Southwestern University of Finance and Economics — guide for international students

Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (西南财经大学, SWUFE) dates its own history to 1925, when Guanghua University was founded in Shanghai; a Chengdu branch was set up in 1938 when the university relocated inland during the war. In 1952–53 the finance and economics departments of seventeen institutions across the region were merged into the Sichuan Institute of Finance and Economics, one of the four national finance and economics colleges established after 1949. It took its present name in 1985, became a Project 211 key university in 1997, was selected in 2011 for the national “985 Innovative Platform for Key Disciplines” programme, and entered the Double First-Class initiative in 2017 with applied economics as its world-class discipline.

SWUFE is a single-city, two-campus university, and which campus you are on changes your rent and your commute rather than your degree. Liulin is the main campus, at 555 Liutai Avenue in Wenjiang District on the western edge of Chengdu; Guanghua is the older, inner-city campus at 55 Guanghuacun Street in Qingyang District, and it is where the College of International Education sits. Together they cover over 2,300 mu — a mu is about 667 square metres, so roughly 153 hectares. International students live on both.

The university enrols over 15,300 full-time undergraduates, more than 8,500 master’s students and over 1,400 doctoral students — more than 24,000 in all on its English pages — with over 2,300 staff including more than 1,500 full-time teachers. The Chinese university profile counts 26 colleges and research institutes offering 46 undergraduate majors, and the English school directory lists 26 units to match; one older English page, “Why SWUFE”, gives an evidently earlier count of “56 doctoral, 79 master’s and 32 bachelor’s degree programs among 27 schools and departments”, so treat the Chinese profile and the directory as current.

Academically SWUFE is narrow and deep rather than comprehensive. Its Chinese profile places economics and business in the ESI global top 1‰, 50th in the world and 2nd in China, with five further fields — social sciences general, engineering, computer science, environment and ecology, and mathematics — inside the ESI global top 1%, and it holds four national key disciplines: finance, political economy, accounting and statistics. If you want engineering, medicine or the natural sciences as a main subject, look elsewhere.

SWUFE admits international students to bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, and separately to Chinese language training and short summer academies. All degree applications run through one online system at swufe.17gz.org, carry a non-refundable RMB 600 application fee, and share one window: the 2026 undergraduate and graduate guides both give 1 November 2025 to 30 June 2026, Beijing time. Two things set SWUFE apart. The first is the entrance test — undergraduate applicants must sit the China Scholastic Competency Assessment (来华留学本科入学学业水平测试, CSCA), taking Chinese and Mathematics for a Chinese-taught major and Mathematics alone for an English-taught one, with the 2026 enrolment directory marking the subject combination against each major. The second is the age band: the undergraduate guide sets 18–35, far wider than the 18–22 most Chinese universities use, with master’s applicants 18–40 and doctoral applicants 18–45. Selection is not documents-only at any level. The undergraduate route runs preliminary review, CSCA scores, an online interview with extra testing as needed, an academic review by the school admissions committee and a final review by the university’s international student admissions leading group; the graduate route inserts an online written examination before the interview. Note also what the graduate guide does not ask for: no supervisor acceptance letter appears on it, unusually for doctoral admission in China, so build your file around the 800-character study plan and the two academic references instead. These dates come from the 2026 guides, still the latest SWUFE had published when this page was verified — no 2027 international admission notice had been posted.

Degree programs

Select a degree level to see tuition, duration and entry requirements.

Non-degree programs

Documents to prepare

Application timeline

These are the dates Southwestern University of Finance and Economics published for the 2026 intake. That cycle has closed. Use them as a guide to when each step falls in the year, and check the official pages for the 2027 dates before you plan around them.

SWUFE’s funding falls into three groups, and only the middle one is genuinely a SWUFE award. The Chinese Government Scholarship reaches the university through two channels — the Bilateral Program (Type A), applied for through your own government’s dispatching authority, and the Chinese University Program (Type B), applied for directly to SWUFE for master’s and doctoral study between 1 November 2025 and 28 February 2026 under CSC institution code 10651. The university’s own entry award is the SWUFE Belt and Road Scholarship, open to bachelor’s and master’s applicants between 1 January and 30 April 2026. The third group is for people already here: the Comprehensive Scholarship, a modest cash prize for continuing students, and the International Chinese Language Teachers Scholarship for language study. Two gaps matter when you plan. SWUFE lists no Sichuan provincial or Chengdu municipal government scholarship on its scholarship pages, so do not budget for one. And the Type A page carries no deadline at all — that date is set by your home country’s dispatching authority, and the SWUFE page tells you to get it from them. Every route, government channels included, still requires you to register at swufe.17gz.org and pay the RMB 600 application fee.

