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Türkiye Scholarships (Türkiye Bursları) for African Students 2027

Reviewed by World Study Team Updated

Türkiye Bursları is the Turkish government's fully funded scholarship: tuition, a stipend of TRY 4,500–9,000 per month, a dormitory place, health insurance and flights, and all nine of our origin countries can apply. About 5,000 awards are made each year through one free portal, open 10 January 2026 to 20 February 2026 in the last published cycle. Everyone takes a year of Turkish first, whatever language the degree uses.

What is the Türkiye Bursları (Türkiye Scholarships)?

The scheme is run by the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities, YTB, a Turkish state body. It is the Turkish government’s own award for international students, and it funds study at bachelor, master, phd, research-stay, short-course level. The destination is always Türkiye.

YTB decides which university and department you go to, not you: placement is made from the Turkish institutions listed inside the application system, and you rank programmes in the form instead of applying to a university first. No offer letter is needed before you apply.

YTB makes about 5,000 awards a year and says roughly three times that many holders are enrolled at any one time. Applying costs nothing. The route is scheme-portal: one online system, not an embassy counter, and there is no YTB office anywhere in Africa. Anyone charging a fee to secure your place is selling something that does not exist — our guide to spotting a fake agent shows how the pitch reads.

What does it cover?

Tuition is settled by the scheme: Full — tuition is paid by the scheme at the placing university. The living allowance is TRY 4,500–9,000 per month and it rises with level: the bottom of that range is the associate and bachelor rate on the 2026 figures, the top is the doctoral rate, and the 2027/28 rates are published with the January 2027 call.

Accommodation: Place in a state student dormitory provided by the scheme. Travel: One-off flight ticket to Türkiye on arrival and a return ticket at the end of the scholarship. That is two tickets across the whole award, not a flight home each year. Health insurance runs for the scholarship period.

The scheme also pays for language training: One year of compulsory Turkish language education (960 hours plus 140 hours of academic Turkish, to C1); university and department placement; academic and cultural programmes. A merit top-up doubles the monthly stipend for the highest-scoring candidates.

Nothing is paid for anyone who travels with you: the scheme publishes no family or dependants’ allowance

Who can apply from our countries?

All nine countries we serve can apply: Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Egypt, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Morocco. None is restricted, none is excluded, and there is no African quota to fall outside. The nationality rule turns on one thing only: Open to citizens of any country other than Türkiye. Turkish citizens, dual nationals holding Turkish citizenship and people who have lost Turkish citizenship are excluded; citizens of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus are the stated exception.

The level rules are next. Bachelor: secondary-school diploma or final-year student. Master's: a bachelor's degree. PhD: a master's degree. Final-year students may therefore apply before results arrive.

Two thresholds end most applications before a committee reads them: the academic minimum of 70%, and the age ceiling of 35. Both are checked at the preliminary assessment, so being close to either is worth confirming before you spend money on documents.

Work history is not part of the test, because the published criteria set no work-experience requirement. Neither is a language certificate at the point of application — you upload TOEFL, DELF or similar results only where the programme you chose asks for them. Turkish is not a barrier to applying either, because the preparatory year is built into the award. Our study in Türkiye guide covers the wider entry rules that apply once you arrive.

Deadline and timeline for 2027/28

The window is fixed and short. It opened 10 January 2026 and closed 20 February 2026 in the last cycle. The 2027/28 dates are not published yet, so the dates on this page are last year’s.

After that the year runs to a settled pattern. Evaluation takes March and April. Interviews run from April to June. Results are published in early August, and successful candidates arrive in September for the Turkish preparatory year.

The scheme does not publish an exact results date, so plan for an August answer rather than a specific day. It also publishes no date for the first stipend payment; what is fixed is the arrival ticket, which the scheme provides. Work backwards from a January opening: a transcript request or a passport renewal that takes six weeks has to start in 2026, not in the window itself.

