Fully Funded Scholarships for Nigerian Students in the Netherlands 2026-2027

What this page lists

This page collects 3 fully funded scholarships for Nigerian students who want to study in the Netherlands. Every award here is at Masters level, and every one of the three is attached to a Dutch university rather than to a government scheme or an external foundation.

The three providers are the University of Groningen, Maastricht University and the University of Twente. That matters for how you apply. With university-run awards, the scholarship application usually sits inside the same system as your admission application, so you are dealing with one institution, one portal and one set of document rules rather than two separate bureaucracies.

Because the list is short, it is also quick to work through. You can read all three entries properly in one sitting and decide which of them fits your degree background before you spend money on transcripts or courier fees.

What the awards pay for

All three awards are labelled fully funded. Beyond that label, the brief records what the awards themselves state in writing about what they cover: 1 names tuition, 1 names living costs, 1 names health insurance, and 1 names research or training costs.

Read those as what each award says on its own page, not as a promise that every award carries every item. A fully funded package in the Netherlands normally means the tuition fee is handled and a monthly amount is paid towards your living costs, but you should confirm the exact composition on the individual award page before you build a budget around it. Where an award does not spell out a benefit, treat it as unconfirmed and ask the university directly.

One practical point for Nigerian applicants: Dutch universities charge non-EU students a higher tuition fee than EU students, and that figure is set by the institution, not by the scholarship. Check the fee for your specific programme on the university's own page, then check whether the award covers it in full or only in part.

Which fields are represented

The three awards between them touch seven subject areas. Each of the following appears once across the list:

• Arts & Humanities
• Business & Management
• Economics & Finance
• Engineering
• Law
• Medicine & Health Sciences
• Social Sciences

That spread is wider than the number of awards suggests. If you hold a B.Sc or HND in engineering, a law degree, a health sciences qualification or a social science background, there is a reasonable chance one of these three programmes sits close to your field. The catch is that the field list describes the programmes the awards attach to, not a free choice of course. You are applying to a specific master's programme at a specific university, and the scholarship follows that admission.

Can a Nigerian applicant qualify?

Of the three awards on this page, 2 are open to Nigerian applicants. Within that group, none names Nigeria or a region as a restriction, and both carry no nationality restriction at all. The remaining award does not state its eligibility on the award page.

That last point is worth pausing on. It does not mean you are excluded. It means the page as we hold it does not tell you either way, so the eligibility rule has to come from the university. Before you invest time in an application, send the scholarships office a short email asking whether Nigerian nationals are eligible for that particular award, and keep the reply.

For the two open awards, the absence of a nationality restriction is the useful detail. It means your application is judged on your academic record and your documents rather than on a quota tied to your passport.

What the applications demand

The requirements recorded across the three awards are these: 2 ask for letters of recommendation, 1 asks for an English test score such as IELTS or TOEFL, 1 asks for a minimum degree class, and 1 asks for an admission offer first.

Plan around the recommendation letters first, because they are the item you control least. Two referees means two people who have to write, sign and sometimes submit through a portal link that expires. Give them at least three weeks, and give them your CV, your transcript and a note on what you are applying for. A lecturer who has to guess what the scholarship is will write a vague letter.

The English test is the other cost to budget for. If an award asks for IELTS or TOEFL, book early, because test slots in Nigeria fill up and results take time to reach you. Some Dutch universities waive the test if your previous degree was taught entirely in English, but whether a waiver applies is the university's decision, so confirm it in writing rather than assuming.

Where an award requires a minimum degree class, check your own classification against the wording the university uses. Nigerian transcripts often state a class of degree and a CGPA, and Dutch admissions offices may convert these differently. If your class sits at the borderline, ask before you apply rather than after.

The award that requires an admission offer first changes your sequence entirely. For that one, the scholarship application comes after you have been admitted, so the master's application deadline becomes your real deadline.

How the deadlines fall

Two of the three awards carry a stated date, and both of those are still open. One award on the page is undated, and two run on a recurring cycle, which means the same deadline returns each year rather than closing permanently.

The busiest months are December and February, with one award closing in each. The two closing soonest are:

• Eric Bleumink Scholarships at University of Groningen 2027 — closes 1 December
• Maastricht University Scholarship 2026-2027 Fully Funded — closes 1 February

The third award, the University of Twente Scholarship 2026-2027, runs in rounds. Round 1 runs from 15 October to 1 February, with a second round following. That structure rewards early applications: applying in the first round gives you a decision before the second round opens, and it removes the risk of a later round being more competitive.

Two of the three awards also state a duration. One runs for 1 to 2 years, one is described as 13 months for a one-year programme and 25 months for a two-year programme, and one runs for 2 years. Check which applies to your programme, because a scholarship sized for one year will not stretch across two.

What to do next

Start with the two awards that are open to Nigerian applicants and still accepting applications. Open the Groningen and Maastricht entries, read the eligibility wording on each, and note the exact documents each one asks for. Then check the Twente entry for its round structure, since its deadline works differently from the other two.

Build a single document folder now: academic transcripts, degree certificate, CV, a statement of purpose you can adapt, and the names of two referees who have agreed in advance. Most of the cost and delay in a Dutch application sits in transcripts and courier fees, so ordering those early is the cheapest thing you can do to protect your application.

For context on how small this particular pathway is, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics recorded 162 Nigerian students in the Netherlands in 2019, ranking the country 48th as a destination. That is a modest number against the larger flows to the United Kingdom and Canada, and it tells you something useful: the Netherlands is not a crowded route for Nigerian applicants, and the universities here are used to assessing international credentials individually rather than through a high-volume pipeline.

Three awards is a short list, but each one is fully funded and each one sits at a university with a defined application process. Work through them in order of deadline, and treat the eligibility email as your first task rather than your last.