SWUFE’s research is concentrated where its teaching is: finance, economics, accounting, statistics and, increasingly, the data science and artificial intelligence applied to them. The Chinese university profile names four national-level bases as the centrepieces — the National Research Centre for Socialist Political Economy with Chinese Characteristics, the Ministry of Education key research base in humanities and social sciences known as the Institute of Chinese Financial Studies, the Ministry of Education philosophy and social sciences laboratory for Financial Security and Behavioural Big Data, and the Ministry of Education engineering research centre for Intelligent Finance. Around them sit seventeen further institutes and centres listed on the English site, including the Survey and Research Center for China Household Finance, whose household finance survey is one of the most widely used datasets in the country, the China Center for Behavioral Economics and Finance, the Blockchain Research Center of China and the Jiaozi Institute of Fintech Innovation. The measurable result is the ESI position: economics and business inside the global top 1‰, 50th in the world and 2nd in China, with five more fields inside the global top 1%. For an applicant the practical reading is that a research degree here will be in economics, finance, management or the data methods serving them — every doctoral program taught in English sits in one institute, the Research Institute of Economics and Management.

SWUFE’s Office of International Exchange and Cooperation, founded in 1995, states that the university has established partnerships with over 200 universities and financial institutions from more than 40 countries and regions. The older English “Why SWUFE” page still gives 130 institutions from 36 countries, so the two official figures disagree and the higher, more recent one comes from the office that owns the relationships. On the outbound side those partnerships become semester exchanges administered through jhs.swufe.edu.cn; on the inbound side they become mainly the SWUFE Global Academy summer programs, which waive fees for students from partner universities. Beyond the network, SWUFE co-founded the Confucius Institute at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, North Macedonia, in September 2013, and in July 2014 became the home of the Confucius Institute Headquarters Chengdu Base, which it describes as the only base for Chinese language and culture promotion in southwest China. The College of International Education was established in April 2004 and says it has cumulatively enrolled thousands of international students from more than a hundred countries; SWUFE does not publish a current international enrolment figure on its international pages, so ask the college if you need the number.

SWUFE sits close to China’s financial sector, and its English pages name the People’s Bank of China, Siemens, Oracle, Allianz Group and ABN AMRO among the organisations it works with on internships and jobs. The one outcome figure the university publishes is domestic: its Chinese profile states that in recent years more than 50% of undergraduates have gone on to further study in China or abroad. It publishes no employment rate, salary figure or destination breakdown for international graduates, so treat any such number you find elsewhere as unsourced. What the College of International Education does maintain is an alumni network organised by country — associations in Tanzania, Indonesia, Germany and Thailand alongside an alumni card scheme — which is a better guide than any statistic to where SWUFE’s international graduates end up. If working in China after graduation matters to you, raise it with the college early: what a student visa allows is set by national exit-entry law rather than by the university, and SWUFE links those regulations rather than restating them.

International students live on both campuses, and the price gap between them is large. At Guanghua, the inner-city campus in Qingyang District where the College of International Education sits, the options are Boxue No. 2 Dormitory and the Ginkgo Garden buildings; at Liulin, the main campus in Wenjiang District, they are in Shensi Garden. Every room listed comes with a private bathroom, air conditioning, 24-hour hot water, a desk, chair, wardrobe, bed and mattress, and every option carries a refundable RMB 1,000 deposit. Accommodation is billed by the semester, with separate monthly rates for holiday periods, and 30 kWh of electricity is free each month with the excess at market rate. One figure to check before you budget: the graduate admission guide quotes dormitory costs as RMB 800 or RMB 1,200 a month, which matches the holiday-period rates on the fee page rather than the term-time semester rates of RMB 4,000 to RMB 6,500 that the dormitory and fee pages give. Confirm which basis applies to your own stay. Insurance is compulsory and not refundable, at RMB 500 a semester or RMB 1,000 a year.

Accommodation

Dining

SWUFE runs seven dining halls across the two campuses: the First Cafeteria, the Fourth Cafeteria and the Sumitomo Garden Restaurant at Guanghua, and Yisutang, Sanweitang, Wugutang and the Liuyuan Food House at Liulin, which between them cover a wide range of Chinese regional cuisines. Payment runs on the campus card, which also opens the library, borrows books and buys groceries, hot water, showers and electricity. Degree students collect a physical card from the administrative office on weekdays, 9:00–12:00 and 13:00–17:00, with the last six digits of the passport number as the initial PIN; language students use a virtual card in the Yixiaoyuan (易校园) app, activated at the information window of the Fourth Cafeteria at 7:00–9:00, 11:00–13:00 or 17:00–19:00. SWUFE does not publish meal prices on its international pages, so budget for food separately and check on arrival.

Facilities

Reach the College of International Education (International Education School), Southwestern University of Finance and Economics — Guanghua Campus for questions about applications, documents, scholarships and arrival. Type university programs and offices are based on campus in Chengdu.