Most pages about Hong Kong university fees for Indian students quote one tuition figure and move on. The figure is usually out of date, and the thing that actually decides what your degree costs is not on the page at all.
Here is what the universities themselves publish, read on 26 September 2026, and the mechanic that matters more than any single number.
HKU tuition fees for non-local students
HKU's admissions office publishes these annual tuition rates for the 2027/28 academic year:
| Category | Annual tuition | Roughly, in rupees |
|---|---|---|
| Local students on subsidised fees | HK$49,500 | ₹6.1 lakh |
| Non-local, non-STEM faculties | HK$250,000 | ₹30.8 lakh |
| Non-local, STEM faculties | HK$280,000 | ₹34.4 lakh |
| MBBS and BDS | HK$590,000 | ₹72.6 lakh |
Non-STEM covers Architecture, Arts, Business and Economics, Education, Law and Social Sciences. STEM covers Engineering, Science, Medicine other than MBBS, and the schools of Biomedical Engineering, Computing and Data Science, and Innovation.
Rupee figures are converted at roughly ₹12.3 to the Hong Kong dollar, which follows from the HKD peg to the US dollar and a rate of about ₹97 to the dollar on 8 October 2026. Check the rate on the day you plan.
Hong Kong university cost of living for Indian students
HKU also publishes its living costs, which most comparison pages omit: residential halls and colleges at HK$17,290 to HK$37,940 a year, off-campus housing at HK$30,000 to HK$50,000, and living expenses of up to HK$50,000. Budget something in the region of HK$100,000, about ₹12 lakh, on top of tuition.
HKUST tuition fees for international students are locked to your intake year
HKUST's academic registry publishes its non-local undergraduate rate by admitted cohort, and the series tells you something no single figure can:
| Admitted in | Annual tuition | Roughly, in rupees |
|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 to 2022-23 | HK$140,000 | ₹17.2 lakh |
| 2023-24 | HK$155,000 | ₹19.1 lakh |
| 2024-25 | HK$170,000 | ₹20.9 lakh |
| 2025-26 | HK$185,000 | ₹22.8 lakh |
| 2026-27 | HK$215,000 | ₹26.4 lakh |
That is a 54 percent rise in four intakes. Your rate is set when you enter and stays with you for the degree, which has two consequences an Indian family should plan around.
First, a student who entered in 2022 and a student who entered in 2026 sit in the same lecture theatre paying HK$75,000 a year apart. Do not take a fee figure from a current student, a forum post or an agent's brochure. It is their cohort's number, not yours.
Second, deferring is expensive. A gap year, a re-application, or taking a deferred place can move you into the next cohort and cost you the difference for all four years. On the 2025-26 to 2026-27 step that is HK$30,000 a year, about ₹14.8 lakh over a four-year degree. That is a real number to weigh against whatever the gap year is for, and it is covered in more general terms in taking a gap year before university from India.
What studying in Hong Kong costs against the alternatives
At roughly ₹31 lakh a year in tuition, a non-STEM HKU degree sits well below a US private university, where the all-in cost runs ₹77 to ₹92 lakh a year. Against Singapore, the comparison is closer and turns on the tuition grant rather than the sticker price, which is covered in Singapore's tuition grant bond.
Medicine is the exception and it is worth stating plainly. HKU's MBBS at HK$590,000 a year, about ₹73 lakh, is roughly what a US private university costs. Anyone treating Hong Kong as the affordable route into medicine should look at that number before anything else.
What to do with this
- Take the figure from the university's own fees page, for your intake year. Both figures above came from HKU's admissions site and HKUST's academic registry, not from an aggregator. Every other source is a copy of a copy.
- Model the whole degree, not the first year. Four years at a locked rate, plus living costs, plus flights, is the number that decides whether this works.
- Apply for the scholarships as part of the application. HKU states it awards merit-based scholarships that can cover tuition, and in some cases living expenses, to non-local students. They are assessed on merit, so the strength of the application is the strength of the scholarship case. Building an application strong enough to carry a scholarship is the work in college admissions counselling.
For how admission itself works, which boards Hong Kong universities accept and what the deadlines are, see Hong Kong university admissions from India and the Hong Kong field guide.
Where this stops applying
Tuition rates are published a year or more ahead and revised. The HKU figures above are its published 2027/28 rates and the HKUST figures are its published 2026-27 rates, both read on 26 September 2026. Before you commit to anything, open the university's own fees page for your intake year and take that over this one.
