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Schools: trilingual public, European or international?
The Luxembourg system teaches literacy in German, public European schools are free, ISL costs €25,000/year: how to choose.
The public system, asset and trap
Luxembourg's public school is genuinely trilingual: literacy in German, French introduced later, Luxembourgish in daily life. For a child arriving young, it's a gift. For a child arriving at 10 without German, it's tough — welcome classes exist, but the track choice deserves planning before the move, not after.
The public European schools
The recent game-changer: accredited public "European" schools (Differdange, Junglinster, Mondorf, Clervaux, Mersch…) offer English and French sections free of charge up to the European Baccalaureate. They transformed the equation for international families on normal budgets — and explain part of the schools-score appeal of communes like Differdange or Junglinster.
Private international and the border side
ISL and St George's (English-speaking, ~€20,000–27,000/year) remain the expat-package choices; the Kirchberg European School prioritises EU-institution families. On the border side, the French lycées of Thionville and Metz, Arlon's Belgian schools and Trier's Gymnasien offer classic national education — often the deciding factor when one parent doesn't work in Luxembourg.