How to apply for the Türkiye Bursları (Türkiye Scholarships)

  1. Register on the Türkiye Scholarships Application System, TBBS, through the official portal at https://www.turkiyeburslari.gov.tr/. There is one system and no application fee.
  2. Complete the personal, academic and contact sections of the online form. Names and dates must match your passport and your transcript exactly, because mismatches are caught at the document check.
  3. Choose your universities and degree programmes inside TBBS and rank them. Read each programme’s own language of instruction and entry requirements before you list it; you are choosing preferences, not applying to the university.
  4. Upload the documents the system asks for: a valid passport or national identity document, a photograph taken within the past year, your diploma or provisional graduation certificate, your academic transcript, national examination results where they apply, international examination results such as SAT, GRE or GMAT, language test results where your chosen programme requires them, and — for doctoral applicants — a research proposal and a written work sample.
  5. Submit before the closing date. The portal carries the whole file, so a document still on your desk on the last day is one the committee never sees.
  6. Wait for the preliminary assessment. YTB checks your application against the grade, age and document criteria and shortlists from there.
  7. Sit the written test if you are an undergraduate candidate. Undergraduate applicants take a quantitative test at this stage; graduate applicants do not.
  8. Attend the interview. It is face to face with an academic and an expert panel, and it is not optional.
  9. Read the result. The final selection committee draws up the award list, results are published, and your university and department placement is confirmed with the award.

The step people get wrong is the third: preferences are ranked once and cannot be renegotiated, so ranking programmes you can realistically be admitted to matters more than listing the best-known names.

Which universities and programmes

Placement is made from the institutions inside TBBS. The confirmed public hosts are Ankara University, Boğaziçi University, Hacettepe University, Istanbul University, Istanbul Technical University and Middle East Technical University. None runs the award itself; Istanbul University’s international office states it has no scholarship funds of its own and refers applicants here. At METU, graduate scholars can take a monthly housing allowance instead of a dormitory place after year one.

Foundation universities work agreement by agreement. Koç University holds one and takes a small annual allocation, but excludes Medicine, Law and Nursing at undergraduate level and Clinical Psychology, LLM and non-thesis master’s. At Sabancı the only YTB route we can confirm is the PURE summer research programme, not a full degree, and none covering Istanbul Medipol University.

Subject fit is set by the scheme, not the university: Bachelor: engineering, social sciences, health sciences, basic sciences. Master's and PhD: social sciences, humanities, natural sciences and engineering; health sciences are not offered at graduate level. Separate arts programmes cover music, performing arts and fine arts. Compare the institutions in our Turkish universities guide.

Odds, and what to do if you miss it

About 5,000 awards are made a year and the application count runs into six figures, so this is a long-odds award however strong your file is. YTB does not publish a per-country success rate, which means any percentage quoted at you was invented by whoever wrote it.

What is knowable is the filter: 70%, the age ceiling, a complete document set and preferences that match your record. Most files fail there, before anyone reads a motivation statement. The window is annual, so one miss costs a year rather than the plan. Look meanwhile at the other funding on our Türkiye scholarships page, at Stipendium Hungaricum, and at the low-fee routes in our study abroad for free guide.

  • Every one of our nine origin countries is eligible. The only nationality bar is Turkish citizenship, so there is no African quota and no country list to be dropped from.
  • You apply with no offer in hand, and one free application covers both the funding and the university place.
  • Nothing in the criteria asks for a career first: there is no work-experience requirement in the published criteria
  • No language certificate is required to apply, and the Turkish you will need is taught and paid for by the scheme rather than bought beforehand.
  • The package is built to run without money from home: tuition, a monthly stipend, a dormitory place, health insurance and both flights.
  • The compulsory Turkish year lengthens everything: One year of compulsory Turkish preparatory education plus the programme itself: associate two years, bachelor the standard programme length, master's two years, doctorate four years; up to one further year for foreign-language or scientific preparation and up to one extra year (exceptionally two) to finish (Yönerge Art. 6).
  • You do not choose your university: YTB places you from your ranked preferences, so a specific city or department is a hope, not a plan.
  • Selection includes a face-to-face interview between April and June, so you must attend in person.
  • The award stands alone: The award is cancelled if the holder receives a scholarship from an international organisation or from another Turkish public institution (Yönerge Art. 26(6)).
  • The stipend is in Turkish lira and the 2027/28 rates are not published until the January 2027 call, so you apply before knowing it.
World Study

