Studying in Poland for Vietnamese Students: Historic Community Ties and Program Options

A decades-old relationship between Vietnam and Poland

Poland and Vietnam established diplomatic relations in 1950, and educational exchange followed soon after. From the mid-1960s through the late 1980s, Poland trained thousands of Vietnamese students and researchers under socialist-bloc cooperation agreements, sending them into engineering, medicine and the sciences. Many of those graduates stayed on, married locally, or returned later to build businesses connecting the two countries.

That history is why Poland now has one of the largest Vietnamese communities in Europe, concentrated in Warsaw, Wroclaw, Lodz and a handful of other cities. For a new Vietnamese student, this matters in practical terms: Vietnamese grocery stores, restaurants, community associations and informal mentoring networks already exist in the cities where most Polish universities are based. The Vietnamese Embassy in Warsaw also maintains an active student affairs section that can help with document authentication and community contacts.

What studying in Poland costs

Public Polish higher education institutions offer free tuition for Polish-taught programs only to students admitted on the same legal terms as Polish citizens, meaning EU/EEA citizens, holders of the Polish Charter (Karta Polaka), and similarly-statused applicants. Most Vietnamese applicants without that status pay tuition even for Polish-taught programs, though usually less than for English-taught tracks, so confirm fee status with the university before applying. Programs taught in English at public universities do charge tuition, though rates are lower than in Western Europe, typically in the range of a few thousand euros per year depending on the field and institution. Private universities set their own fees.

Living costs are also comparatively low. A student in a mid-sized Polish city can budget for rent, food and transport well below what the same standard of living costs in Germany, the Netherlands or the UK. This cost gap, combined with EU-recognized degrees, is a major reason Poland attracts students who want a European qualification without Western European price tags.

Government-funded routes: the NAWA Banach Programme

The Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA) runs the Banach NAWA Scholarship Programme, which funds full-time second-cycle (master's) studies at universities supervised by Poland's Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Vietnam is on the list of eligible countries alongside dozens of others across Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America. Programs run in either Polish or English. Applicants who choose Polish-medium study can take a NAWA-funded one-year preparatory course first to reach the required language level before starting their degree.

Applications go through NAWA's online system in Polish or English only. For the 2026 intake, the submission deadline was May 8, 2026 at 3:00 PM CEST, so check the current call on nawa.gov.pl each year, since NAWA typically opens a new call annually with its own deadline. NAWA has also run other scholarship rounds for foreign students in the past, including programs targeted at specific fields, so it is worth checking the current list of open calls rather than assuming a program from a previous year is still running.

Applying without a government scholarship

Most Vietnamese students in Poland are self-funded or supported by family, applying directly to a university's international admissions office rather than through a scholarship. The process generally follows this pattern.

• Choose a program and confirm whether it is Polish-taught (tuition-free) or English-taught (tuition-charged)

• Have your high school or bachelor's transcripts and diploma legalized or apostilled, then translated into Polish or English by a certified translator

• Provide an English or Polish proficiency result if the program requires one, since some universities accept an interview or in-house test instead

• Apply for a national (type D) visa through the Polish embassy or consulate serving Vietnam once you hold a university admission letter

• Register for temporary residence in Poland after arrival, a requirement for stays longer than the visa's initial validity

Choosing a program

Poland's stronger academic reputations sit in engineering, computer science, medicine and business, with Warsaw University of Technology, University of Warsaw, Jagiellonian University in Krakow and AGH University of Krakow among the most internationally recognized. Medical programs taught in English are popular with international applicants, though they carry higher tuition than other English-medium fields and require separate entrance testing at most schools.

Before committing, confirm two things directly with your target university: whether your chosen program is actually tuition-free for your nationality (rules vary by exact program and sometimes by cohort), and whether the degree is recognized for the profession you plan to enter back in Vietnam, particularly for regulated fields like medicine, pharmacy and law. The Ministry of Education and Training in Vietnam and Poland's Study in Poland portal, run by the Polish national agency for international education promotion, are useful starting points for checking program lists and admission calendars across Polish universities.

Poland as an entry point into the EU higher education system

A Polish degree follows the Bologna three-cycle structure and ECTS credits, which are widely recognized and comparable across the European Higher Education Area, making applications to other EU countries more straightforward. There is no blanket automatic EU-wide recognition, though. Each receiving university or country still applies its own recognition or admission procedure, so a Vietnamese graduate holding a Polish bachelor's degree should confirm requirements directly with the specific master's program they are targeting elsewhere in Europe, and the same applies moving from a Polish master's into a PhD. For students planning a multi-country European education path rather than a single degree, this portability is one of Poland's practical advantages over destinations outside the EU system.

Poland's location also puts most of Western Europe within a short, affordable train or budget flight connection, which matters for students who want to visit family working elsewhere in Europe, attend academic conferences, or simply explore the region during university breaks. Combined with the existing Vietnamese community infrastructure and comparatively low living costs, this makes Poland a common first stop for Vietnamese families weighing European study options against destinations in Western Europe, Australia or North America.

Practical first steps

• Shortlist 3 to 5 universities based on your intended field, checking each program's language of instruction and tuition status directly on the university website

• Start document legalization and translation early, since apostille and certified translation steps for Vietnamese academic records can take weeks

• Contact the Vietnamese Embassy in Warsaw or an existing Vietnamese community association once you have an offer, for practical arrival advice from people who have made the same move

• Budget separately for the type D visa application fee, health insurance before departure, and initial accommodation deposit, none of which are covered by tuition-free status