📖 About the university

The University of Saint Joseph (USJ) is a private Catholic university in Macau, established in 1996 as the Macau Inter-University Institute through a joint initiative of the Catholic University of Portugal and the Diocese of Macau, and renamed to its present title in 2009. Its roots trace back further still to the tradition of Catholic higher learning in Macau that began with the College of Saint Paul in 1594, giving it one of the deepest institutional lineages in the territory. In September 2017 USJ moved its main campus to Ilha Verde, complementing a second site at NAPE and the historic Saint Joseph Seminary in the São Lourenço district. The university enrols roughly 1,800 students across eight academic units, including the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, the Faculty of Business and Law, the Faculty of Health Sciences, the Faculty of Religious Studies and Philosophy, and the Institute of Science and Environment, alongside a Doctoral School. It is particularly well regarded for law taught under both Macau and Portuguese legal traditions, business administration, nursing and psychology, and it teaches largely in English and Portuguese, drawing a genuinely international student body reflective of Macau's Sino-Portuguese heritage. As a member of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao University Alliance, USJ positions itself as a bridge between mainland China, Macau, and the Portuguese-speaking world, and it particularly suits students seeking a small, English-medium Catholic university with strong law, business, and health-science programmes in a compact, historic setting.

🎯 Fields of study

🏛️ Colleges & schools

🌆 About Macau

Macau is a Special Administrative Region on the western side of the Pearl River estuary, a former Portuguese enclave that returned to China in 1999 and is today the only place in the country where casino gaming is legal. Compact and densely populated, it is famous for a UNESCO-listed historic centre where baroque churches, cobbled squares, and Chinese temples stand side by side, most iconically the Ruins of St. Paul's. The territory has a humid subtropical climate with hot, humid summers and mild winters, and Cantonese, Portuguese, and increasingly English and Mandarin are all in use. Its economy, built on tourism and the integrated resorts of the Cotai Strip, gives it one of the highest per-capita incomes in the world and funds generous public services and student scholarships. Macau is linked to Hong Kong and Zhuhai by the record-breaking Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and has its own international airport on Taipa island. For an international student, Macau offers a uniquely East-meets-West Sino-Portuguese culture, small class sizes, strong tourism and hospitality programmes, and a safe, walkable environment.

💰 Fees & costs

💡 General estimates for international students in China; they vary by major and university, and the official figure is always on the university website.

🛂 Visa requirements by nationality

These are the general steps for the China student visa (X1/X2); details vary by the Chinese embassy in your country.