UNIL Master’s Grants 2027 in Switzerland: CHF 1,600 Monthly Scholarship
UNIL Master’s Grants 2027: a partial funding award of CHF 1,600 per month from the University of Lausanne, offered to graduates of foreign universities for a full master’s programme. Around ten grants are awarded each year, course enrolment fees are waived except a CHF 80 semester fee, and every holder receives an offer of a room in an FMEL residence. The deadline for the 2027/2028 intake is 1 November 2026, with decisions in early April 2027.
The UNIL Master’s Grant is the University of Lausanne’s excellence award for incoming master’s students who studied outside Switzerland. It pays every month, it doubles as your admission application, and it comes with one hard date that covers three separate submission channels. If Lausanne is on your list for autumn 2027, this guide walks you through the rules exactly as UNIL publishes them today.
I checked UNIL’s official scholarship page, the five-page General Conditions PDF behind the award, and the university’s admission regulation for foreign bachelor’s degrees on 23 October 2026. Where popular sites disagree with the official text, as some do on how many months the grant actually pays, I follow UNIL and say so. The time-zone table, the certified-copy decision path, and the country sections exist because no official page translates any of this for international readers.
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| The University of Lausanne awards about ten excellence grants each year to graduates of foreign universities, paid at CHF 1,600 per month |
Quick facts at a glance
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Programme | UNIL Master’s Grant (Bourse de Master), academic year 2027/2028 |
| Provider | University of Lausanne (UNIL), Lausanne, Switzerland |
| Degree level | Master’s programmes of three or four semesters (90 or 120 ECTS) |
| Funding type | Partial funding. UNIL states the grant does not cover the full cost of living in Switzerland |
| Monthly grant | CHF 1,600 per month, paid to your Swiss account at the end of each month while you live in Switzerland |
| First-year total | CHF 19,200 (12 monthly payments of CHF 1,600, including July and August before the second year) |
| Second-year total | Up to CHF 16,000 (September to June, 10 months), or CHF 12,000 for 90-ECTS programmes (September to January, 5 months) |
| Course fees | Course enrolment fees waived; only the CHF 80 semester fee remains payable |
| Application fee | CHF 200 administrative fee, non-refundable, proof of payment required inside the PDF |
| Number of awards | About ten excellence grants each year, awarded within available funds |
| Deadline | 1 November 2026 for the online form, the two letters, and the postmark on certified copies |
| Decision | Early April 2027 by email. Decisions may not be appealed |
| Eligibility | Degree from a foreign university equivalent to a Swiss bachelor (180 ECTS), outstanding results, not currently enrolled at UNIL, C1 in the teaching language |
| Nationality | No nationality list and no age limit published; only the foreign-university rule applies |
| Housing | An offer of an FMEL residence room is made to every grant holder, subject to availability and booking by the given deadline; rent is paid by the student |
| Contact | mastergrants@unil.ch, email only |
1 November 2026 (Sunday), any time during the Swiss calendar day (the full Swiss day runs from 7:00 PM on 31 October to 5:59 PM on 1 November US Eastern time; about 4:00 AM on 1 November to 3:59 AM on 2 November PKT). That single date covers the online registration with your PDF, both recommendation letters, and the postmark on any required postal copies.
- Overview
- Who Can Apply
- How Winners Are Selected
- Funding and Benefits
- Required Documents
- English and French Language Requirements
- Costs You Should Budget
- Application Procedure
- Deadlines and Time Zones
- Residence Permit or Visa
- For Pakistani Applicants
- For US Applicants
- For Other International Applicants
- After You Receive an Offer
- Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Scholarship Scam Warning Signs
- How to Apply Safely
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Final Words
- Official Links
- Read More
Overview
The UNIL Master’s Grant, published by the University of Lausanne as an excellence grant for international students, is one of the more straightforward Swiss master’s awards to understand on paper and one of the easiest to get wrong in practice. UNIL publishes its full rulebook as a five-page PDF called General conditions for the award of a Master’s Excellence Grant, and that document, together with the official scholarship page and its FAQ, is what this guide follows. Everything below was checked on 23 October 2026.
The shape of the award is simple. UNIL selects roughly ten candidates each year, pays them CHF 1,600 per month for the statutory minimum duration of their master’s curriculum, waives the course enrolment fees, and extends an offer of a room in an FMEL residence to every holder. In return, the university asks for one combined file: your academic record, a covering letter, language proof, a passport copy, two recommendation letters, and a CHF 200 processing fee. The same file doubles as your admission application to the master’s programme itself, so there is no separate form for the admissions office.
