Germany: where the official information lives

Before reading anything else about studying in Germany, it helps to know who publishes what. Requirements change every year, and most of the confusion online comes from people quoting a portal that was never responsible for that question in the first place.

The four sources that matter

Study in Germany — run by the DAAD, the German Academic Exchange Service. This is the starting point: programme search, general admission rules, and the official explanation of how the system works.

uni-assist — a shared service that many universities use to check foreign school certificates and diplomas. If your target university works with uni-assist, your documents go there first, not to the university.

Anabin — the database that says whether your school certificate is recognised in Germany and what it is equivalent to. This is the answer to "will my diploma be accepted", and it is the only answer that counts.

The German mission in your country — the embassy or consulate. Visa requirements, the current financial proof amount and the appointment procedure are published there, and only there. Amounts and rules differ by country of application and change without notice.

How to use them in order

1. Check Anabin first. If your certificate is not recognised, everything else is premature — you may need a preparatory year (Studienkolleg).
2. Find programmes on Study in Germany, then open the university's own admissions page. The university page always wins over any aggregator.
3. Check whether the university uses uni-assist and what its own deadline is.
4. Only then read the embassy page for the visa, and take the numbers from there.

The rule that saves the most time

Never take a figure — a fee, a deposit, a deadline — from a blog, a forum, or from us, without confirming it on the official page. We link to sources on every article precisely so you can do that in one click.