Type VII U-boats were the most common type of German World War II U-boat. 703 boats were built by the end of the war. The lone surviving example, U-995, is on display at the Laboe Naval Memorial located in Laboe, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.

The Type VII was based on earlier German submarine designs going back to the World War I Type UB III and especially the cancelled Type UG. The type UG was designed through the Dutch dummy company NV Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw Den Haag (I.v.S) to circumvent the limitations of the Treaty of Versailles, and was built by foreign shipyards. The Finnish Vetehinen class and Spanish Type E-1 also provided some of the basis for the Type VII design. These designs led to the Type VII along with Type I, the latter being built in AG Weser shipyard in Bremen, Germany. The production of Type I was stopped after only two boats; the reasons for this are not certain. The design of the Type I was further used in the development of the Type VII and Type IX.

Type VII submarines were the most widely used U-boats of the war and were the most produced submarine class in history, with 703 built. The type had several modifications. The Type VII was the most numerous U-boat type to be involved in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Подводные лодки типа VII — серия подводных лодок, которые использовались германским ВМФ во время Второй мировой войны (1939—1945 гг.). Самый крупносерийный тип подводных лодок в истории. Из заказанных кригсмарине 1050 подводных лодок этого типа в период с 1935 по 1945 год в строй вошли 703 лодки семи модификаций: 10 лодок модификации VII-A, 24 — модификации VII-B, 572 — модификации VII-C, 87 — модификации VII-C/41, 0 — модификации VII-C/42, 6 — модификации VII-D и 4 лодки модификации VII-F.