Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti（新美术学院）European Study Guide: Programs, Entry Requirements, Costs and Student Planning

This guide is for international students and families weighing Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti（新美术学院，NABA）as a place to study art, design, fashion or media in Europe. NABA is a private Italian academy of fine arts regulated under the AFAM system (the higher education in art and music branch of the Italian university system governed by the Ministry of University and Research, MIUR), and it currently runs campuses in Milan, Rome and London. Everything below comes from the academy’s official website as seen on 6 August 2026; the institution’s own statements are used only to describe the institution itself, not as rankings or comparisons, and where no figure is published this guide says so rather than inventing one.

Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti at a glance

Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti describes itself as a private, legally recognised academy of fine arts whose degree courses carry a restricted number of places and are therefore admission-filtered rather than first-come, first-served. Its degrees are accredited by the Italian Ministry of University and Research: three-year bachelor’s programmes award First Level Academic Degrees, two-year master’s programmes award Second Level Academic Degrees, and one-year Academic Masters award a First Level Academic Master’s degree, all equivalent to university degrees under the AFAM framework. The three campuses have distinct characters: Milan (Via C. Darwin 20) sits near the Navigli district in a historic complex of 14 buildings covering roughly 23,000 sqm; Rome (Via Ostiense 92) occupies three early-20th-century buildings of about 6,000 sqm in the Ostiense district, with strong links to cinema and visual culture; and London (Here East, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park) offers three BA (Hons) courses validated by Regent’s University London. The academy’s own site highlights collaborations with institutions such as Teatro alla Scala and Triennale Milano, which tells you about its environment, not about how it compares with other schools.

Programmes: bachelor’s, master’s and one-year academic masters

Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti organises its offer in three layers. The three-year Bachelor of Arts (180 academic credits, October intake, taught in Italian or English) spans design and applied arts: interior, product and product-innovation design; fashion design and fashion styling and communication; creative technologies (game development, VFX); film and animation; graphic design and art direction; comics and visual storytelling; painting and visual arts; set design (theatre and opera, media and events); fashion marketing management; and marketing and management for creative business. The two-year Master of Arts programmes cover fashion and textile design, fashion costume design, interior design, product and service design, social design, user experience design, communication design, creative media production, digital and live performance, and visual arts and curatorial studies, among others. One-year Academic Masters are more professionally oriented — contemporary art markets, creative advertising, luxury brand management, fashion management, sneaker design and screenwriting, to name a few — while a foundation course, summer courses and semester-abroad options round out the offer. Students on most bachelor’s programmes can also spend a semester abroad; the academy does not publish a complete list of partner institutions.

Entry requirements and the admission test

Entry to Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti rests on three gates. The academic gate: at least 12 years of schooling and a secondary diploma equivalent to the Italian maturità; foreign diplomas must be legalised (a Declaration of Value from the Italian embassy, a Hague Apostille where applicable, or a CIMEA verification or comparability statement) and accompanied by a certified Italian or English translation. The language gate: Italian-taught courses require a complete B1 level in Italian (CEFR), while English-taught courses require an English certificate no older than two years, submitted within one month of the programme start; the accepted list includes IELTS 5.0 overall, TOEFL iBT minimum 45, PTE Academic 36–42, Cambridge ESOL minimum 160 and Linguaskill 160. Native speakers and students whose high-school diploma was earned through English-medium study are exempt, subject to verification. The creative gate: the admission test is a distance evaluation built around an artistic statement of at most 500 words (why NABA, what you want to do after graduating, what inspires you) plus a project assignment specific to the chosen programme or a portfolio of projects. Results arrive within five working days, and a positive outcome produces a conditional admission letter; the offer becomes final once the document dossier and language certificate are completed. Postgraduate programmes each set their own requirements, and the site notes that applicants with different backgrounds are still considered when motivation and research interest are strong.

