A renamed programme, not a new one

The programme changed its name. It was the Holland Scholarship, and Nuffic’s page now calls it the NL Scholarship, describing the old name in passing as a former one. The old web address for it now redirects to the new page, so a link or a search result carrying the old name still gets you to the right place, but any expectation that “Holland Scholarship” is still the current term should be corrected.

A contribution, not an answer

Treat the €5,000 as a contribution, not an answer. It is paid once, in your first year, and the official page is direct about the fact that it is not a full-tuition scholarship, which means the rest of your tuition and all of your living costs need a separate source. There is no central application: you apply through the institution itself, as part of the ordinary degree application, and that institution’s own deadline, not any date on Nuffic’s page, is the one that governs you. At the institutions where dates have been checked, those deadlines land in January or February, several months before the academic year starts, so this is not a scholarship to leave until after you have an offer in hand.

The list of participating institutions changes every year

The list of participating institutions is not fixed year to year. Eleven research universities and a wider group of universities of applied sciences took part in the 2026-2027 round, but Nuffic’s own page warns that the list changes annually, so confirm your chosen institution is still in the scheme for the year you are applying, rather than assuming this year’s list from last year’s.

It stacks with institution-specific scholarships

Because the NL Scholarship is paid on top of whatever your institution otherwise charges, it is designed to stack with a university’s own funding rather than replace it. Radboud University is one clear example: its own Radboud Scholarship Programme explicitly says a recipient can also hold the NL Scholarship at the same time, so if you already have an offer from a participating institution with its own award on the table, check whether the two can be combined before assuming you have to choose one.