DUO, student finance and scholarships
DUO runs Dutch student finance: the study grant, student loans, and the student travel product. Your Dutch classmates will talk about it constantly.
Here is the honest version for Azerbaijani students. Most of it is not available to you. Better to know that on day one than to build a budget around money that never arrives.
Why not
Student finance is tied to nationality and residence status. As a rule, non-EU students on a study permit are not eligible for the basic grant, DUO student loans, or the free travel product on the OV-chipkaart.
That last one is worth saying plainly, because it is the one people assume comes with being a student here. Free and discounted public transport is DUO student finance, not a student perk. Your Dutch classmates travel free at weekends because the state pays for it, and as a non-EU student on a study permit you almost certainly do not qualify. Here is what that means for your travel costs. Budget for transport rather than planning around a discount that is not coming.
The exceptions, and who they actually apply to
The route people hear about is the “migrating worker” one, where working enough hours in the Netherlands creates entitlement. DUO applies thresholds around 32 hours a month to qualify, and checks whether you are working at least 56 hours a month once you receive it.
That route sits inside DUO’s rules for citizens of the EU, EEA, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It is not a general route for Azerbaijani nationals on a study permit. It can become relevant if your situation changes, for example if a parent or partner is an EU citizen working in the Netherlands, or if your residence status stops being a study permit.
Two places to check rather than relying on this page or on the group chat:
- DUO’s own eligibility pages, which are the rules themselves
- EUR’s student counsellors, the studentendecanen, who advise on finances and personal circumstances for free. Contact them at studentendecanen@eur.nl or through the student counsellors page
What you pay instead
Non-EEA students pay the institutional tuition fee, not the statutory one. The university sets it per programme and there is no DUO loan to cover it.
Budget honestly: tuition, roughly a year of rent, and Rotterdam student rooms are not cheap, insurance, and the financial means requirement you already had to show at the permit stage.
Where the money actually is: scholarships
This is the part worth your time. Several EUR scholarships are open to non-EEA students, which means Azerbaijani nationality is not a barrier.
Erasmus Trustfonds Scholarship. The big one for master’s students, worth up to 17,500 euros, and explicitly open to non-EEA students. At the time of writing it covers part of the tuition alongside a living allowance, with the immigration fee waived.
Philip Hans Franses Scholarship, at Erasmus School of Economics. Written specifically for non-EEA students, in a bachelor’s version and a master’s version, as a tuition fee waiver. It asks for a strong academic record.
Ter Kulve Scholarship. For students from countries the World Bank classifies as low or middle income, with relevant work experience and a commitment to use the degree back home. Whether Azerbaijan falls inside the list EUR uses is the thing to check on the scholarship page before you spend time on an application.
ISS scholarships, for the Master of Arts in Development Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies. Open to all nationalities, as a tuition fee reduction.
Erasmus University College scholarship, for the Liberal Arts and Sciences bachelor’s, open to students from any country.
Two things that will save you a wasted application
Deadlines differ by faculty, not just by year. The same scholarship can close on 1 February at one school and 1 April at another. Never take a deadline from a summary page, including this one. Take it from the scholarship page for your own faculty.
Not every scholarship on EUR’s list is open to you. Several are restricted by nationality to specific countries, and some are EU and EEA only. Check the nationality line first, before anything else.
When to look
As of August 2026, EUR’s scholarship pages say applications have closed and that information for 2027 to 2028 will be published in the autumn. So if you are aiming to start in September 2027, autumn 2026 is when to start checking, and the deadlines will land in the winter and spring before you arrive.
Start from EUR’s scholarships and grants pages, and email the scholarships team at scholarships@eur.nl if the nationality rules are unclear. Ask before you assume. They answer.