As an international student in Germany, tuition may be free or low-cost. Still, it is important to not forget about other living expenses you may have during your time in this amazing country. While planning for your studies abroad, knowing what fixed costs you will be responsible for is extremely important. Most likely, you will be covering these costs with a combination of your blocked account and potentially a student job. here, we will go through the top 6 most relevant living expenses for an international student in Germany in 2024.

The Blocked Account Requirement has changed over the years to keep up with rising inflation and to ensure that students have enough funds to cover their living expenses each month while in the country. The latest year amount stands at 11,208 Euros per year or 934 Euros per month. 

Fixed Living Expenses:

Accommodation 

Accommodation is the most significant and the largest part of a student’s living expenses. Depending on this a student can decide, whether they will be saving any money or not. This accommodation cost is usually low in smaller cities where finding accommodation is not a problem. So for example in cities like Ilemanu or Chemnitz, you can find plenty of accommodations for under 300 euros, it may even be possible to get accommodation under 250 euros, so in cities like these, accommodation is affordable and easy to find. In this case, we mean a single room usually in a shared apartment or WG. 

If you are going to a larger city, especially one of the big fours, such as Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, or Munich then this accommodation cost will take away a big chunk of your blocked account money. If we take the example of a city like Hamburg, then the most affordable accommodations cost 350 euros for a furnished apartment. Still, these accommodations are usually shared accommodations and if you want to get private accommodation, it will cost you anything from 500 to 550 at least. Other private accommodations are also independently operated, where the cost of an apartment varies from 510 to 674 euros, depending on the floor and the view.

Health Insurance

Health insurance is yet another cost that is an important part of your living expenses. Depending on your health insurance provider and your age the health insurance cost can vary, though public health insurance providers generally charge within 5-6 euros of each other. Age plays a pivotal role here if you are under the age of 23, then you will be paying about 120 euros monthly if you took TK as your health insurance provider, which we recommend to you as a student. By the way, if you want to know about the best health insurance that you can get as a student, then do check out this blog.

But if you are 23 or older, then you will be paying about 125 euros monthly. If you are over the age of 30, then you will have to go with private health insurance providers, whose rates may differ quite a lot from these rates.

Food 

So, now we have finally come to the cost that you have complete control over. This cost can vary from person to person, if you buy groceries and make food at home, then you will able to keep this cost to the lowest, but if try to mix it with eating out, then this cost might increase a bit. But all this is completely dependent on the student. The food expenses are generally around 100 euros on the lower end and 150 euros on the higher end, considering that once a week you also eat from outside.

Mobile Phone

This is yet another fixed cost, that won’t vary every month, but you will have to figure out the best provider for yourself. There are many SIM providers, and they all vary with their plans, some have good connectivity and some have not-so-good connectivity. A few examples of popular sim providers are O2, Lebara, and Vodafone among others. An average plan from Lebara will cost you about 10 euros monthly, whereas there are providers such as Winsim that also offer plans as low as 6 euros per month, you can choose anyone by comparing what they provide.

Leisure/Miscellaneous Activities

Now we all can agree on the fact that as a student, you won’t just be studying all day long and doing nothing else. Since this might be a new country for most of you, you would like to explore the city you are in, try some local delicacies, and make new friends, and this won’t be for free, sometimes, it’s going to cost money. Plus, some of you would like to work on your fitness goals and thus take a gym membership, or you might want to get enrolled in a sports club or something like that. If we take a gym membership as an example, then an average gym membership will cost you about 25 euros, there can be some discounts as well if you are taking longer membership plans.

Wifi

This cost might not be for everyone, so that is why we are discussing it at last, but some students, unfortunately, are not able to find furnished accommodation, and they have to get a wifi connection themselves, thus it becomes yet another cost that becomes a part of their living expenses. Wifi cost depends upon the plan you choose, a 50 Mbps plan from O2 costs about 25 euros a month, whereas the 100 Mbps plan costs about 35 euros a month.

In this article, we have covered the general costs that a student will have per month in Germany. It is clear that for every category, there is quite a range! however, rest assured that it is possible to get by on your Blocked Account funds. On our YouTube channel, we go through a detailed list of other types of expenses you may have in Germany here. 

We trust that you find this article helpful. Please remember that in any case, should you have any additional questions, you can always reach out to our support team at support@coracle.de

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