Ca' Foscari University of Venice
Ca' Foscari was founded by royal decree in 1868 as the "Regia Scuola Superiore di Commercio" — the first Italian institution for advanced business and economics education, and the second-oldest business school in the world after Antwerp's. It was championed in the years after Veneto's 1866 annexation to Italy by future prime minister Luigi Luzzatti and the economist Francesco Ferrara, who directed it for three decades.
- City
- Venice
- Type
- Public university
- Official site
- Visit website
- Admissions
- How to apply
About the university
From the outset it taught foreign languages and ran a diplomatic-training track alongside commerce — an early sign of the international outlook it still carries as a comprehensive university spanning economics, languages, humanities, and sciences. It has occupied the Gothic Ca' Foscari palace on the Grand Canal since its founding, a genuine historic palazzo rather than a purpose-built campus.
As with our shorter-form cities, our deepest, most detailed on-the-ground support currently stays in Turin and Milan — we don't yet have the same neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood rent data or a vetted-rooms network here, and we'd rather say so plainly than pad this page with figures we haven't checked.
Admission for international students generally runs through the standard route: Universitaly pre-enrolment, a Declaration of Value or CIMEA comparability statement for your prior qualification, and — depending on programme — an entrance test or a language requirement if you're studying in Italian, submitted through the university's own application portal.
See the Venice city guide for what living and studying in the city looks like beyond the university itself.
Living in Venice
Rent, transport, and settling in
How applying here works
- 1
Universitaly pre-enrolment
Your application to Italy, filed on the government portal.
- 2
Declaration of Value or CIMEA
Your prior qualification, made readable to an Italian university.
- 3
Entrance test or language check
Where the faculty asks for one — this is what preparation is for.
We walk you through each step inside the portal. How the application service works, or see the full 20-step journey.