The examining board is responsible for the recognition of course and exam components completed abroad (Erasmus, DAAD, free-movers and others). Please send the completed form(German only), the Transcript of Records from abroad and, where necessary, also your Learning Agreement by e-mail to the biology examining board. We recommend that you obtain advice before your stay abroad about the extent to which the courses you complete abroad can subsequently be recognised. You can find a grade calculator (German only) on the HHU Intranet to help you convert grades from abroad.

Chemistry: Please contact your Erasmus Departmental Coordinator.

German Studies: The Erasmus Departmental Coordinator for German Studies, Professor Dr A. Nebrig, is responsible for deciding whether courses you have completed/intend to complete abroad can be credited to your studies in Düsseldorf. 

History: Dr Lars Hageneier (bachelor) and Thorsten Pomian (master) are responsible for the crediting of courses completed abroad.

Computer Science: Please contact the Erasmus Departmental Coordinator for Computer Science – Dr Markus Brenneis.

Art History: Please contact the Erasmus Departmental Coordinator for Art History – Dr Sascha Köhl.

Linguistics: Courses are credited via the HHU “ATool” credit transfer tool.

Mathematics: Please submit the Learning Agreement and Transcript of Records to the examining board.

Media and Culture Studies: Please contact the Erasmus Departmental Coordinator for Media and Culture Studies – Martin J. Hoffmann. 

Medicine: The Erasmus Departmental Coordinators for Medicine will inform you about the steps to be taken before departure. You can also find information on the options for getting courses completed abroad credited and subsequent recognition in ILIAS.

Japanese Studies: Please contact your Erasmus Departmental Coordinator – Professor Dr Christian Tagsold.

Pharmacy: Please contact your Erasmus Departmental Coordinator for Pharmacy – Dr med Stephanie Läer.

Philosophy: Please contact your Erasmus Departmental Coordinator – Dennis Sölch.

Physics: Please contact your Erasmus Departmental Coordinator – Professor Heinzel.

Psychology: After your return, please submit your Transcripts of Records to the coordinator of the module for which you would like courses completed abroad recognised. Under normal circumstances, you will have already discussed this with the coordinator beforehand (see above). Please submit all documents relevant for the issue of equivalence certificates (e.g. Transcripts, certificates, module descriptions). The person responsible for the module will then issue you with an equivalence certificate. This certificate must include the credit points and grade of the course completed abroad and the converted grade in Germany.
You should repeat this process for every module you would like to have recognised. Once you have done so, you should send all the equivalence certificates together to the Registrar’s Office (German only), which will ensure that the recognised modules are transferred to the electronic grade management system. Please subsequently check the student portal to ensure that the grades have been transferred correctly.

Law: Once you have applied to the student advisory service for your best grade to be credited as a mock exam and received confirmation, please enter the credited grade in the recognition outcome (RO). You should then take the RO and the credit confirmation to the international consultation session at the Faculty of Law and get them signed. Alternatively, you are welcome to send both documents to internationales.jura(at)hhu.de.

Romance Studies: You can find information on recognition in the ILIAS folder “Erasmus Romanistik” (German only).

Social and Political Sciences: Please contact the corresponding Departmental Coordinator (see Learning Agreement).

Economics: Please observe the info sheet on recognition (German only).

An Interrail Passis available for Erasmus students, the costs of which can be covered in full by Green Travel funding for journeys of at least 100 kilometres. This allows you to make several stops on the journey and discover further European cities.

With the ESNcard, the Erasmus Student Network provides a wide range of discount codes and offers for Erasmus students for e.g. airlines and rail/bus companies.

My arrival or departure date is different to that stated in the Grant Agreement. What do I need to do?

The final arrival and departure dates are recorded in the Confirmation of Stay at the end of your period abroad. You do not need to notify us of any changes in between.

Extensions are generally only possible if you arrived in the winter semester. If your stay starts in the summer semester, you must apply again in the next academic year for a second Erasmus stay. You must also submit your extension no later than 30 days before the end of your original funding period.

Furthermore, you can only complete Erasmus stays of max. 12 months in total within a single study phase. Funded and non-funded periods, traineeships and study stays all count. So, you can go abroad for a traineeship of max. six months and a study stay of one semester or for a study stay of max. two semesters. Under normal circumstances, a bachelor’s study programme, a master’s study programme and a PhD programme all count as separate study phases. In the case of study programmes with State Examinations, you can go abroad for max. 24 months under the Erasmus programme.

If you are entitled to extend your study stay abroad under these regulations, the first person you should contact is your Erasmus Departmental Coordinator. They will inform you whether places are still available at the partner university. If not, they can ask for an extraordinary increase. If the partner university agrees to the extension, there are no further obstacles to staying there for a longer period.

However, Erasmus funding is unfortunately not possible for extensions in the majority of cases. We will add you to the waiting list, meaning that you may still be able to obtain funding. However, this is unlikely. Accordingly, you should seek alternative financing options as early as possible.

If you break off your stay, you will usually need to pay back your grant.

However, if reasons exist, which are beyond your control, you can apply for termination of your stay due to force majeure. In this case, the precise number of days of your stay will be calculated and further costs incurred, e.g. for the return journey, will be reimbursed.

Please inform the International Office at HHU, stating the reason for terminating the stay. Your case will be forwarded to the DAAD, which will decide whether force majeure can be applied.

Reasons such as illness, natural disasters and changes in the security situation in the host country are usually recognised.