Tuition fees, scholarships and financial aid

Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti publishes 2026/27 fees on its official tuition pages. Non-EU students are charged at the top income bracket: €22,250 per academic year (regional tax included) for both BA and MA programmes, €21,600 for the diploma programme, and €23,800 per year for one-year Academic Masters. EU and EFTA residents are assessed by family pre-tax income, with BA fees ranging from €8,450 to €21,850 across six brackets, MA fees from about €10,550, and a fixed €19,300 for Academic Masters. The site warns that fees rise by 2% from the second year and 2.5% from the third year of enrolment, so multi-year budgets should be built on the adjusted figures. Payments run through Flywire or bank transfer; credit cards cover only the application fee. Funding options listed include the European International Scholarship Competition (up to €6,000 for undergraduates, partial first-year coverage for postgraduates; deadline 24 July 2026 for October 2026 intake), an early-bird 15% reduction for BA programmes starting October 2027, need-based financial aid reviewed monthly, the Lombardy DSU (right-to-study) scholarship with a 18 September 2026 online deadline, and a separate London campus scholarship of £2,000–£5,000. The academy does not publish an official cost-of-living figure for Milan or Rome, so those budgets have to be built from local market information; for London it quotes estimated monthly living costs of £1,350–£1,800 and states it does not run its own student residence.

Campuses and student life

Learning at Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti follows a learning-by-doing method: theory alternates with workshop practice, and company briefs are used as classroom projects so students work in studio-like teams. The Milan campus is equipped by discipline — design labs with laser cutting, 3D printing and CNC milling; fashion labs with industrial sewing and knitting machinery and a textile library of about 4,000 fabric samples; media labs with professional cameras, a green screen studio and a virtual production studio with LED volume and motion capture; and visual arts studios with painting, printmaking and darkroom facilities. Its library holds roughly 14,000 volumes plus a materials library and databases such as WGSN, JSTOR and Vogue Archive. The Rome campus adds multifunctional spaces, a terrace and green areas, and runs a Career Day connecting students with companies in design, fashion, communication, media and visual arts. The London campus provides design, fashion and hybrid labs, library study pods, a dedicated career service, psychological support and visa guidance. Erasmus+ and international exchange programmes, industry workshops and corporate training are mentioned on the official site; the current partner lists are published per season.

Planning: visas, residence permit and arrival

Non-EU students need to plan around two mandatory procedures at Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti. Before departure, they must complete the pre-enrolment on the UniversItaly platform (submitting passport, diploma, transcripts and language certificate); the official pages say pre-enrolment is usually submitted between March and November each year, that it is mandatory, and that study visas typically take about 90 days, so early application matters. The visa itself is the type D national entry visa for enrolment at Italian universities and academies (STUDIO per Immatricolazione Università). After arrival, students who entered on a study visa valid for more than 90 days must apply for a residence permit within 8 working days: the kit (passport copy, tax code, enrolment certificate, health insurance and a €16 duty stamp) is lodged at the central post office with a fee of €100.46, followed by a police-station appointment for fingerprints. Students also need an Italian tax code (issued free on the spot), and can register with the national health service (SSN) for €149.77 or take private insurance; EU and EFTA citizens register with the municipal registry instead. The academy’s Student Life Office assists with all of these steps. Intakes run in October and February, with the current enrolment forms covering October 2026 and February 2027.

Making the decision

The practical picture at Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti is: a private, quota-limited Italian academy with an English-taught and Italian-taught offer, a portfolio-driven admission test, non-EU fees at the top bracket that increase year on year, and a visa-and-permit sequence with fixed deadlines. What the official site does not tell you — per-programme acceptance rates, official Milan and Rome living costs, the full exchange-partner list — is simply not published, and no responsible planner should fill those gaps with invented numbers. If you would like to work through how the programmes, entry requirements, fees and timelines fit your own qualifications, portfolio and budget, our advisers can help you map the options against the latest official information. This guide is based on the official Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti website accessed 6 August 2026; fees, entry criteria and deadlines change with each academic year, so the official pages remain the reference for current information.