The United Kingdom is rejoining the European Union’s flagship Erasmus+ student exchange scheme — one of the most visible steps yet in Sir Keir Starmer’s effort to rebuild ties with the bloc. Under the agreement, formalised in December 2025, Britain will return to the programme in 2027, seven years after leaving it in the wake of Brexit.
What the deal covers
Erasmus+ enables students to spend time at a university in a partner country while paying the same fees as domestic students, and extends beyond universities to apprentices and young people, including company placements and cultural exchanges. Negotiations centred on Britain’s financial contribution: UK ministers argued they would only sign on the back of EU concessions on cost, having weeks earlier declined to join the bloc’s new €140bn rearmament fund, Security Action for Europe, on the grounds that the terms were too expensive.
The final terms bear that out. According to Euronews, the UK will contribute roughly £570mn (€650mn) for the 2027-28 academic year — which the government says is about 30 per cent less than the standard price for non-EU states — with more than 100,000 people from the UK expected to benefit in 2027. The British Council will return as the UK’s national agency for the programme, the role it held before Brexit.
Why Britain left — and why it is returning
The UK opted out of Erasmus after formally leaving the EU in 2020. Boris Johnson’s government argued the scheme represented poor value for UK taxpayers because Britain contributed significantly more than it received, a result of low take-up among UK students: the UK paid £1.17bn into Erasmus between 2015 and 2019, and ministers told Parliament in 2021 that continued membership would have required around £2bn over five years.
Starmer’s government has framed the return differently — as a concrete deliverable of its EU “reset” and a promise kept to younger voters, to whom the prime minister pledged greater opportunities to live and work in the EU. Universities on both sides had urged an agreement given the scheme’s popularity among students and administrators. Tim Bradshaw, chief executive of the Russell Group of research universities, welcomed the engagement, pointing to the opportunities Erasmus+ opens for students, adult learners, and young people, and to the contribution EU students and staff make to UK campuses.
Part of a wider reset
The Erasmus deal sits within a broader package of UK-EU rapprochement unveiled in May 2025 by Starmer and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Alongside it, the two sides are working on a youth-mobility scheme allowing 18-to-30-year-olds to work and travel more freely in each other’s countries, a veterinary agreement to streamline food-export rules, and a linkage of their carbon emissions trading schemes — with ministers targeting implementation by mid-2027.
Limitations and what to watch
Key details will determine the return’s real impact. The cost-benefit balance that drove the original withdrawal depends on UK student take-up, which was historically lower than inbound EU participation — whether that changes is the number to watch. Implementation specifics, including how the discounted contribution scales beyond 2027-28 and how the scheme interacts with the UK’s own Turing Scheme for outbound study, are covered in the House of Commons Library briefing. The youth-mobility scheme, politically more sensitive because of its migration implications, also remains under negotiation. Related reading on this site: the UK Employment Rights Act 2025 and Royal Mail’s pioneering CDC pension scheme.
Some content could not be loaded. Check your Internet connection or browser settings.