Three features deserve emphasis before anything else. First, this is partial funding: UNIL says in plain terms that the grant does not cover the full cost of living in Switzerland, and its own FAQ puts the local benchmark at about CHF 2,000 per month. Second, the award is restricted by provenance rather than nationality, which means a Swiss or French graduate cannot compete for it no matter where they live now. Third, everything is due on a single day, 1 November 2026, across three different channels: the online form, the referee emails, and the postmark on any postal copies.
The grant in one paragraph: about ten awards a year, CHF 1,600 monthly for three or four semesters, no nationality list, a foreign-university requirement, C1 language proof, a CHF 200 fee, one combined grant and admission application, and a hard deadline of 1 November 2026 with results in early April 2027. Decisions are final and may not be appealed.
Under the hood the process is administrative rather than mysterious. The Social Affairs and Student Mobility Office (SASME) and the Admissions Office (SII) verify that files are complete and that you meet the registration conditions, your faculty then examines the knowledge you acquired in your previous studies, and a Selection Committee made up of the heads of the International Relations Office (SRI) and SASME together with faculty representatives picks the winners within the funds available. Nothing about that chain is automated, and nothing about it is appealable, which is exactly why the details in this article matter.
Who Can Apply
Eligibility for the UNIL Master’s Grant rests on one structural rule and four practical ones. The structural rule is provenance: you must be registered at a foreign university or hold a qualification from a foreign university. The practical rules are your grades, your language level, your current registration status, and the CHF 200 fee.
| Requirement | Official rule |
|---|---|
| Prior degree | A qualification from a foreign university, equivalent to a Swiss bachelor’s degree of 180 ECTS. You may apply while still finishing your degree, in which case you describe your final semester in the file. |
| Academic record | Outstanding results in previous studies. UNIL publishes no country-by-country grade list and no minimum GPA, so the comparison happens inside the Selection Committee. |
| Current registration | International students already registered at UNIL may not take part in the Selection Process. |
| Language | C1 minimum in the teaching language of your chosen master’s programme, proven by certificate or by the waiver rules below. |
| Processing fee | CHF 200 paid in advance, with the proof of payment included in the application. Late, incomplete, or unpaid files are rejected outright. |
| Master’s already held | Permitted. Priority goes to candidates who do not already hold a qualification at this level. |
| Nationality and age | No nationality list and no age limit are published anywhere in the conditions. Only the foreign-university rule filters who competes. |
| Combined role | The scholarship application is also your admission application, so you must satisfy both the grant conditions and the normal master’s admission conditions. |
Because there is no published cut-off grade, the honest advice is to convert your transcript into a single comparable figure and state it early in your covering letter. Our CGPA calculator handles the arithmetic in seconds if your university uses a scale UNIL readers will not recognize.
Programme exclusions matter as much as the general rules. Medicine, Sciences and Practices of Education, Law (except International and Comparative Law, Legal Theory, and International Tax Law and Policy), the MSc Physical Education and Sport Didactics, the MSc Health Sciences, the MSc Sustainable Management and Technology, the MSc Human Taphonomy, and every Executive Master of Advanced Studies are outside the grant. Programmes in Finance, Psychology, the Arts, and Nursing carry additional admission conditions you must clear before the grant question even arises. If your first degree is from Switzerland or you are currently enrolled at UNIL, stop here: the file will be rejected at verification.
Age and visas. UNIL states that there is no age limit for the grant. It also warns that for nationals who need a visa, being older or holding an earlier master’s degree can affect the residence permit decision, so UNIL tells those applicants to verify the conditions with the Swiss representation in their country before applying.
How Winners Are Selected
The Selection Committee has what the official conditions call a wide degree of discretion, which sounds vague until you read the two criteria it must apply. Successful applications are determined mainly on the academic quality of the application and on the availability of the funds expected to finance the grants. Where applications are of equal academic merit and funds are short, priority goes to faculties that are under-represented.
Physically, the file moves through three desks. The SASME and the SII first prepare and verify applications, including your registration conditions for the master’s curriculum. Your faculty then analyses the knowledge acquired during your previous studies under the normal admission rules. Only then does the Committee, made up of the heads of the SRI and SASME with faculty representatives, assign the grants within the available budget. Confirmation or rejection arrives by email from the SASME, and a rejection email is treated as terminating the contract, with the CHF 200 fee retained.
What this means for your file. There is no formula you can reverse-engineer and no country quota to discover. Academic quality carries the decision, the money sets a ceiling of about ten grants, and the under-representation tie-break is the only published rule for close calls. Write the file for a busy faculty reader: clear transcript, clear evidence of excellence, clear reasons for this specific programme.
