At an international school in Warsaw, the yearly bill is tuition plus a handful of costs that sit outside it: an enrolment fee, exam fees in the final years, language support if a child needs it, the bus, lunch and trips. At IAS, tuition for 2026/2027 runs from 48,000 PLN a year in Kindergarten to 88,000 PLN a year in Grades 10 to 12, with an enrolment fee of 4,000 PLN each year. Below you will find what usually makes up the bill at any school, how to read a fee table without being caught out, and every IAS figure in one place.
Ask about a place for 2026/27 or 2027/28
What goes into a year's bill
Tuition is the biggest line. Rarely the only one. When you compare schools, write down the same items for each:
- Tuition for the school year.
- An enrolment or registration fee. Ask whether it is charged once or every year, and whether any of it comes back if your plans change.
- Exam fees, usually in the last two or three years. The IB and other examining bodies charge for their exams, and schools often pass the cost on to families.
- Language support for a child who is still learning English.
- Transport. A school bus is often run by a separate company, under its own contract.
- Lunch.
- Trips, both day visits and trips away.
- Books and online platforms, which some schools include and others charge by subject.
None of this is unusual. The trouble starts when a family meets one of these costs for the first time in September.
How to read a fee table
Three questions clear up most of the confusion.
Is the figure per year, per term or per month? Directory websites and comparison pages often copy the fee for one term and present it as the price of the whole year, so if a number looks surprisingly low, go to the school's own page and check it there before you rule a school in or out. At a school with two terms, a one-term figure is about half of what the year costs.
What does tuition include? Ask for the list. Two schools with the same tuition can end up thousands of złoty apart once the bus, lunch and exam fees are added.
Do discounts add together? Some schools let a sibling discount and an early-payment discount stack. Others allow one at a time. IAS is one of the second kind.
After that, ask how fees change from one year to the next, and how payment works if your child starts part-way through the year.
IAS tuition for 2026/2027
Each figure is the total for one school year.
| Year group | Tuition per year |
|---|---|
| Kindergarten | 48,000 PLN |
| Grades 1 and 2 | 58,000 PLN |
| Grades 3 and 4 | 68,000 PLN |
| Grades 5 and 6 | 74,000 PLN |
| Grades 7 to 9 | 78,000 PLN |
| Grades 10 to 12 | 88,000 PLN |
The school year has two terms. Tuition is paid in ten monthly instalments from September to June, each due by the 10th of the month, and there is nothing to pay in July or August. Our fees page lists the same figures for 2026/2027 and 2027/2028, but fees can be adjusted from one year to the next, so look at the page again in the year you apply and ask the office whether anything has changed since you last checked.
Here is one example. A child who starts Grade 7 in September pays 78,000 PLN for the year, which works out at about 7,800 PLN a month over ten months, plus the 4,000 PLN enrolment fee. Before anything is signed, the Financial Officer confirms the exact schedule for your family.
Joining in the middle of the year? Then the fee is divided into monthly payments from the month your child starts.
The enrolment fee
4,000 PLN, every year.
The enrolment fee guarantees the place: a seat in a class is confirmed only once the school has recorded the payment. The fee also covers loaned books and online services. Two more things. The fee is never deducted from tuition, and it is never refunded, in any case, including when a family's plans change after the place has been confirmed.
Discounts: one at a time
IAS offers five discounts on tuition, and they do not add together. A family takes the one it qualifies for, usually whichever is worth the most.
- 5% for a second child, 10% for a third, 15% for a fourth.
- 2% for each continuing year a student stays at IAS.
- 6% when the whole year is paid in one payment before 15 August.
Pay after the 10th of the month and that month's discount is lost for good.
If a family already at IAS recommended the school to you, give their name the first time you contact admissions, before you send any documents. Once your child is enrolled, they receive a 2,000 PLN tuition credit. The full terms are in the discount policy.
What sits outside tuition
Our fees page lists these as extra. Here is each one, and who sets the price.
IB exam fees. In Grades 11 and 12, the IB admission and examination fees are not part of tuition. The fees page also lists ISA examination fees.
EAL. English as an Additional Language is a paid programme for students who need support with their English, and the school assesses each student's level when they apply. It costs 1,500 PLN per term in Grades 2 to 5 and 3,500 PLN per term in Grades 6 to 10, on top of tuition. These fees are for 2026/2027 and are subject to change. If a child joins EAL later in the year, or stops needing it, you pay only for the lessons that took place. The EAL page explains how the groups work.
The school bus. IAS runs a dedicated school bus with Little Monsters, a transport company that specialises in carrying children. Families sign the contract and agree the price directly with the company, and the cost depends on the route. How routes are planned each year is on the transport page. Kabaty metro station is a five-minute walk from school.
Lunch. Families order and pay for meals themselves, day by day, in iKuchnia, the ordering system of our caterer, Kuchnia z Klasą, which means you pay for the days you order and nothing for the days you do not.
Trips in Warsaw, around Poland and abroad. Pamoja courses, if a student takes a subject online. Some books and online services can also cost extra, depending on the subjects a student chooses.
What tuition covers
The fees page sets it out. Tuition pays for lessons from 08:30 to 15:10, Monday to Friday; the American and Polish diploma examinations; the IB Diploma Programme in Grades 11 and 12; pastoral care, with the school psychologist on site; on-site medical care; PE indoors and outdoors, swimming included; course and university counselling; and loaned textbooks, workbooks and learning platforms.
Within those fees, a student can work towards the IB Diploma, the American High School Diploma and the Polish Matura under one roof, and earns all three by completing each programme's requirements. In Middle School, IAS is an MYP candidate school.
Questions to ask any school, ours included
- Is this figure for the whole year?
- Is the enrolment fee charged every year, and is it ever refunded?
- Which exams cost extra, and in which year are they paid?
- Will my child need language support? What does it cost?
- Who runs the bus, and who do we sign the contract with?
- Do discounts combine?
- If we start in February, how is the year's fee divided?
Our answers are all above. If you are still building a shortlist, our comparison of international schools in Warsaw covers what to weigh beyond price. For your own figures, the calculator on the fees page adds up each child and picks the single discount worth the most for each of them, and the payments office at [email protected] or +48 22 649 14 40 confirms the final number.
Ask about a place
Applications for 2026/2027 and 2027/2028 are open. Tell us your child's age and when you would like them to start, and our admissions team will let you know whether there is a place in that year group, what your first year at IAS would cost, and which of the extras above would apply to your child.
