Taiwan Universities Without Application Fee: 5 Institutions and Pathways Students Actually Use

If you have typed universities in Taiwan without application fee into Google at 1 a.m. while comparing study-abroad budgets, you already know the frustration: most articles on this topic recycle the same vague claims without ever naming a real fee amount or a real university policy. This guide is different. 

Most public and private universities in Taiwan charge a modest, non-refundable application fee per program, usually somewhere between NT$1,000 and NT$2,500 (roughly US$35 to US$90). What does exist, and what actually helps Indian students applying on a tight budget, is a small set of universities and scholarship-linked pathways that either waive the fee outright or fold it into a larger award. This article walks through both, so you can plan your applications with accurate numbers instead of recycled hearsay.

Why the search for universities in Taiwan without application fee is so confusing

Most study-abroad content farms write generic “no application fee universities” listicles for the US, UK, and China, then republish a near-identical template for Taiwan without verifying a single university’s current fee schedule. When you check the actual admissions handbooks, a different picture emerges.

How Much Most Taiwanese Universities Actually Charge

Based on the current international admissions handbooks of Taiwan’s largest public universities, here is what international applicants are billed per program applied to:

These fees are collected to cover document review and admissions processing, and, with rare exceptions, they apply equally to Indian applicants and applicants from any other country. So if you are hunting for universities in Taiwan without an application fee because you assumed most Taiwanese schools were free to apply to, it’s worth resetting that expectation early: budget for a small application fee at almost every public university.

Also Read: Universities in the USA Without Application Fee

Institutions and pathways where the fee is genuinely waived or absorbed

Feng Chia University

Feng Chia University (FCU), a well-regarded private university in Taichung known for engineering, business, and information management programs, has a documented history of not charging international degree applicants an admission processing fee; its official international admissions handbook has explicitly stated “Application Fee: None” for its direct-recruitment channel (as opposed to agent-mediated applications). 

This makes FCU one of the universities in Taiwan without an application fee. Because fee policies can be revised each admissions cycle, confirm the current year’s admissions handbook on FCU’s official site (fcu.edu.tw) before you rely on this for budgeting, but historically, this has been a consistent policy, and FCU has stated its international recruitment is not outsourced to any external agency, which reduces the chance of hidden third-party charges.

National Tsing Hua University’s scholarship-linked waiver

National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) in Hsinchu, one of Taiwan’s top research universities for STEM, does not universally waive its application fee, but several of its scholarship packages for incoming international students explicitly bundle in an application fee waiver alongside tuition support, textbook allowances, and health insurance coverage. 

In other words, if you are admitted into one of NTHU’s funded international scholarship tracks, the fee you already paid (or a fee otherwise due) can be offset as part of the award. This is a meaningfully different, and more realistic, route into the universities in Taiwan without application fee category than a blanket “NTHU is free” claim would be.

National Taiwan University’s repeat-applicant and multi-program discount

NTU does charge a fee, but it structures a real discount for two groups: applicants who submit to three or more departments (fee drops from NT$2,000 to NT$1,500 for the third application onward), and former NTU students, including past exchange, dual-degree, or visiting students, who pay a reduced NT$1,500 regardless of how many programs they apply to. 

It is not a Taiwanese university without an application fee in the strict sense, but for students applying broadly across NTU departments, or those who did an exchange semester at NTU earlier, the effective cost per application drops meaningfully.

Taiwan Scholarship and TaiwanICDF nominees

Students who secure a placement through the Ministry of Education’s Taiwan Scholarship Program or the TaiwanICDF Higher Education scholarship apply through a separate government channel, Taiwan’s overseas missions (embassies/representative offices) or TaiwanICDF directly, rather than paying a university admissions office up front. 

These scholarships cover tuition and academic fees (Taiwan Scholarship covers up to NT$40,000 per semester in tuition/fees, plus a monthly stipend), and because the scholarship application and the university nomination are processed together through the government body, many recipients do not separately pay a university application fee out of pocket. 

This is one of the more reliable, if indirect, ways Indian students end up in a university in Taiwan without an application fee, not because a specific university waived its fee, but because the government scholarship pathway absorbs it.

National Taipei University of Technology’s funded tracks

National Taipei University of Technology (NTUT) runs several fully funded international scholarship categories, for students from countries without official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and separately for students from countries that do, offering full or 50% tuition waivers plus monthly stipends for undergraduate, master’s, and PhD applicants. 

As with NTHU and the government scholarship channels above, these applications route through ROC embassies or representative offices before enrollment, rather than through NTUT’s standard paid application system, which functionally removes the fee burden for successful nominees.

How to actually get your application fee waived or reduced

If your priority is minimizing costs while applying to Taiwan these steps will get you further than any generic roundup:

Email The International Affairs Office Directly

Every major Taiwanese university (NTU, NCKU, NYCU, NTHU, NCCU, and the private universities) has a dedicated Office of International Affairs or Office of International and Cross-Strait Affairs. Before you submit a paid application, it is worth emailing them directly to ask whether any current fee waiver, discount code, or partner-institution arrangement applies to your profile – some universities extend fee waivers to applicants from partner or sister universities, or during specific recruitment fairs.

Apply Through Government Scholarship Channels First

Rather than searching endlessly for Taiwanese universities without application fee, Indian students with strong academic profiles are usually better served applying through the Taiwan Scholarship Program, TaiwanICDF, or the Huayu Enrichment Scholarship (for Mandarin-track students) via the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center (TECC) in India. These channels bundle admission, tuition support, and often the fee itself into a single nomination process.

Bundle Multiple Department Applications At The Same University

As NTU’s fee structure shows, applying to three or more departments at the same institution lowers your per-application cost from the third submission onward. If you are genuinely undecided between two or three related programs (say, Data Science and Statistics, or Finance and Accounting), applying to all of them at once at a university like NTU is cheaper per program than applying to three separate universities individually.

Check For Former-Student Or Exchange-Student Discounts

If you have already done a summer school, exchange semester, or short-term program in Taiwan, ask the admissions office whether that status qualifies you for a reduced fee, as it does at NTU.

What Indian students should budget for beyond the application fee

Even when you do find a fee waiver, the application fee is the smallest line item in the overall cost of studying in Taiwan, so it should not be the deciding factor in your university shortlist.

Tuition And Living Costs

Average annual tuition for international bachelor’s students in Taiwan runs around NT$80,000 (roughly US$2,500–2,800), and postgraduate tuition is broadly similar, though it varies significantly by college – engineering and science programs typically cost more per semester than humanities or business programs. Add dormitory costs (commonly NT$12,000–32,000 per semester depending on room type) and monthly living expenses, and it becomes clear that chasing a university in Taiwan without application fee listing without also comparing tuition and scholarship availability is a false economy.

Visa, Insurance, And Document Costs

International students also need a financial statement (commonly a minimum of US$4,000 or NT$100,000–120,000 in verified funds), authenticated academic documents, and health/accident insurance valid from the date of arrival – costs that apply regardless of which university you choose, application fee or not.

Also Read: Ireland Universities Without Application Fee

Final word 

Chasing universities in Taiwan without an application fee will save you, at most, a couple of thousand rupees per application – useful, but not the number that should shape your Taiwan shortlist. The number that matters is total cost across tuition, scholarships, living expenses, and career outcomes after graduation, and that is exactly where a decision layer like GradRight is built to help rather than just another aggregator listing fee amounts.

Instead of applying blind to whichever university claims a fee waiver, GradRight helps you compare verified tuition, scholarship eligibility, and outcome data across public and private universities side by side, so you apply to the programs that are actually the best financial and academic fit, not just the cheapest to apply to.