Two consequences follow from the wording. Results are notified in early April 2027 by email, and the conditions state that decisions may not be appealed, so there is no second round and no reconsideration process to plan around. If you are not selected, admission to the master’s itself still follows a different track, described later in this article.
Funding and Benefits
The monthly rate is CHF 1,600, and the official conditions break the award into three amounts depending on where your curriculum sits. The table below reproduces those amounts exactly as Article 10 of the General conditions PDF publishes them.
| Period | Official amount |
|---|---|
| First year | CHF 19,200.00: CHF 1,600 per month for 12 months, covering the academic year and July and August before the second year. |
| Second year, 120-ECTS curriculum | Up to CHF 16,000.00: CHF 1,600 per month from September to June, which is 10 months. |
| Second year, 90-ECTS curriculum | CHF 12,000.00 for the first semester of the academic year, described in the same article as CHF 1,600 per month from September to January, which is 5 months. |
| Total, 120-ECTS route | CHF 35,200.00, the sum of the two official first and second year amounts. |
| Total, 90-ECTS route | CHF 31,200.00, the sum of the official amounts as published. |
Article 10 gives the 90-ECTS second year as CHF 12,000 while also describing five monthly payments of CHF 1,600, and five payments of CHF 1,600 multiply to CHF 8,000. Both figures sit in the same sentence of UNIL’s own document. Budget on the lower figure until you have written confirmation, and ask mastergrants@unil.ch which amount applies to your curriculum before you plan finances.
Beyond cash, the benefits are concrete. Holders are exempt from course enrolment fees and pay only the CHF 80 semester fee. Every grant holder receives an offer of a room from the Fondation Maisons pour Etudiants Lausanne (FMEL), subject to availability and to finalizing the booking by the deadline UNIL gives you; the type of room, the hall, and the rent are not guaranteed, and the rent is yours to pay. The grant itself lands in your account at the end of each month, and it starts only once you are resident in Switzerland. Keep sending your previous examination results each semester, because payment for the current semester depends on it.
What the grant does not include: travel to Switzerland, health insurance, visa costs, and the gap between CHF 1,600 and the roughly CHF 2,000 per month that UNIL’s own FAQ says you need in Lausanne. Some older third-party guides still describe a ten-month schedule for the whole award; the current PDF pays twelve months in year one. When the two disagree, the PDF wins.
Required Documents
Everything academic goes into a single PDF, in the order UNIL lists, uploaded during online registration. The two recommendation letters travel separately, by email, from your referees. Postal certified copies are a third track that only some applicants need, covered in the procedure section.
| Item | What goes inside the single PDF |
|---|---|
| 1. CV | Curriculum vitae with a photograph. |
| 2. Covering letter | One to two pages, addressed to the Master’s Scholarship. |
| 3. Degrees and transcripts | Copies of the diplomas and detailed transcripts of records, with an authenticated translation if the originals are not in French, German, English, or Italian. |
| 4. Final semester plan | Description of the courses you will take in your final semester, if your degree is not yet awarded at submission. |
| 5. Language certificate | Proof of C1 in the teaching language of the programme, unless a waiver applies. |
| 6. Secondary school diploma | Original plus translation where required. |
| 7. Passport | A clear copy of your passport. |
| 8. Fee receipt | Proof of payment of the CHF 200 administrative fee. |
Translations count as authenticated only when they come from a sworn translator, a consular service, or a professional translation agency, as UNIL’s admission regulation specifies. Machine translations and informal renders do not substitute for degree documents. Two practical tools help with item 2: our motivation letter word counter keeps you inside the one to two page limit, and the full guide to writing a winning motivation letter covers structure sentence by sentence.
One PDF, one upload, no supplements later. A file that arrives after 1 November, arrives incomplete, or lacks the fee receipt is rejected under the conditions, and the fee is retained. Build the PDF in the official order first, then register, then upload, so nothing is scrambled under deadline pressure.
English and French Language Requirements
The rule is a single line with a generous escape hatch: a minimum of C1 in the language of instruction of your chosen master’s programme, and a certificate no older than two years. UNIL accepts the following tests for English.
| English test | Required score for C1 |
|---|---|
| TOEFL Computer-based | 250 |
| TOEFL Internet-based | 100 |
| TOEFL Paper-based | 600 |
| IELTS Academic | 7.0 |
| Cambridge CAE | Grade B |
| Cambridge CPE | Grade C |
| TOEIC | 850 |
| French test | Accepted level |
|---|---|
| DALF | C1 or C2 |
| TCF (tout public) | C1 or higher in each of the five components |
| CQF Le Fil de l’EFLE | C1, in the form of the four written examinations |
| TELC | C1 |
The waiver worth checking first. You do not need any of these certificates if your mother tongue is the teaching language, or if your bachelor’s degree was taught entirely in that language. If either applies to you, say so explicitly in your covering letter and name the programme’s language of instruction, so the verifier does not stop at the missing certificate line.
