We list 8 scholarships for Nigerian Students in Belgium, with the deadline, study level and eligibility of each one taken from the award's own terms. 7 of them are fully funded. 1 state eligibility that includes Nigerian applicants. Awards with a known closing date are listed soonest first.
United Kingdom
40
United States
37
Australia
27
Canada
20
China
12
Italy
10
Sweden
10
Germany
9
United Arab Emirates
9
Belgium
Japan
8
Switzerland
8
Netherlands
6
Russia
6
Thailand
6
Denmark
5
New Zealand
5
Saudi Arabia
5
Singapore
5
Austria
4
Brazil
4
Ireland
4
Turkey
4
France
3
Norway
3
Qatar
3
Spain
2
Written from the 8 awards on this page — every figure below is counted from what the awards themselves state. 6 min read.
This page collects 8 scholarships in Belgium open to international students, with the detail a Nigerian applicant needs before spending money on transcripts, courier fees and English tests. Seven of the eight are labelled fully funded. One is labelled partially funded. Every award on the list is in Belgium, so there is no second country to compare against and no split attention.
Belgium is small, but its universities are not. The awards here come from ARES, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Ghent University, the University of Liège, and the Flemish universities as a group — KU Leuven, Ghent University, University of Antwerp, Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Hasselt University among them. That mix matters: you are looking at both the French-speaking and Flemish sides of the country, and the application routes differ.
For context on how many Nigerians already take this path, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics recorded 201 Nigerian students in Belgium in 2023, ranking the country 43rd as a destination for Nigerian students. It is not the United Kingdom or Canada in volume. It is a smaller, quieter route.
Funding is where Belgium is unusually generous, and the list shows it. Of the 8 awards, 5 state that they cover tuition, 5 state living costs, and 5 state health insurance. That trio — fees, monthly upkeep, insurance — is the core of what a Belgian scholarship tends to put in writing.
Beyond that core, the coverage thins out:
Read that as what the award documents say, not as a promise. Where an award does not name travel, do not assume a flight is included. Where it does not name accommodation, plan for rent in a Belgian city out of your own pocket or from the living-cost stipend. Five awards naming living costs is a strong position, but the amount and the payment schedule are set by each funder, and you should confirm both before you accept an offer.
The list is built around postgraduate study. 7 of the 8 awards are at masters level. 2 are at PhD level, and because some awards cover more than one level, the numbers overlap rather than divide neatly. One award is at bachelors level. One is a short course.
For a Nigerian reader, this shapes the decision. If you hold a B.Sc or HND and you are looking to go abroad for a taught masters, you are the main audience for this page. If you already hold an M.Sc and want a doctorate, there are two PhD routes here, including a Ghent University doctoral scholarship.
The one bachelors award is worth noting because it is rare on a page like this. The ARES Scholarships listing carries an undergraduate, masters and training level — its own duration note mentions 4 years for the undergraduate programme and 1 year for the masters. If you are applying straight from secondary school with WAEC or NECO results, that is the entry point to look at first.
The subject tags on this list are narrow, so do not read the page as covering everything. Natural Sciences appears on 2 awards. Computer Science & IT appears on 1. Energy & Environment appears on 1. The rest of the awards are not tagged to a single field, which usually means they are open across a university's programmes or tied to a specific institution's offer rather than a discipline.
Two of the named awards sit squarely in the sciences: the KU Leuven Science@Leuven Scholarship, which is for masters in science programmes, and the Ghent University doctoral route for research. If your background is engineering, environmental science, computing or the natural sciences, the tagged awards are where to start. If it is not, the untagged awards are still open to you.
This is the part to read carefully, because the honest answer is mixed.
Of the 8 awards, 1 is recorded as open to Nigerian applicants. Within that one, Nigeria or the region is not named at all, and 1 carries no nationality restriction. Those two figures describe the same single award from two angles — it is open because it names no nationality bar, not because Nigeria is called out. They are not two separate awards.
For the remaining 7 awards, eligibility is not stated on the award as we hold it. That does not mean Nigerians are excluded. It means the nationality conditions are not written on the listing itself, and you must check the funder's own call before you invest in an application. Treat those 7 as unconfirmed, not as closed.
In practice, Belgian scholarship routes often work through country or partner-institution lists, and some are tied to specific development-cooperation arrangements. That is exactly the kind of condition that would sit in the funder's documentation rather than in a summary. Check it early, before you pay for a courier.
The requirements recorded across these awards give a fair picture of the paperwork:
Two things follow for a Nigerian applicant. First, the English test is the single most common ask, so budget for it early — the test fee, the result timeline and the cost of sending scores all land on you. Second, five awards wanting recommendation letters means you should line up your referees before deadlines tighten. Approach lecturers who know your work, give them your CV and draft statement, and give them weeks rather than days.
The research proposal requirement sits with the PhD and research-oriented awards, which is expected. The single stated degree class is worth noting: only one award puts a class threshold in writing, so do not assume a 2:2 closes every door here. Check each funder's own criteria.
Timing on this list is uneven. 3 awards carry a specific date, 3 are still open, and 5 are undated. 3 recur — meaning they run again on a cycle, so missing one round is not the end of the route.
The busiest months recorded are February, with 2 deadlines, and January, with 1. The three closing soonest are:
The remaining awards carry deadlines that depend on the programme or are announced by the institution — the VLIR-UOS listing notes February to March, Master Mind notes February to April with variation by institution, and the Ghent doctoral call notes February with exact dates announced by the university. Five undated entries mean you should go to the funder's page rather than wait for a date to appear here.
Work in this order. First, decide your level — masters, PhD, or the single bachelors and short-course routes. Second, open the three awards closing soonest and read the funder's own eligibility page, because for 7 of these 8 awards the nationality conditions are not stated on the listing. Third, start the English test and the recommendation letters now, since those are the two most common requirements and both take weeks you cannot compress.
Then build your document file. Transcripts from your Nigerian institution, a courier budget, and certified copies all take time, and you will reuse the same set across several applications. Where an award is undated or recurring, note the cycle and plan for the next round rather than rushing a weak application into the current one.
Belgium rewards preparation more than speed. With 201 Nigerian students recorded in the country in 2023, this is a route that a small number of Nigerians take each year — and it is open to those who read the conditions before they apply.
Looking to pursue a world-class education in the heart of Europe? Belgium, known for its multilingual culture, high-quality education system, and international outlook, offers fully funded scholarships for Nigerian students for the academic year 2025-2026.
Belgian universities and government bodies provide generous financial aid covering tuition fees, living expenses, accommodation, travel, and health insurance. Whether you’re applying for a bachelor’s, master’s, or PhD, Belgium has something to offer—especially for students from developing countries, partner nations, and underrepresented regions.
In this guide, you’ll find the most prestigious fully funded scholarships in Belgium, including programs funded by the Belgian government (ARES, VLIR-UOS) and scholarships offered directly by top universities like KU Leuven, Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), and University of Ghent.
*UNESCO Institute for Statistics, inbound internationally mobile students from Nigeria, 2023.
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