We list 2 scholarships Open to Nigerian Students in the Netherlands, with the deadline, study level and eligibility of each one taken from the award's own terms. 2 of them are fully funded. Awards with a known closing date are listed soonest first.
Written from the 2 awards on this page — every figure below is counted from what the awards themselves state. 6 min read.
This page collects 2 scholarships that are open to Nigerian students and are based in the Netherlands. Both are fully funded, and both are at Masters level. Both are offered by Dutch universities: the University of Groningen and the University of Twente.
That is a small list, and it is worth being clear about why. These are two named awards from two named institutions, not a directory of every funding route into the Netherlands. If you are searching for a long menu, this is not it. What it does give you is a short, verifiable set of opportunities where the provider is identifiable, the level is fixed at Masters, and the funding is described as full.
The eligibility filter behind this page is Open to Nigerian Students. Of the 2 awards listed, 2 carry no nationality restriction at all. None of them names Nigeria or a specific region in its own text.
In practice, that distinction matters. An award that names Nigeria or West Africa is signalling a targeted preference. An award with no nationality restriction is open on paper to any qualified applicant, which usually means the competition is wider and your file has to stand on its own. Both awards here fall into the second group.
You should still read each award's own page before you commit time to it. A general statement of openness does not tell you whether a particular faculty, department or course is included in that round.
Both awards on this page are labelled Fully Funded. That is the label the providers themselves use. It is not a figure, and this page does not carry a monetary value for either award, so treat "fully funded" as the starting point for your own reading rather than the end of it.
When you open each award, look for the specific lines: whether tuition is covered in full or in part, whether a monthly stipend is paid and for how many months, whether travel to the Netherlands is included, and whether visa and residence permit costs are part of the package. Those four items are where "fully funded" awards most often differ from one another.
One of the two awards states a number of places: the University of Twente Scholarship lists approximately 50 awards. The other does not state an award count on this page.
Both awards are at Masters level. There is nothing here for bachelor's applicants or for PhD candidates.
The fields named across the two awards are:
Each of those fields appears once across the two awards, so the spread is broad rather than deep. A Dutch university scholarship of this kind is normally tied to the master's programmes that institution actually runs, which is why the field list is wide: it reflects the faculties of two large universities rather than a single department.
Durations differ. One award runs 1 to 2 years; the other runs for 2 years. Check the duration against your intended programme, because a two-year award attached to a one-year master's will not stretch.
Across the two awards, the stated requirements are:
These are what the awards say in writing. They are not a complete checklist, and the absence of a requirement from this list does not mean the award waives it.
The admission-offer-first requirement is the one that changes your timeline most. If an award expects you to hold an offer before you apply for the funding, then your application to the master's programme is the real first deadline, and the scholarship deadline sits behind it. Transcripts, degree certificates and courier costs sit behind that again. Work backwards from the scholarship date, not forwards from today.
On English tests: some Dutch institutions accept a letter confirming that your previous degree was taught in English, and some do not. That is decided by the university, not by this page. Ask the admissions office directly before you pay for a test.
Of the 2 awards, 1 has a stated date, 1 is still open, 1 is undated and 1 is recurring. December is the busiest month on this list, with 1 award falling in it.
The award closing soonest is the Eric Bleumink Scholarships at University of Groningen 2027, which closes 1 December. At the time of writing that leaves 54 days.
The University of Twente Scholarship 2026-2027 runs in rounds. Round 1 runs from 15 October to 1 February, with Round 2 following. Applying in Round 1 is generally the safer choice where rounds exist, because places are allocated as rounds close rather than pooled at the end.
Fifty-four days is enough time for a well-organised application and not enough time for a disorganised one. If you have not yet requested your transcripts, that is the task for this week.
According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 162 Nigerian students were recorded in the Netherlands in 2019, ranking the country 48th as a destination for Nigerian students that year.
That is a small number, and it tells you something useful. The Netherlands is not a volume destination for Nigerian postgraduates in the way that the United Kingdom or Canada is. The applicant pool for a Dutch university scholarship is therefore likely to be thinner than for a comparable award in a larger market — but the number of awards is thinner too, and both awards here are institution-specific.
What this means practically: you are not competing against a crowd of Nigerians for a Nigerian-designated slot, because neither award names Nigeria. You are competing against everyone the university admits, and your file has to be legible to a Dutch admissions committee that may have seen very few Nigerian applications.
Two awards is a short list, so the work is in the detail rather than the browsing.
Both awards are fully funded, both are at Masters level, and both come from universities rather than external foundations. That combination usually means the funding decision sits close to the admission decision, and that your academic record and your programme fit carry most of the weight.
Are you a Nigerian student dreaming of studying in the heart of Europe? The Netherlands, with its globally ranked universities, innovative research environment, and multicultural society, offers exceptional scholarship opportunities for students worldwide. Whether you're pursuing a master's degree or an MBA, the Dutch government and universities offer fully funded and partially funded scholarships to help you unlock your academic potential.
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*UNESCO Institute for Statistics, inbound internationally mobile students from Nigeria, 2019.
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