Two traps surface here every cycle. Older guides still advertise a B2 threshold, but the published conditions say C1, and C1 is what UNIL enforces. And the test must be recent: certificates older than two years at submission are treated as missing. If IELTS is your route, our IELTS band score calculator shows exactly where a 7.0 sits before you book a test date you do not need.
Costs You Should Budget
Start with UNIL’s own number. Its FAQ states that the competent federal and cantonal authorities consider about CHF 2,000 per month necessary to live in Lausanne. The grant pays CHF 1,600. The gap is real, and planning around it is the difference between a smooth first semester and a stressful one.
| Item | Amount in Swiss francs |
|---|---|
| Monthly grant | CHF 1,600 paid monthly |
| Lausanne living benchmark (UNIL FAQ) | About CHF 2,000 per month |
| Monthly gap to close | About CHF 400, roughly CHF 4,800 across twelve months, using UNIL’s two published figures |
| Semester fee | CHF 80 per semester (course enrolment fees are waived) |
| Administrative fee | CHF 200, non-refundable, paid before submission |
| Health insurance | EU and EFTA insurance is recognized; other nationals can buy cheaper special student insurance |
| FMEL room rent | Set by FMEL and paid by the student; the grant holder receives an offer, not free housing |
The gap figure above is arithmetic on two official numbers, dated October 2026, not a quote from UNIL, and prices in Lausanne move. Recheck rent, insurance, and the semester fee on the official pages before you commit, and remember that the CHF 200 application fee is never returned, whether you win or lose. Switzerland does not treat this scholarship as a loan, so there is nothing to repay, but there is also no travel allowance, no settling-in payment, and no dependency supplement.
Application Procedure
One date, three channels, eight steps. The flowchart shows the full path from checking your eligibility to the result in early April, and the numbered steps below it hold the details you actually need while filling forms.
Confirm the foreign-university rule, that your chosen programme is not on the exclusion list, that you can meet C1 in the teaching language, and that you are not already registered at UNIL.
Transfer to IBAN CH17 0900 0000 1001 3575 3, SWIFT POFICHBEXXX, with the reference “Master’s Scholarship - your name”. You send the bank charges; UNIL receives them. The receipt becomes item 8 of your PDF, and the fee is not refunded under any outcome.
Assemble the eight items in the official order: CV with photo, covering letter of one to two pages, diplomas and transcripts with authenticated translations where needed, final semester description if you are still studying, language certificate, secondary school diploma, passport copy, fee receipt. One file, no appendices sent later.
Use the UNIL Master’s Grant portal, submit your registration, upload the PDF, and accept the general conditions in the process. Acceptance is what turns the conditions into a contract, and the portal stops accepting late files on the deadline date.
Two recommendation letters, sent by the referees themselves to mastergrants@unil.ch from a professional address rather than a private one, by 1 November 2026. The letters only count if they arrive after your online registration, so register first, then alert your referees, and have them name you and your programme in the message.
If your degree comes from a country that has not ratified the Lisbon Convention, send certified true copies of your degree documents by post: certified by the issuing university, in the original language, in a sealed envelope with a cover letter naming the certifier, postmarked by 1 November 2026, to SASME, Bâtiment Unicentre, CH-1015 Lausanne. An apostille, a notary, or a police certification does not satisfy UNIL’s rule here, and applicants from ratified countries should not post anything at all.
From November, SASME and SII check completeness and eligibility, and you are notified in December or January if something is missing or ineligible. From January, faculties review academic content, with rejections notified between February and March.
The Selection Committee meets in March and the SASME emails every candidate in early April: grant holders become beneficiaries, and everyone else gets the separate admission outcome for their master’s application. No appeals follow from either email.
The online form and PDF, both referee letters, and the postmark on any required certified copies all fall on 1 November 2026. Late, incomplete, or unpaid applications are rejected under Article 6 of the conditions without further review, and no document may be added afterwards.