Our core guidance is free, funded by commission from the universities we place students with, and the Türkiye Bursları application is free too. Before you pay for translations or courier fees, we check the rules that end most applications: your result against the 70% minimum, your age against the ceiling, and whether your ranked programmes match your record. We vet every document before you submit and prepare you for the interview. Premium Placement is optional and paid. We never sell guaranteed admission.

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How to apply for Türkiye Bursları (Türkiye Scholarships)

  1. Register on the TBBS portal

    Create an account on the Türkiye Scholarships Application System during the annual window. There is one official system and no application fee.

  2. Complete the online form

    Fill in the personal, academic and contact sections. Names and dates must match your passport and transcript, because mismatches are caught at the document check.

  3. Rank your programmes

    Choose universities and degree programmes inside the system and rank them. Check each programme's language of instruction and entry requirements before listing it.

  4. Upload the documents and submit

    Upload passport, photograph, diploma, transcript, national and international exam results, language results where required, and a research proposal for doctoral applicants.

  5. Pass the preliminary assessment

    YTB checks the application against the grade, age and document criteria and shortlists candidates for the next stage between March and April.

  6. Sit the undergraduate test

    Undergraduate candidates take a quantitative test at this stage. Master's and doctoral candidates go straight to interview.

  7. Attend the interview

    Interviews run from April to June and are held face to face with an academic and an expert panel. Be ready to discuss your studies, your programme choice and your plans.

  8. Read the result and arrive

    The selection committee publishes the award list in early August with your university and department placement. Scholars arrive in September for the Turkish preparatory year.

Frequently asked questions

Yes. Tuition: Full — tuition is paid by the scheme at the placing university. The stipend is TRY 4,500–9,000 per month, and the award adds a state dormitory place, health insurance, a flight out and a flight home, plus the Turkish preparatory year. There is no application fee, and no allowance for family who travel with you.

Yes, and so can students from Egypt, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Morocco. All nine countries we serve are eligible, with no quota and no separate African route. The only nationality exclusion is Turkish citizenship, including dual nationals and people who have lost Turkish citizenship.

No to both. No prior offer is needed: you rank programmes inside the portal and YTB makes the placement. Applications go through the online system only — Turkish embassies do not receive them, there is no YTB office in Africa, and nobody can sell you a place. A fee to secure one is the clearest sign of a fake agent.

The window is annual and fixed in shape. In the last published cycle it opened 10 January 2026 and closed 20 February 2026. For the next round, the dates are not published yet, so treat last year's as the pattern. Prepare documents in advance rather than waiting for the announcement.

No certificate is needed to apply. You upload TOEFL, DELF or similar results only where your chosen programme requires them. Every holder then takes a year of Turkish preparatory education to C1, even on degrees taught in English, Arabic or French, unless you already hold a C1 certificate from the Yunus Emre Institute or a Turkish university language centre.

It is TRY 4,500–9,000 per month and it rises with level: the lowest rate is for associate and bachelor students, the middle for master's, the highest for doctoral candidates, on the 2026 cycle figures. A merit top-up doubles the monthly amount for the highest-scoring candidates. Rates for 2027/28 come with the January 2027 call.

Yes — the Regulation sets the principle that the holder returns to their own country within one year of completing studies in Türkiye, with an exception for those granted a work permit in a field meeting Türkiye's workforce needs. Treat staying on as the exception it is, not the default plan.

Check which rule stopped you. If it is the 70% minimum or the age ceiling of 35, a different scheme is the answer rather than a second attempt. If it was a weak or missing document, the window reopens each January and you can reapply. Other funded routes and low-fee public universities in Europe are the usual alternatives.

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