International Schools in Budapest: Curriculum and Fees Compared

Not-for-profit American school on a 33 acre campus in Nagykovacsi, running an American programme from age 3 with the IB Diploma and its own Global Impact Diploma in the final years.

Good to know: A USD 3,500 building fee is charged to every student on top of tuition each year, so the real annual figure runs USD 19,000 to 33,250; the enrolment deposit is credited to the first tuition invoice but is not refundable if the child does not start, and a medical form and full immunisation record in English are required for admission.

Nord Anglia's Budapest school in Obuda, taking the English National Curriculum through IGCSE and then the two year IB Diploma for ages 16 to 18, with Juilliard performing arts and MIT collaborations built in.

Good to know: Fees cover tuition, textbooks and curriculum materials but not school lunch, billed separately at HUF 520,000 a year and including two snacks for Early Years 1 to Year 2, nor transport, which is arranged directly with the Junior Bus company; paying the full year by the invoice due date takes 4% off, siblings get 2% for the second and third child and 10% from the fourth, and the HUF 350,000 deposit is refunded within four weeks of the last day of school only if the correct written notice was given.

Orbital Education school in the leafy XII. district with a 250 seat theatre, indoor pool and sports halls, and a registered Cambridge International (CAIE) examination centre; for 2025 it publishes 35% A* or A at IGCSE and 37% A* or A with a 98% pass rate at A Level.

Good to know: Unusually, the fee includes school meals, borrowed textbooks and teacher-run after-school clubs, but the figures above are the four instalment totals: the two instalment plan is published lower (HUF 6,722,000 to 9,496,000) and paying the whole year by 1 August 2026 earns a 3% discount. Examination entries, uniform and externally run clubs are extra, and the two official documents disagree on laptops, the fee page excluding them from Year 4 to Year 13 and the fee schedule PDF from Year 7 to Year 13, so ask which applies to your child's year. Entry to Years 10 to 13 requires advanced English, with C1 preferred.

Part of the Spanish SEK group, teaching mainly the Hungarian National Curriculum in English and Hungarian with Spanish as a second language, then the IB Diploma in Grades 11 and 12 alongside the Hungarian matura.

Good to know: The headline tuition is not the whole bill: a compulsory development levy of HUF 262,000 a year and compulsory meals (HUF 428,000 to 718,000 a year by grade) are invoiced on top, along with compulsory books and materials and a HUF 110,000 graphic calculator for IB Grade 11. A HUF 40,000 admission fee is payable on the day of admission before any of that, returning students pay a HUF 210,000 retention fee (HUF 300,000 after 31 March), invoices are issued in forints only, and cash settlement carries a 1.5% administrative charge.

A registered Cambridge International School and IB World School running two parallel tracks under one roof, a full Cambridge International programme in English and a cheaper Hungarian-English bilingual programme, with Cambridge exams at the end of Grades 5, 8 and 10 and the IB Diploma from Grade 11.

Good to know: The bilingual track costs roughly HUF 600,000 to 1,000,000 a year less than the international track at the same grade, but the published 2026/27 fee table only prices it up to Grade 8, with Grades 9 to 12 and the IB Diploma priced under the international programme alone, so check with the school how the bilingual route continues. Paying in two instalments instead of a lump sum costs about 3% more, a HUF 40,000 admission fee applies from 1 July 2026 (HUF 35,000 before that) on top of registration and seat reservation, and English as an Additional Language is charged separately at HUF 750,000 a year for four lessons a week or HUF 1,180,000 for eight.

Smaller British school in Obuda delivering the full English National Curriculum to Pearson IGCSE and International A Levels, and acting as a certified Pearson Edexcel examination centre itself.

Good to know: Paying in three instalments rather than in full by 15 August adds EUR 500 to EUR 1,000 to the year and late payments can carry a 10% surcharge; fees are set in euros but can be paid in EUR, HUF, USD or GBP, school meals and extra EAL hours are included, while IGCSE and A Level entry fees, textbooks, laptops from Year 5, after school activities and in-class learning support are not. Siblings get 5% off for a second child and 10% for a third, and withdrawal during the year needs three months of written notice or three months of fees.