Deadlines and Time Zones
UNIL publishes one calendar date for this cycle: 1 November 2026. Everything you submit hangs off that date through three separate channels, and the timeline below shows what happens after it.
| Submission channel | Who must use it | Due |
|---|---|---|
| Online registration and single PDF | Every applicant | 1 November 2026 |
| CHF 200 fee receipt inside the PDF | Every applicant | Paid before submission, receipt included |
| Two referee letters by email | Every applicant, sent by the referees themselves | 1 November 2026, and only after your online registration |
| Certified copies by post | Only degrees from countries that have not ratified the Lisbon Convention | Postmarked 1 November 2026 |
UNIL states the deadline as a calendar date, not a clock time. The table below translates the entire Swiss day of 1 November 2026 into the zones most readers use, so you know exactly which two clock hours frame the window. Switzerland had already left summer time on 25 October 2026, and the United States switches back inside the window itself, which is why the Eastern row changes abbreviation halfway through.
| Your time zone | Window opens | Window closes |
|---|---|---|
| Switzerland (CET) | Sun, 1 Nov 2026, 12:00 AM | Sun, 1 Nov 2026, 11:59 PM |
| Greenwich Mean Time | Sat, 31 Oct 2026, 11:00 PM | Sun, 1 Nov 2026, 10:59 PM |
| US Eastern (EDT, then EST) | Sat, 31 Oct 2026, 7:00 PM | Sun, 1 Nov 2026, 5:59 PM |
| US Pacific (PDT, then PST) | Sat, 31 Oct 2026, 4:00 PM | Sun, 1 Nov 2026, 2:59 PM |
| Pakistan (PKT) | Sun, 1 Nov 2026, 4:00 AM | Mon, 2 Nov 2026, 3:59 AM |
| India (IST) | Sun, 1 Nov 2026, 4:30 AM | Mon, 2 Nov 2026, 4:29 AM |
1 November 2026 falls on a Sunday. The online portal and the referee emails work fine all day, but Sunday is not a mail day, so a letter postmarked 1 November would have to be handed in earlier and stamped by Swiss Post on or before that date. If you owe certified copies, post them by Friday 30 October 2026 and keep the stamped receipt. And because UNIL publishes no cut-off hour, treat midnight Lausanne time as the wall, then aim 24 to 48 hours in front of it. Our free scholarship deadline tracker keeps this date beside every other deadline you are juggling.
Residence Permit or Visa
The grant contract carries one residency clause that shapes everything else: in return for payment, the beneficiary undertakes to reside in Switzerland and pursue the curriculum within the faculty throughout the grant period. You cannot collect CHF 1,600 a month from abroad, so your permit situation has to be solved before September 2027.
Whether you need an entry visa first depends on your nationality. Citizens of the European Union and EFTA states move under the free movement rules; everyone else generally goes through the Swiss representation in their country for the long-stay permit that a full-time master’s requires. Which category you fall into decides both the paperwork and the timeline, so start from your nationality rather than from the scholarship.
UNIL’s own visa warning. In its FAQ, UNIL notes that for nationals who need a visa, being older or already holding a master’s degree may affect the residence permit decision, and it tells those candidates to verify the conditions with the Swiss representation in their country before applying to the grant. That check costs one email and saves an entire cycle.
After selection, the administrative follow-up of your registration and of the grant itself sits with the SASME, while the permit application remains your business with the Swiss authorities. Budget time for both: the committee result arrives in early April 2027, studies begin in September, and permit appointments in some countries queue for weeks. Health insurance is a related decision, covered under costs you should budget: EU and EFTA policies are recognized, and other nationals can take the cheaper special student insurance.
For Pakistani Applicants
Pakistan appears nowhere in the exclusion rules, which is the short answer: Pakistani graduates can compete on exactly the same terms as everyone else, provided the degree comes from a university in Pakistan or any other country outside Switzerland. There is no country quota, no nationality preference, and no age limit in the conditions.
Three rules do hit Pakistani files harder than some others. First, Pakistan is not among the states that have ratified the Lisbon Convention on the recognition of academic qualifications, so certified true copies of your degree documents travel by post. Second, UNIL will only accept those copies when the certification comes from the issuing university itself, with the documents in the original language, inside a sealed envelope, with a cover letter naming the certifier: an apostille, a notary, or a police certification does not satisfy the rule. Third, the postmark deadline falls on a Sunday, so the envelope has to leave before the weekend.
Pakistani applicant checklist. (1) Post your university-certified, sealed document set by Friday 30 October 2026 to SASME, Bâtiment Unicentre, CH-1015 Lausanne. (2) If your bachelor’s was taught entirely in English, claim the language waiver in your covering letter instead of rushing an IELTS date; otherwise you need IELTS 7.0 or TOEFL iBT 100. (3) Register and upload the single PDF through the official portal by 1 November 2026. (4) Confirm your permit route with the Swiss representation in Pakistan before you apply, exactly as UNIL’s FAQ advises.
On money, plan in Swiss francs, because UNIL publishes everything in CHF and this guide does not convert currencies that move daily. The grant is CHF 1,600 a month against UNIL’s own Lausanne benchmark of about CHF 2,000, and the gap plus the CHF 80 semester fee, insurance, and rent is what your family budget needs to cover. Send bank transfers for the CHF 200 fee early, because international transfers to Switzerland sometimes take days to land, and the receipt must be inside your PDF at submission.
