A student year in Italy costs between €7,200 and €18,000, depending on the city. The visa asks you to show €10,179.85, which is about €848 a month. That is a legal minimum, not a living budget, and the gap between the two is the thing most families find out after they have arrived.
Every figure below is either taken from an Italian government document or clearly marked as not being from one. Both kinds are on this page. We say which is which, because the difference changes how much weight the number can carry.
Every city we have costed, side by side
The same degree costs about twice as much in Milan as in Padua or Naples. Rent is what moves. We print ranges, because the sources give ranges.
Each monthly figure includes the room. None of them includes tuition, the flight, or the cost of preparing the visa file.
Rupee figures use €1 = PKR 321.43, 30 August 2026. The rate moves, so it is shown with its date wherever it is used, and rupee amounts are rounded to the nearest thousand. Euro amounts are printed exactly as the sources give them.
Every band above carries its own receipt. Each panel names the publisher behind its rents and prints the grade we give the band, because a family planning the largest expense of their year should know what stands behind a number. Some figures on this page have an official document behind them, and each one names it. These city bands do not.
The number families misread
To get a Type D study visa you must show that you have money for the year. That sum is a threshold the embassy checks, not an estimate of what a year costs. Set it against the real monthly range in each city and the difference is plain.
Visa: minimum funds you must show
€10,179.85
per year · PKR 3,272,000
Held in your own account, or evidenced by a scholarship award or a sponsor affidavit. Cash is refused, and so is a guarantee from anyone outside your family.
Which is, across the year
€848
a month
Embassy of Italy, Islamabadchecked
A month, by city, against the visa minimum
Corroborated secondary reading, grade B. No Italian office publishes a per-city student budget. The floor is the embassy figure, and it is the one number here with legal force behind it.
In Rome and Milan the visa figure does not reach the bottom of what a month costs. In the other five it reaches the bottom and stops there. Show the embassy €10,179.85 because it is required. Plan the year from the city figures, because that is what it costs.
Amounts are in euro, as published. €1 = PKR 321.43, 30 August 2026. The monthly reading of the annual threshold is arithmetic on the published figure, not a separate published number.
Where the money actually goes
Everything else on a student budget moves a little. Rent moves by hundreds, and it is the reason the same year costs €7,200 in one city and €18,000 in another. These are the three room figures worth knowing before you choose where to apply.
Single room, national average
€613
a month, across Italy
A single room, not a shared one. Sharing is what brings the cheaper cities down to the bottom of the room figure on each city panel above.
Single room, Milan
€732
a month · also reported at €704
We print both rather than choosing the one that suits the argument, because a family budgeting against a figure should be able to see how firm the ground under it is.
Regional studentato housing
€250 to €450
a month, utilities included
The cheapest housing in the country, run by the regional right-to-study agencies and given first to students with a low family income. Places are limited, and applying for one is part of the same €6,806 to €7,015 DSU application.
Dorm capacity in both cities is limited. Single rooms in Milan above €700 a month are common. Analyses of the 2025 and 2026 market advise starting the search three to four months before you arrive.
Rental fraud is common in both cities: deposits taken for rooms that do not exist. Never send a deposit for a room you or someone you trust has not seen.
Confidence B: corroborated secondary, no primary available, compiled 30 August 2026. Neither the shortage nor the three-to-four-month lead time comes from an Italian authority. Both come from market analyses that agree with each other.
The calendar you are on
Closing soon
Universitaly pre-enrolment, 2026/27 closes in 5 days · .
The room search runs on the same calendar as the application, and it wants a longer run-up. If you are aiming at this cycle, the search should already be under way.
Universitaly (MUR)checked
Asked by every family
No preamble and no positioning paragraph. Where the honest answer is that we could not find anyone publishing the number, that is the answer you get.
Between €7,200 to €18,000 a year, depending on the city. Padua and Naples sit at the bottom of that range and Milan sits at the top. The figure covers rent, food, transport and everyday spending, and it does not include tuition, the flight or the visa file.
No. It works out at about €848 a month. That is below the bottom of the realistic monthly range in Rome and Milan, and in the five cheaper cities it only reaches the bottom of the range. It is the sum the embassy asks you to show, not a budget anyone has said you can live on.
The national average for a single room is €613 a month, and Milan averages €732, although 2026 Milan coverage separately reports €704. A shared room runs €300 to €800 a month depending on the city. Regional studentato housing is cheaper at €250 to €450 including utilities, but places are limited and low-income students are prioritised.
A regional right-to-study grant can cover most of it. The DSU award for a student living away from home is €6,806 to €7,015 in cash a year, plus a full tuition waiver, a regional tax refund, two meals a day and studentato housing where the region has it. First-year eligibility is assessed on family income, not on grades. It does not remove the visa requirement to show €10,179.85, although a scholarship award can be used as evidence of funds.
Analyses of the 2025 and 2026 Italian rental market advise starting three to four months before you arrive, and warn about rental fraud in the same breath. Dorm capacity is limited, and in Milan single rooms above €700 are common. Bologna and Milan are the two cities where the shortage is repeatedly documented.
Because we could not find an official Italian source that publishes a per-city student budget. Every site is reading the same overlapping secondary sources and choosing where to land. We take the conservative reading, print the range rather than an average, and grade our own confidence in it as B: corroborated secondary, no primary available. The figures on this page that do carry an official document are the visa minimum of €10,179.85, the studentato rents and the pre-enrolment date.
Where these come from
Every other page on this subject gives you a single tidy number and no way to check it. Open any of these instead. If their number and ours disagree, theirs is right and ours is a bug.
Two things on this page have no official publisher: the per-city student budget and the housing-shortage advice. We do not think that is a hole we can close by searching harder, because it does not appear to exist in an official form. Saying so is more useful to you than an average delivered in a confident tone.
Three questions, on screen, free. You will see what degree you would be applying for, what the visa wants in the bank, and how the funding routes change the number. No account, no email, no call from a salesperson.
We never guarantee an admission, a visa or a scholarship, and this website never asks you for a payment.
The page in three lines
Embassy of Italy, Islamabadchecked
The third line is the one to remember. It is a threshold, not a budget.
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