Riga Technical University Admission Requirements and Fees

• Every Bachelor's applicant sits RTU's own 10-question online entrance exam plus a recorded interview — the clearest admissions filter on record.
• Tuition across RTU's 70 catalogued English-taught programmes runs EUR 2,579.08–15,165.00 a year, median EUR 4,126.53 — though RTU's own application portal prices most Bachelor's and Master's programmes 15–45% above those historical catalogue figures (see Tuition & Fees).
• The next tracked deadline across all 70 programmes is 1 July 2027, for the semester starting 1 September 2027.
• Every one of RTU's 70 catalogued programmes teaches in English.
• RTU counts roughly 19,000 students in total, including about 3,000 international students, across a Bachelor's/Master's/PhD lineup of 22/32/16 programmes.

Riga Technical University is Latvia's largest technical university, and the honest way to read its tuition page is: check the specific programme, not the average. Twenty-seven of the programmes in this catalogue have a verified price straight from RTU's own DreamApply application portal, and twenty-six of those run higher than what's listed here. That gap matters more than any acceptance-rate estimate would, because it changes what you actually need to budget.

Apply here if you want an English-taught technical degree in the EU at a price still well under Western European private tuition. Most Master's programmes run two intakes a year — Autumn from 1 September, Spring from late January — so a missed deadline in one cycle isn't a lost year. The clearest reason to pick RTU over a generalist university is its concentration in Engineering, Computer Systems, Cybersecurity and the Maritime Academy's specialist Bachelor's tracks: narrow, technical, and priced accordingly.

It's a weaker fit if you want a large published scholarship program beyond Latvia's national state scholarship, or a globally ranked brand name behind your degree. RTU's pitch is depth in Engineering, Computer Systems and maritime training, not a league-table position.

Twenty-seven of RTU's catalogued programmes have a price we checked one-by-one against apply.rtu.lv, RTU's own application portal — the university's DreamApply pages, not a third party. Twenty-six of those run higher than this catalogue's own listed figure, by roughly EUR 400 to 1,900 a year; only Civil Engineering runs the other way, listed here at EUR 4,539.19 against RTU's own published EUR 3,720. Last verified 20 July 2026.

Two catalogued programmes — Medical Engineering and Physics (Bachelor's) and Design Engineering (Master's) — are live on apply.rtu.lv without a published tuition figure on their own course page; confirm pricing directly with RTU before budgeting for either.

Latvia's national study-abroad agency puts Engineering tuition nationally at roughly EUR 2,700–3,500 a year and Computer Science at EUR 1,800–3,800, against a national ceiling near EUR 15,000–25,600 for the country's most expensive programmes. RTU's own verified Computer Science-adjacent fees — EUR 4,700 at Bachelor's, EUR 5,590 at Master's — sit above that national engineering and computing band. At the extremes, the same national data puts the cheapest Latvian Bachelor's programmes under EUR 1,600 a year, against EUR 15,000 for Dentistry and EUR 25,600 for an Executive MBA elsewhere in the country — a reminder that "Latvia" is not one price point, and RTU's technical programmes sit in the upper-middle of that national spread. The EUR 150 application fee sits exactly at Latvia's typical national benchmark.

Riga Technical University, founded in 1862, is Latvia's oldest and largest technical university. It counts over 19,000 students in total, including roughly 3,000 international students; its own admissions portal separately markets "a vibrant student community of over 13,000 students." The main campus sits on Kipsala, an island in central Riga, with a second RTU campus in the coastal city of Liepaja on Latvia's western shore.

RTU also absorbed the former Latvian Maritime Academy, which is why its maritime Bachelor's programmes — Navigation, Marine Engineering and Marine Electrical Automation — run through the same DreamApply admissions system as the rest of the university rather than a separate one.

Latvia's national study-abroad agency positions Riga as the country's main student hub, home to the majority of Latvia's higher education institutions. The city's Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and Riga holds one of Europe's largest collections of Art Nouveau architecture — a genuine backdrop rather than a marketing line, since it's the national tourism authority's own framing of the city, not RTU's.

Engineering accounts for 19 of RTU's 70 English-taught programmes, followed by Management (6) and Chemistry (4) — a lineup concentrated in technical fields rather than spread across a broad liberal-arts catalogue.

Graduates who secure employment in Latvia can move from a study-based residence permit to a work-based one through the same national authority, Latvia's Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (OCMA), that manages the original student permit application — a continuous route from classroom to workplace rather than a separate visa process.

EU, EEA and Swiss citizens don't need to register with Latvia's migration authority (OCMA) for stays under a year at a registered institution like RTU — a valid passport or ID card is enough to enter and start studying, though a residence permit can still help with things like opening a bank account.

Non-EU nationals from visa-exempt countries can enter and stay up to 90 days in any 180-day period without a visa, but full-time study beyond 90 days requires a residence permit; part-time study first requires holding a valid residence permit in another Schengen country.

For the residence-permit route, OCMA requires proof of at least EUR 620 a month in subsistence funds for the applicant, plus EUR 620 a month for each accompanying adult family member and EUR 150 a month per accompanying minor child. The application itself needs a full passport copy, a completed application form, a photograph, a certificate of no criminal record (if you've lived over 12 months in your home country and are over 14), the subsistence-proof document, a state-duty payment confirmation, and a signed study agreement — RTU must first approve your invitation with OCMA before you apply.

Every applicant, regardless of citizenship, needs at least CEFR B2 language proficiency for an English-taught programme. Your foreign diploma or certificate also needs equivalence recognition from the Academic Information Centre of Latvia (AIC), the country's ENIC/NARIC office — a process that takes about a month, longer depending on your country of origin. In practice: RTU issues an invitation number, you gather your documents (requirements vary by nationality and study level), submit them at the Latvian embassy covering your country of residence, attend an embassy interview, and receive a decision. This sequence is fixed rather than flexible: OCMA has to approve RTU's invitation before you can lodge anything at an embassy, and the embassy interview is the final step before a decision, not an optional formality to skip if you're short on time.