For US Applicants
A bachelor’s degree from an American university is a qualification from a foreign university, so US graduates clear the one structural rule that defines this grant. Nothing else in the conditions separates American applicants from the global pool: no US-specific quota, no minimum GPA published, and no preference against holders of an earlier master’s degree beyond the general priority rule.
Language proof is usually the easy part. If English is your mother tongue or your bachelor’s degree was taught entirely in English, the waiver applies and no certificate is needed. If you would rather submit one anyway, UNIL lists IELTS Academic 7.0, TOEFL iBT 100 (or paper 600, computer 250), CAE Grade B, CPE Grade C, and TOEIC 850, each no older than two years. On grades, the committee compares academic quality without a published cut-off, so convert your GPA into one clear figure for the covering letter.
The United States signed the Lisbon Convention in 1997 but is not among the convention’s current contracting parties, and UNIL’s rule turns on ratification. Guidance elsewhere is genuinely mixed, since some Swiss universities group together countries that have merely signed. Until UNIL confirms your case by email, check the official Council of Europe list linked below, and if your status is still unclear, write to mastergrants@unil.ch before you post or skip any certified copies.
Timing deserves a note of its own. Eastern time loses an hour at 2:00 AM on 1 November 2026, inside the deadline day itself, so the window runs from 7:00 PM on 31 October in EDT until 5:59 PM on 1 November in EST. Pacific time runs 4:00 PM on 31 October to 2:59 PM on 1 November. Practical conclusion: treat 31 October as your submission day. On funding, US federal aid programmes apply at US institutions and are not a source for UNIL, so the plan is the Swiss one: CHF 1,600 against a CHF 2,000 monthly benchmark, in francs.
For Other International Applicants
Every nationality is eligible, and the sorting happens through three checks rather than one. Run them in this order, because each changes what you do next.
Check one: your country’s Lisbon Convention status. All Council of Europe member states have ratified, joined by Australia, Belarus, Canada, the Holy See, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, New Zealand, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. If your degree comes from a party to the convention, you send nothing by post. If it does not, and large parts of Africa and Asia fall outside the list, the certified-copy track applies: certification by the issuing university, sealed envelope, cover letter, postmarked 1 November 2026. Open the official status list in our Official Links section and find your own country rather than trusting a forum answer.
Check two: your language. Match the teaching language of your chosen master’s programme, then either hold a C1 certificate under two years old or claim the waiver through mother tongue or an entirely English-taught or entirely French-taught bachelor’s degree. Documents not in French, German, English, or Italian need an authenticated translation by a sworn translator, a consular service, or a professional translation agency.
Check three: money and permit. EU and EFTA health insurance travels with you; other nationals should price the special student insurance UNIL mentions in its FAQ. Nationals who need visas should follow UNIL’s advice and confirm permit conditions with their Swiss representation before applying, particularly if you are older or already hold a master’s degree.
The one universal warning: late, incomplete, and unpaid files are rejected without review, and nothing can be added after 1 November 2026. Whatever your country, build the single PDF first, register early, tell your referees to use professional addresses, and only then settle the postal question.
After You Receive an Offer
Winning the grant starts a small set of obligations rather than ending the paperwork. These come straight from the general conditions, and each one has a consequence attached.
- Registration. The SASME administers the grant relationship, and you register on your master’s curriculum under the normal admission conditions confirmed with your file.
- Residency and payment. The grant is paid into your account at the end of each month, starting once you are resident in Switzerland and staying only while you remain in the country.
- Exam results. Payment for the current semester is conditional on sending your previous session’s examination results; the SASME monitors academic results with the faculty after each session.
- Housing. The FMEL room offer is guaranteed only if you finalize the booking by the deadline you are given, and the offer is withdrawn if you miss it. Type of room, hall, and rent are never guaranteed.
- Changes. You must report any significant change that could affect the contract, such as a leave of absence or a move out of the residence.
Two protections exist for the difficult years. A period at another university is allowed unless your faculty’s regulations say otherwise, and while you are away the Master’s Grant is suspended, though you remain eligible for a separate mobility grant. Temporary interruptions of study, including illness, can suspend the grant on your request, and payments restart when you resume. An extension of up to one semester can be granted by the SASME with your reasons and your faculty’s support, but not for delays you chose yourself, such as an extra semester abroad.
