Medicine in Romania: the real six-year budget, city by city

⏱️ Reading time: 14 minutes · Verified 1 August 2026

Between Iași and Cluj, the gap is €17,400 over six years. Same degree, same European recognition, same job at the end — just a different city.

It’s the kind of figure you won’t find anywhere, because producing it means honestly adding up items most sites prefer to leave vague. So we did the sum: official tuition, real rents taken from the Romanian listing platforms, a line-by-line monthly budget, and the incidental costs that land when you’ve stopped expecting them.

The result: between €84,000 and €101,400 for six years, all in. Here’s how you get there, and where you can act.

🎓 Tuition fees, university by university

2026–2027 rates, international stream (French or English), European Union students.

Sources: official 2025–2026 and 2026–2027 fee schedules published by each university — umfcluj.ro, umfcd.ro, umfst.ro, umfiasi.ro, umft.ro, univ-ovidius.ro. Verified 31 July 2026.

What the headline figure doesn’t cover

The fees include lectures, seminars, library access, hospital placements from year three and thesis supervision. Solid.

What they don’t include adds up fast: textbooks (€200 to €400 a year), personal medical kit — stethoscope, white coat — at €100 to €200 in the first year, and resits, charged at €50 to €100 per examination at some universities.

And above all, the item nobody plans for: repeating a year. Repeating means paying that year’s fees again in full. €10,000 at Cluj. Build that margin into your financing plan, not into your hopes.

🏠 Housing: real rents by city

Budget on the private market — for a reason set out just below: halls of residence are not something an international student can count on.

Sources: OLX.ro and Imobiliare.ro listings, June–July 2026, for the districts near the medical campuses. Verified 1 August 2026.

Note the Cluj row: €21,600 of housing over six years, more than a full year’s tuition. That’s the price of an attractive university city whose rental market has been under pressure since the tech sector arrived.

Halls of residence: don’t count on them

The real question isn’t “halls or a flat”. It’s “flat share or studio” — because a flat in town is the starting point, not the fallback.

Finding a flat: easier than you’d think

This is families’ number one fear, and it’s largely overstated. There is no particular difficulty in finding a flat from your first year, including from abroad.

Romanian university cities have estate agencies that work specifically with international students: they know the districts near the medical campuses, show already-furnished properties, handle the lease in English or French, and understand that a first-year student has no Romanian guarantor. Going through them typically costs a month’s commission — and avoids the market’s two classic scams: the listing with no viewing, and the deposit paid before signature.

Our guide to housing in Cluj and Bucharest covers the districts and the classic traps.

📊 The detailed monthly budget

The budget of a student living normally: neither austerity nor excess.

Calculated over 10 months — the academic year. For the two summer months you’re probably home or working.

Food. Kaufland, Carrefour and Lidl run 15 to 20% below Western European prices. The university canteen serves a full meal for €3 to €5. Cooking most of your meals, €170 to €200 a month is realistic.

Transport. Excellent and cheap everywhere: €10 to €20 for a monthly student pass. Bolt and Uber cost a fraction of Western prices, which matters when you come off a shift at 11pm.

Books. Many circulate as PDFs or are available in the library. Student Facebook groups are full of resale posts at the end of each semester.

Health insurance. The European Health Insurance Card covers medically necessary care. Private top-up cover runs €15–30/month depending on the policy.

🧮 The six-year total

The useful line is the last one. Think in monthly cost: between €1,170 and €1,410. That’s the figure to set against what your family can actually manage, or against your loan repayment — not the six-figure total, which only frightens without informing.

⚖️ Romania or home: the real calculation

The question every parent asks: is it really more expensive than staying?

The gap exists, and it would be dishonest to deny it. But it narrows sharply as soon as you compare against a student genuinely living independently in a major city.

The real comparison isn’t price, it’s probability. In Romania you pay for a place. At home you compete for a one-in-five chance.

That’s the only financial argument that really holds. A failed pre-med year costs a year of your life and a year of living costs, for a nil result. Two failed years cost two. The honest calculation isn’t “Romania versus home”, it’s “Romania versus the expected value of the route at home”. The figures on capped admissions are in our complete guide.

🏦 Grants and loans: what actually exists

Best said plainly: support for a full degree abroad is thin.

Loans

Most students go through a standard bank loan at a preferential rate, with repayment deferred until the end of their studies. Order of magnitude: €80,000 borrowed repays at around €400 to €600 a month over 10 to 15 years once qualified. State-guaranteed student loans exist for students without family security, with a considerably lower ceiling.

A newly qualified GP earns €3,000 to €5,000 net. The monthly repayment is therefore absorbable — but it must be modelled precisely, interest included, before you sign. Do that calculation with your bank, not with an agency.

Working alongside?

Let’s be clear: no, this is not part of the financing plan.

The pace of the first three years matches any intensive pre-med year, plus a language to learn and a country to work out. And the arithmetic doesn’t hold: Romanian wages are too low for a student job to make any dent in €10,000 of tuition. A few hours a week at local rates don’t touch the budget; they touch your study time.

What does happen in reality: some students work over the summer, in Romania or back home, for spending money. That’s a comfort supplement, not a funding line.

✂️ Seven levers to cut the bill

1. The city. €17,400 between Cluj and Iași. It’s the most powerful lever, and it’s decided once — when you apply.
2. Share, always. A studio on your own often costs double a room in a shared flat. Over six years: more than €10,000.
3. Use an agency for the first tenancy. A month’s commission against a clear lease, a furnished property and the right district first time — cheaper than an overpriced studio for two years.
4. Second-hand or PDF textbooks. Student groups resell every semester.
5. Cook rather than order in. €50 to €100 a month, or €3,000 to €7,200 across the degree.
6. Limit the trips home. A flight costs €80 to €250 depending how far ahead you book. Two or three a year is enough, and booking three months out halves the price.
7. Compare agencies. Support packages range from €649 to €3,300 for broadly similar services. Ask for the detail of what’s included before comparing prices.

Working out your own budget

Total budget = (Annual fees × 6)
             + (Monthly rent × 60)
             + (Monthly spending × 60)
             + (Flights × number of return trips)
             + Application fees

Example — Târgu Mureș, French stream, flat share:

Tuition        €10,000 × 6             = €60,000
Housing           €200 × 60 months     = €12,000
Living costs      €345 × 60 months     = €20,700
Flights         2 returns × €150 × 6   =  €1,800
Application fees                       =    €500
─────────────────────────────────────────────────
TOTAL                                  ≈ €95,000

Four recurring questions

Do fees rise every year? Some universities fix the rate for the whole degree at enrolment; others revise annually. Ask the finance office in writing before you confirm — the answer can be worth several thousand euros.

Can you pay in instalments? Usually in one payment at the start of the year, sometimes in two semesterly instalments. It’s negotiated case by case.

What if I repeat a year? You pay for the full year again. That’s the main reason to keep a safety margin.

Are there hidden fees? Not from the university: the rates are public. Do budget for the extras though — translations (€100 to €300), residence permit (€100 to €200), top-up health cover (€180 to €360/year). Our guide to translations and apostilles prices that part precisely.

The next step

You now have a figure to set against your real situation. If the budget works, the question becomes: which university, and by when?

Take the 2026 admission calendar to see how much time you have left, then the application checklist to start gathering documents. If the budget doesn’t work, don’t close the door too fast: the deferral and financing options are set out in Turned down by pre-med selection.

🛡️ If you’d rather not do it alone

We check every document before it goes out, handle the sworn translations and the apostille, file the application at the university registry and follow it through to confirmation of admission.

See how we handle an application →