The DAAD scholarship is Germany’s main state-funded route for international graduates, and the realistic entry point for most applicants from developing and emerging countries is EPOS, the Development-Related Postgraduate Courses programme. An EPOS award pays €992 per month at master’s level and €1,400 per month at doctoral level, plus payments towards insurance and a flat-rate travel allowance. No central daad scholarship deadline exists. Each EPOS course sets a separate closing date, and one rule decides eligibility first: two years of professional experience after your first degree. This guide sets out the EPOS requirements, the exact payments, the document list and the application steps in selection order.
Quick Facts
- Funder: German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, DAAD)
- Host country: Germany
- Main route for developing and emerging countries: EPOS (Development-Related Postgraduate Courses)
- Degree levels: Master’s degrees; doctoral degrees in exceptional EPOS cases
- Monthly payment: €992 for master’s students; €1,400 for doctoral candidates (rate in force since February 2026)
- Work experience: At least 2 years of relevant professional experience after the first degree
- Degree age: The most recent degree should normally not be more than 6 years old
- Deadline: Set by each course; no single DAAD deadline exists
- Where to apply: Directly to the chosen course, never to DAAD headquarters
What Is the DAAD Scholarship?
The DAAD is the world’s largest funding organisation for international academic exchange, and a DAAD scholarship is one award inside a family of separate programmes, each with its own country list, rules and deadline. Funded by the German federal government, the organisation supports well over 100,000 students and researchers every year. Four routes matter to international postgraduates:
- EPOS (Development-Related Postgraduate Courses): master’s degrees, and doctoral degrees in exceptional cases, at a fixed list of German universities, for professionals from developing and newly industrialised countries.
- Study Scholarships: master’s funding for graduates from a defined list of countries, at €992 per month.
- Doctoral Programmes and Research Grants: full doctorates and research stays of 2 to 12 months, at €1,400 per month.
- Helmut-Schmidt-Programme: master’s degrees in public policy and good governance for applicants from developing countries.
Every route lives in the DAAD scholarship database on daad.de, filtered by your country of origin. A public health officer in Ghana and an engineer in Brazil open the same database and see two different programme lists. Set your country in the database first and read only the programmes the database returns.
Eligibility Requirements
EPOS eligibility rests on five checks: your country sits on the DAAD list of eligible countries, your bachelor’s degree is relevant with upper-third results, you hold at least two years of professional experience after that degree, your degree is no more than six years old, and you have not lived in Germany for more than 15 months. A failed check ends the application before scoring starts.
- Country: Your country appears on the DAAD list of eligible countries, drawn from the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) list of developing and newly industrialised countries.
- Degree: You hold a bachelor’s degree, normally a four-year degree, in a subject related to the chosen course.
- Grades: Your degree result sits in the upper third of your graduating class.
- Work experience: You have completed at least two years of relevant professional experience after your first degree by the application deadline. Internships and voluntary work do not count. University teaching and research posts count only in exceptional cases.
- Degree age: Your academic degrees should normally not be more than six years old at the time of application.
- Residence: You have not been resident in Germany for longer than 15 months at the application deadline.
- Language: An English-taught course demands the English score the course itself sets, proven with the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) or the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL); no German certificate is required at application. A German-taught course demands German at level B1 at application and DSH 2 or TestDaF 4 before the course begins.
The work rule is where strong candidates fail quietly. An engineer who graduated in June 2022 and started full-time work at a municipal water authority that September completes two countable years in September 2024. A graduate whose record holds a six-month internship and short freelance contracts holds zero countable years and does not qualify, whatever the grades say.
Selection adds one judgement on top of the five checks. Committees score development-related motivation: your work, your course choice and your stated plan after graduation must point at the same problem in your home country. Applicants who already hold a master’s degree must add a written case for a second funded master’s degree.