The French school of Budapest, following the French national curriculum from maternelle to the baccalaureat, with fees approved each year by the trustees of its foundation and published in both euros and forints.

Good to know: Tuition includes the compulsory examination fees for the brevet and the baccalaureat; monthly billing over ten months costs a little more than paying yearly (EUR 620 to 770 a month), college students pay a EUR 125 textbook deposit, and day care, supervised study, sport, music school and school transport are all charged on top.

The German school of Budapest, teaching in German to German curricula and letting students in the Hungarian branch sit both the German Abitur and the Hungarian erettsegi, with Hungarian offered as mother tongue, second language or a two lesson foreign language.

Good to know: The fee schedule sets a one-off foundation contribution of HUF 1,600,000 per child on first admission, payable in full before the child starts and neither refundable nor discountable, so the real first-year bill is close to HUF 4 million for one child. Tuition falls to HUF 1,885,000 for a third child and HUF 1,765,000 for each further one, and is paid in three instalments (40% in July, 30% in December, 30% in March). Textbooks and workbooks are included; the German-language preparatory course for outside applicants to class 5s costs HUF 295,000 for the year and is compulsory in the second semester for those who did not take it. Basic German is a condition of admission and the entrance procedure is run in German.

English-language, college-preparatory Christian school in Diosd, accredited since 1998 by ACSI and the Middle States Association, with an Advanced Placement programme and a structured supplemental services department for learning differences.

Good to know: English Language Learning and supplemental services are charged on top at USD 800 to 1,500 a year in a group or USD 1,600 to 3,000 individually, siblings get an automatic 10% discount and children of full-time Christian workers can apply for a 40% ministry scholarship, which does not extend to those additional fees; spreading the year over ten payments adds a 1% administrative charge, and note the school runs no before or after school childcare, while hot lunch, optional trips and an Upper School laptop are extra.

English-medium Christian school on Szilagyi Erzsebet fasor, an authorised SAT and AP test centre with a large English as an Additional Language department and fees quoted entirely in forints.

Good to know: The HUF 400,000 registration fee is billed every year rather than once at entry, with a HUF 200,000 reduction per additional sibling and a 10% tuition discount for self-paying families' siblings; EAL costs HUF 255,000 a semester, and lunch and uniforms are bought from third-party providers.

An IB World School attached to the Budapest University of Technology where the language of instruction is English, at roughly a quarter to a third of the price of the large international schools.

Good to know: Entry is normally only into Year 9 through the Hungarian central admission procedure (KIFIR), with a 19 February 2026 application deadline; applicants must reach B2 English and score at least 70% on the language test under the rules for bilingual schools, and only 48 places (two classes of 24) are offered, although joining Grades 10 or 11 is possible after a matching level test and school report. Second and further children get 20% off, a 5.0 school average brings the fee down to 80%, and one or two students a semester receive a full fee waiver. The published figure is the fee for the four year programme; the school publishes no separate price for the IB Diploma, so ask before you budget.

A state grammar school that says it was the first in Eastern Europe authorised to prepare students for the International Baccalaureate, running it since 1992 alongside Hungarian-English and Hungarian-German bilingual streams.

Good to know: There is no published tuition because this is a state school, but the school states openly that funding for the IB programme has changed almost every year and that parents are sometimes asked to top it up, so ask what the current contribution is; the bilingual route starts with a preparatory year of 20 language lessons a week and entry is via the national secondary admission procedure after Year 8.

An accredited network of small alternative schools built on mentoring and individual learning goals rather than year-group teaching, with Budapest sites in the I., III., VIII., XI., XIII., XIV. and XXII. districts and further micro-schools in Budaors, Solymar, Erd, Godollo, Nagymaros, Terény, Veszprem, Zalaszentgrot and Debrecen.

Good to know: Teaching is in Hungarian, so this fits families settling for the long term or with Hungarian-speaking children rather than a short posting, and only one site, in the VIII. district, runs the secondary years. The published figure is a suggested monthly contribution and families choose their own amount within a band, with 80% of families funding scholarship places for the other 20%, and contributions are billed across all twelve months including summer. Joining costs two extra months: a deposit equal to two months of the contribution, plus a one-off school support fee of one month's contribution for every new child.