Leaving Switzerland outside an approved temporary period, de-registration from UNIL, failing, being awarded the qualification, exceeding the minimum curriculum period without an approved extension, or a rejected application all terminate the contract automatically, with payments cancelled from the month after the event. In cases of serious breach of your contractual obligations, UNIL may also request repayment of amounts already paid.
If the committee does not select you but the faculty admits you anyway, the cycle is not over: UNIL sends you the instructions to register for the master’s programme, and you decide whether the unfunded version in Lausanne is the right call. That second path is why a rejection email deserves a careful read rather than an angry reply.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Every rejection reason in this cycle traces back to one of the habits below. They are all avoidable with an afternoon of preparation in October.
- Planning around B2. Older guides advertise B2, and the published conditions say C1. Files built on the wrong level fail verification.
- Mixing up the postal rule. Applicants from Lisbon Convention countries must not post certified copies, and applicants from non-parties must post them. Both mistakes end in the same place: a file that does not match the instructions.
- Referee letters from private inboxes. Letters must come from professional addresses, must be sent by the referees themselves, and only count when they arrive after your online registration.
- Forgetting the CHF 200 receipt. Proof of payment sits inside the PDF as the last item, and an unpaid or unreceipted file is rejected outright.
- Scrambling the PDF order. The eight items have an official order. Keep it, so the verifier never has to hunt for your transcript.
- Applying from inside UNIL. International students already registered at UNIL cannot enter the Selection Process at all.
- Choosing an excluded programme. Medicine, Law with three exceptions, the MSc programmes named earlier, and every Executive Master sit outside the grant.
- Submitting an expired language certificate. Anything older than two years at submission reads as missing.
- Waiting for Sunday to post. The deadline lands on a non-mail day. Certified copies should be in the mail by Friday 30 October 2026.
- Budgeting as if it were fully funded. UNIL says in writing that the grant does not cover the full cost of living, and its FAQ benchmark is CHF 2,000 per month.
- Expecting to appeal. The conditions state that decisions may not be appealed, so the file has to be right the first time.
Scholarship Scam Warning Signs
Popular scholarships attract impersonators, and partial awards are no exception. The official setup has three fixed points that never move: registration happens only on UNIL’s own domain, the CHF 200 goes only to the IBAN printed in the conditions, and all contact about the grant runs through mastergrants@unil.ch. Anyone who breaks one of those three points is not UNIL.
Payment demanded to a personal account, a WhatsApp number, or a wallet transfer; agents promising a place or a fast track for a fee; emails from lookalike domains that imitate unil.ch; claims that the fee can be waived if you pay someone else first; and pressure to hand over passport scans before you have registered on the official portal. No condition in UNIL’s documents mentions intermediaries of any kind.
Verify in ten seconds: the domain in your browser bar ends in unil.ch or fmpsrv03prd.unil.ch, the payment reference reads “Master’s Scholarship - your name”, and the IBAN matches CH17 0900 0000 1001 3575 3 exactly as printed in the conditions.
How to Apply Safely
- Open the official links in the next section and type unil.ch yourself once, rather than following search ads or forwarded messages.
- Download the General conditions PDF from UNIL’s own site and read Articles 6, 9, 10, and 11 before you promise yourself anything.
- Pay the CHF 200 only to the published IBAN, with your name in the reference, and save the receipt as a PDF the moment it clears.
- Build your single PDF in the official order, then register on the portal, then upload, then tell your referees to write from their professional addresses.
- Set your deadline as 31 October 2026 for yourself, leaving 1 November as the legal backstop rather than the plan.
- If any message about your application asks for money, a gift card, or a new payment channel, stop and write to mastergrants@unil.ch to confirm it is genuine.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the UNIL Master’s Grant open to Pakistani and international students?
Yes. UNIL publishes no nationality list and no age limit, and the only provenance rule is that your qualification comes from a foreign university, which students in Pakistan and everywhere outside Switzerland satisfy. You still clear the academic, language, fee, and programme conditions, and visa-restricted nationals should confirm their permit conditions with the Swiss representation before applying, as UNIL’s FAQ advises.
What is the deadline for the UNIL Master’s Grants 2027?
1 November 2026, covering three channels: your online registration with one PDF, both referee letters emailed to mastergrants@unil.ch after your registration, and the postmark on certified copies for applicants from non-Lisbon Convention countries. UNIL publishes no cut-off hour, so treat it as the end of the Swiss calendar day. Results arrive by email in early April 2027.
Is CHF 1,600 per month enough to live in Lausanne?
No, and UNIL says so itself. The conditions call the award a partial funding grant, and UNIL’s FAQ puts the living benchmark in Lausanne at about CHF 2,000 per month against the CHF 1,600 you receive. Plan for a monthly gap of roughly CHF 400, plus the CHF 80 semester fee, health insurance, and FMEL rent.