What the DAAD Scholarship Covers
The EPOS scholarship pays a fixed monthly amount for living costs, and DAAD adds insurance payments, a travel allowance and conditional rent and family support on top. Funding runs for the standard period of the course, 12 to 24 months at master’s level.
| Benefit | What DAAD pays |
|---|---|
| Monthly payment, master’s level | €992 per month |
| Monthly payment, doctoral level | €1,400 per month (€1,300 before February 2026) |
| Insurance | Payments towards health, accident and personal liability insurance cover |
| Travel | A flat-rate travel allowance between your home country and Germany, unless the home country or another funder pays the fare |
| Rent subsidy | A monthly rent subsidy under certain conditions |
| Family allowance | A monthly allowance for accompanying family members under certain conditions |
| German course | A funded preparatory German course of up to 6 months before German-taught programmes |
| Tuition fees | Not covered; DAAD pays no tuition fees under its applicant rules |
Twelve months at the master’s rate total €11,904. DAAD states openly that the monthly payment may not cover every cost in a high-rent city such as Munich, while the same payment stretches much further in Leipzig or Kassel. Most EPOS courses sit at public universities, which charge no tuition fees in Germany. A minority of listed courses charge fees of their own, and those fees stay with the student.
Documents Required
EPOS applications go to the course, and one fixed document set decides whether the course committee can forward your name to DAAD.
- Completed and signed EPOS checklist from the current course list
- Completed EPOS application form
- Curriculum vitae (CV) in Europass format, in reverse chronological order, with no unexplained gaps
- One letter of motivation covering your academic, professional and personal reasons
- Letter of recommendation from your current employer, on official letterhead, signed, stamped and dated recently
- Certificate or certificates of employment proving at least two years of relevant experience after the bachelor’s degree, with a re-employment guarantee where possible
- Recent proof of language skills: IELTS or TOEFL for English-taught courses (the institutional TOEFL is not accepted), or a German certificate for German-taught courses
- Copies of higher education degree certificates, with a certified translation if the original is not in English or German
- Full transcript of records, with an explanation of the grading system if the transcript carries none
- An Akademische Prüfstelle (APS) certificate, for applicants from the People’s Republic of China
The complete application must arrive in English or German. Incomplete applications cannot be considered, and committees apply that rule without exception. Applying to two or three courses changes one document only: one letter of motivation must explain every chosen course, rank the courses by priority, and go to each course unchanged.
How to Apply Step by Step
You apply to the university course first, and DAAD enters the process only after the course committee nominates you. Follow the steps in order:
- Open the DAAD scholarship database, set your country of origin, and confirm the EPOS course list appears for your country.
- Download the official list of EPOS postgraduate courses with application deadlines for 2027/2028 from daad.de and shortlist a maximum of three courses in your field.
- Open each shortlisted course page and record its deadline, its language score and any extra documents the course adds.
- Request your employment certificates and the employer recommendation early, because employers need several weeks to issue stamped letters.
- Write one letter of motivation that covers all chosen courses and ranks the courses by priority.
- Send the complete application directly to each course before the course deadline. Applications sent to DAAD are not forwarded to any course.
- Wait for the course committee decision. The committee suggests candidates for the scholarship, and DAAD contacts the suggested candidates directly.
- Upload your full document set to the DAAD Portal when DAAD invites you, with the same course priorities you declared in the application form.
- Receive the final selection result, accept the award, and use the DAAD letter of award as your proof of financing for the student visa application.
Keep a personal copy of every document, because a missing original at the portal stage stalls a nomination the course has already approved.
Deadlines and Timeline
EPOS has no single deadline, and each course on the official list publishes a separate closing date in the DAAD list of postgraduate courses with application deadlines. Most deadlines for an October 2027 course start fall between August and October 2026, a full year before the course starts. The Master of Science in Environmental Governance at the University of Freiburg, one course on the 2027/2028 list, closed EPOS applications on 15 October 2026 for an October 2027 start.
Three timing rules follow from the per-course system:
- Work backwards from the course deadline, not from the course start. A 15 October deadline means a complete file in mid-October, employment certificates requested in August, and a finished motivation letter in September.
