University of Padua scholarships for international students

ESU di Padova and the scholarship: who does what

If you searched for an "ESU Padova scholarship", the short answer is that there is no such application. At the University of Padua the income-based regional scholarship is the University's own call, funded by the Veneto Region and run by Padua's Student Service Office – Economic Benefits (benefici.studenti@unipd.it). You request it in Uniweb, Padua's student portal, under "Request for fee reductions", and it also needs a valid ISEE or ISEE parificato and your enrolment. For 2026/27 the deadline was 30 September 2026.

ESU di Padova has a different job: it runs the housing competition for the student residences, and the canteens. The two meet in one place. Part of the regional scholarship is paid in services instead of cash: meals, and a residence place if you win one in ESU's housing competition. So apply to ESU for a room, and to the University for the money.

Padua's own awards: considered automatically

The University's own awards for international students need no separate application and no extra documents. Applying to an English-taught bachelor's or master's makes an eligible applicant a candidate for all three:

Exemption from the fees is not a bill of zero: you still pay the regional tax and stamp duty, EUR 208 (EUR 192 plus EUR 16). The departmental page lists, for example, two scholarships each for Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Data Science, Computational Finance, Mathematics, Medicine and Surgery, and Medicine and Surgery – MedTech, and one each for Energy, Chemical and Process, Materials, Aerospace and Electrical Engineering, among others. A fee waiver is renewed for the second year with 25 credits by 10 August, and for the third year of a bachelor's or single-cycle degree with 80 credits by 10 August of the second year.

Because there is no separate scholarship file, your admission application is the only file Padua has from you. Treat the transcript, CV and motivation letter you upload as your scholarship application too.

Timing is the condition that matters most. The 2026/27 call said the scholarships were "mainly reserved for candidates applying for the first application period", with the second period considered only on an exceptional basis. For an open-access master's, the first period is Call One: 15 September – 15 November 2026. English-taught bachelor's and limited-access master's open to non-EU applicants living outside Italy in a single window, 7 January – 7 March 2027, so that is the one that counts for them. Padua's pages say the 2027/28 Excellence and departmental calls will be published in November 2026; the counts above come from the current pages and last year's call, and the November calls set this year's.

The Excellence scholarship: the conditions that bite

• Admission comes first. An admission offer is not a scholarship offer, and there is no scholarship without an admissible application. Padua's 2027/28 country table asks a Bangladeshi master's applicant for a 4-year Honours or a 4 or 5-year professional bachelor's with a GPA of at least 3.3 out of 4.0, and a bachelor's applicant for an HSC at Second Division or above. The table is "for reference only" and the admissions office decides; the University of Padua profile has the full entry requirements.
• The money arrives after you do. In 2026/27 the first instalment was paid only after arrival, enrolment and the opening of a bank account in the SEPA area, and not at all to a student arriving after 15 December 2026.
• Credits keep it. The scholarship is revoked, and must be repaid, if you have fewer than 20 CFU (credits) by 30 November of the following academic year, or if you transfer or withdraw.
• One public grant at a time. The 2026/27 call said the award "cannot be combined with any other grant awarded by other public institutions". Read the same line in the 2027/28 call, and ask the Student Service Office how it affects the regional scholarship before you plan on holding both.
• The EUR 208 does not wait for the result. Scholarship results usually arrive before the deadline for paying the admission fee, but that EUR 208 is non-refundable and cannot be postponed while you wait for one. In the 2026/27 cycle, results came out from 11 March 2026 for open-access programmes and from 10 April 2026 for limited-access ones.

The regional scholarship: Padua's call, Veneto's money

The 2027/28 call is not published yet; if last year's pattern holds it will appear around July 2027, and that is not a promise. Every figure below is from the 2026/27 call, the latest published.

The last row describes a capped share with a ranking, so plan as if you could be eligible and still not be paid.