Which language certificate do I need for the UNIL Master’s Grant?
C1 in the teaching language of your programme, with a certificate no older than two years, or a waiver: no certificate is needed if your mother tongue is that language or your bachelor’s degree was taught entirely in it. For English, accepted scores include IELTS 7.0, TOEFL iBT 100, CAE Grade B, CPE Grade C, and TOEIC 850.
Is the grant application the same as the admission application?
Yes. Submitting the grant file through the Master’s Grant portal is also your application for admission to the master’s programme, so there is no separate form to the admissions office. If you are not awarded the grant but are admitted, UNIL sends you the instructions to register for the programme.
Do I need an agent to apply for the UNIL Master’s Grant?
No. The official procedure has only one route: you register online yourself, upload one PDF, pay CHF 200 to UNIL’s published account, and ask two referees to email their letters directly. Nothing in the conditions mentions agencies or intermediaries, so use the Official Links below and pay only to the IBAN published in the conditions.
Final Words
This grant rewards people who treat a single date as three deadlines. The rules themselves are short: a foreign-university degree, outstanding results, C1 or a waiver, one ordered PDF, two referee emails, a CHF 200 payment, and, for some countries, a sealed envelope that must be stamped before the weekend. What separates winners is timing, with referees lined up in September, translations settled in October, and a covering letter that explains why Lausanne and this specific faculty.
Everything in this guide was checked against UNIL’s official scholarship page, its five-page General conditions PDF, and its admission pages on 23 October 2026, and where the official record contradicts itself, as Article 10 does on the 90-ECTS amount, both numbers are shown instead of smoothed over. Send corrections to UNIL first and tell me second; this page will be updated when the official facts move.
- Deadline: 1 November 2026 for the form, the letters, and the postmark, with no official hour published.
- Funding: CHF 1,600 per month, CHF 19,200 in year one, about ten awards, and partial coverage against a CHF 2,000 benchmark.
- Eligibility: a degree from a foreign university, outstanding results, C1 or the waiver, not registered at UNIL, and CHF 200 paid.
- Documents: one ordered PDF, two referee letters from professional addresses, certified copies only if your country is outside the Lisbon Convention.
- Decision: Selection Committee in March, results by email in early April 2027, no appeals.
- Housing and money: an FMEL room offer worth confirming immediately, and a monthly gap you should plan before you accept.
Was this guide useful? Share it with a classmate who is also applying to Swiss master’s programmes this autumn, because the three-channel deadline and the Sunday postmark are exactly the details people discover too late.
- UNIL, Bourse de Master scholarship page with FAQ (partial funding statement, CHF 1,600 monthly, C1 language rule, about ten awards, procedure stages, early April notification, no appeals, visa and age advice, CHF 2,000 monthly benchmark, insurance guidance, contact address).
- UNIL, General conditions for the award of a Master’s Excellence Grant PDF, Articles 1 to 16 (definitions, participation conditions, selection criteria, notification, payment rules, amounts, fee waiver, FMEL offer, mobility, residency, termination, suspension, extension).
- UNIL, Master’s Grant application portal (online registration and PDF upload).
- UNIL, Master’s degree with a foreign bachelor’s degree (180 ECTS equivalence and admission route).
- UNIL, Additional admission conditions for specific master’s programmes (Finance, Psychology, Arts, Nursing).
- UNIL, Admissions FAQ and useful links (fees, insurance, registration questions).
- Council of Europe, Lisbon Convention status list (treaty 165, contracting party status by country).
Ready to apply for the UNIL Master’s Grants 2027?
Open the official portal, upload your single PDF, and settle all three channels before 1 November 2026.
Apply on the Official Portal Official Website Watch on YouTube Join WhatsApp ChannelThis guide reflects UNIL’s published pages and General conditions PDF as verified on 23 October 2026. Scholarship rules change between cycles, so always confirm every detail on the official UNIL pages before you submit, and use this article as your structured preparation checklist rather than as a substitute for the official guidelines.
Published 23 October 2026 · Last verified 23 October 2026 · Study Abroad With Arbaz
Official Links
- UNIL, Master’s Scholarship page with FAQ
- UNIL, General conditions for the award of a Master’s Excellence Grant (PDF)
- UNIL, Official Master’s Grant application portal
- UNIL, Master’s programmes list
- UNIL, Master’s admission with a foreign bachelor’s degree
- UNIL, Additional admission conditions
- UNIL, Admissions FAQ and useful links
- FMEL student housing, official website
- Council of Europe, Lisbon Convention status list
- mastergrants@unil.ch, official contact for the grant
- UNIL official website
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