- The six-year degree clock and the two-year experience clock both run to the deadline date. A candidate who reaches two years of experience in November misses an October deadline by one month and waits a full cycle.
- Study scholarships and research grants run on programme and country calendars. The database entry for your country carries the binding date, and DAAD revises the entries every year.
Common Mistakes
Most failed EPOS applications break a formal rule before any committee reads the letter of motivation.
- Searching for one daad scholarship deadline and copying a date from a different course or a different cycle
- Applying with less than two years of post-degree experience, or counting internships and voluntary work towards the two years
- Sending the application to DAAD instead of to the course, where nobody forwards it
- Choosing a master’s programme that does not appear on the EPOS course list
- Ranking courses in one order in the letter of motivation and a different order in the application form, a mismatch that can end in a withdrawn award
- Submitting an employer recommendation without a stamp, a signature or a current date
- Sending an institutional TOEFL score, which DAAD does not accept
- Leaving unexplained gaps in the Europass CV
Tips for a Strong Application
A strong EPOS file draws one straight line from your first job, through the course syllabus, to a named post in your home country. Committees reward files where every document confirms the same story.
- Choose courses by syllabus fit, not by city. Name two or three modules from the course plan in your letter of motivation and tie each module to a task in your current job.
- Quantify your experience. A project officer who managed a €40,000 rural water project serving 12,000 residents gives the committee numbers to score; vague claims about valuable experience give it nothing.
- Start the document set three months before your earliest course deadline. Certified translations and stamped employment certificates move at office speed, not applicant speed.
- Use one letter of motivation for all three courses, and explain the ranking openly: syllabus fit first, a research group second, a regional focus third.
- Skip the blocked account maths. The DAAD letter of award serves as proof of financing at the German embassy, and funded scholars do not deposit €11,904 into a blocked account for the funded period.
Conclusion
EPOS suits one profile precisely: a professional from an eligible country, two or more years into a development-related career, holding a strong first degree less than six years old. The programme rewards early, exact preparation, because deadlines sit a full year before the course starts. The official list of EPOS courses with application deadlines for 2027/2028 is published on daad.de, and that list fixes the closing date for every course in the current cycle.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does the DAAD scholarship pay per month?
EPOS pays €992 per month at master’s level and €1,400 per month at doctoral level. DAAD raised the doctoral rate from €1,300 in February 2026.
Is the DAAD scholarship fully funded?
Yes for living costs, with one gap. The monthly payment, insurance and travel allowance cover daily life in most German cities, but DAAD pays no tuition fees, and high-rent cities can exceed the payment.
Do I need German for a DAAD scholarship?
No for English-taught EPOS courses. The course sets the English score, usually IELTS or TOEFL, and no German certificate is required at application. German-taught courses require B1 first, then DSH 2 or TestDaF 4.
What is the DAAD scholarship deadline for 2027?
No single deadline exists. Each EPOS course sets its own date in the official DAAD course list, and most deadlines for October 2027 entry fell between August and October 2026.
Can I apply for DAAD without work experience?
No for EPOS, which requires at least two years of professional experience after your first degree. Other DAAD routes, such as study scholarships and research grants, set different rules and do not all demand experience.
Does DAAD pay tuition fees?
No. DAAD states in its applicant rules that tuition fees are not covered. Most EPOS courses run at public universities with no tuition, but a course that charges fees leaves those fees with the student.
How many EPOS courses can I apply to?
You can apply to a maximum of three EPOS courses. One shared motivation letter must explain your course choices and rank them by priority, and the ranking must match the DAAD application form.
Can I apply if my degree is older than six years?
EPOS rules say academic degrees should normally not be more than six years old at application. A degree older than six years puts the application outside the standard profile the selection committees use.
Apply through the official DAAD database entry for Development-Related Postgraduate Courses (EPOS) on daad.de, where the current course list and every course deadline are published.
Compare DAAD with Erasmus Mundus, MEXT, Fulbright and more than 20 other awards in our guide to fully funded scholarships for international students, where the deadlines for 2027 sit in one table.