The ISEE parificato is the long pole. Padua's 2026 ISEE guide says it is issued only by the University's partner CAF (CONFEURO Padova), free of charge, from documents issued by Bangladeshi authorities, stated in taka, translated into Italian and apostilled; the guide lists Bangladesh among the apostille countries. It takes months, and Padua obtains your Italian tax code for you. The general process is in the ISEE parificato guide and the Bangladesh side in the apostille guide; where either differs from Padua's own guide, follow Padua's.

One point Padua's own documents leave open, and we will not guess at it. There is a simpler route for families from "particularly poor" countries: an embassy certificate that the family is not high-income. Padua's fee rules put Bangladesh on that list; the ISEE guide's list for that route leaves it out. Ask the Student Service Office – Economic Benefits or the CAF which route your family should use before you start collecting papers.

For a Bangladeshi student the ISEE parificato does not lower tuition, which is fixed (next section). It can reduce the EUR 192 regional tax, and it is what makes you eligible for the regional scholarship.

What you pay with no award (2026/27, the latest published)

Since 2023/24, non-EU citizens whose household lives outside Italy pay a fixed fee that is not recalculated by income. Citizens of the countries on Italy's "particularly poor countries" list pay one third of it, and Bangladesh is on the 2026/27 list (Ministerial Decree 176 of 24 February 2026).

The 2027/28 fee notice and the 2027/28 country list are not published yet, so there is no 2027/28 figure to quote. The application portal still shows the older 2025/26 amounts (EUR 916.66 and EUR 983.33 for a Bangladeshi citizen); they are not this year's. One programme is an exception to the table: Food, Nutrition and Health lists EUR 6,000 a year, which "may vary subject to the upcoming consortium agreement".

Rent and food come on top. As our own estimate, not an official figure, a room in a shared flat costs about EUR 300 to 480 a month and food EUR 180 to 240; the Padua city guide has the detail.

Schemes you apply for separately

Padua's Invest Your Talent page does not say which year it describes, and the 2027/28 MAECI call is not published, so confirm your country on each current call; the Invest Your Talent guide explains how the scheme works. One page to skip: "Starting Grant 2027" on unipd.it supports researchers applying to the European Research Council within ten years of a PhD. It is not a student scholarship.

How competitive it is

Padua publishes how many awards there are, not how many people compete for them, so no honest success rate exists and this article will not invent one. The Excellence scholarships are open to international applicants across all of Padua's English-taught programmes. Build a plan that works at the fixed fee, and treat an award as a bonus on top of it.

Why applications fail

1. 1Treating ESU as the scholarship office. The regional scholarship is a Uniweb request to the University; ESU handles rooms and canteens.
2. 2Applying in the second period. An open-access master's applicant who waits for Call Two is considered for a scholarship only exceptionally.
3. 3Starting the ISEE parificato late. Apostilled, translated Bangladeshi documents and a CAF appointment take months.
4. 4Arriving late. In 2026/27 no first instalment of the Excellence scholarship was paid to anyone arriving after 15 December.
5. 5Falling short of 20 credits. The Excellence scholarship and the regional scholarship are both revoked below that line.
6. 6Building the visa plan on the award. See the next section.

The visa money is a separate question

The Italian visa file needs evidence of EUR 10,179.85 for the year: the national figure for 2026/27 and 2027/28, set as one annual sum with no official monthly equivalent. Award money is paid after you arrive, and under the national circular a regional scholarship you have only applied for cannot be counted without a written statement that it was awarded. Plan that sum as if you had no scholarship; the proof-of-funds guide explains what the consulate looks at.

What to do now

1. 1Choose your programme on the University of Padua profile and note its window. Call One closes on 15 November 2026 at 23:59:59 CET, which is 04:59:59 on 16 November in Bangladesh; English-taught bachelor's and limited-access master's open on 7 January 2027.
2. 2Apply in that first window. Padua's own awards need no separate form.
3. 3Read the 2027/28 Excellence and departmental calls in full when they appear in November 2026.
4. 4If the regional scholarship matters to you, start the ISEE parificato papers now, and put your questions to benefici.studenti@unipd.it.
5. 5Price the year at the fixed fee, with no award, in the cost calculator. If Padua only works with a scholarship, treat that as information rather than a plan.