After you graduate
Rules read 16 Aug 2026
What Germany's own immigration authority currently publishes. Not a ranking, not a guarantee, and not the same as what any agent or forum will tell you. Whether someone actually obtains residence depends on occupation, points, funds and policy that can change between application and graduation.
Money you must prove before the visa
€11,904per year — the mission publishes it both ways, as 992,00 Euro pro Monat and 11.904,00 Euro pro Jahr, and says the proof normally has to cover the first year of the planned stay
Paid into a blocked account before you travel, and released to you in monthly instalments once you arrive.
Figure published for: 10.04.2025, the date the Federal Foreign Office carries on this page, and still stated there as the amount required when read on 19 August 2026. The figure is the BAföG maximum support rate, which the Auswärtiges Amt says the deposit is based on, so it moves when that rate moves. This amount is revised regularly, so check it again before you transfer anything.
A Sperrkonto is one accepted way to show the money, not the only one: the Auswärtiges Amt also accepts evidence of the parents' income and assets, a Verpflichtungserklärung (a formal undertaking under §§ 66-68 AufenthG by someone living in Germany), or an annually renewable bank guarantee lodged with a German bank. Someone applying as a Studienbewerber/in (applicant for a study place, § 17 II AufenthG) rather than an enrolled student must show a higher 1.091,00 Euro per month. A scholarship counts toward the requirement, but where it is worth less than 992,00 Euro a month the shortfall still has to be evidenced separately. Only 1/12 of the deposited total may be withdrawn per month, and at the visa appointment the mission accepts only an official account-opening confirmation naming both the total paid in and the monthly available amount. Blocked-account provider fees are payable on top of the blocked sum.
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Germany also requires proof of health cover for this visa. See what's required →
Work during study
International students on a residence permit for study purposes may generally work up to 120 full days or 240 half days per year without needing separate permission from the immigration or labour authorities, and may also take on student ancillary jobs (studentische Nebentätigkeiten — e.g. a student-assistant role at their own institution) which are not counted against that limit. In exceptional cases, the Ausländerbehörde (immigration office) responsible for the applicant's place of study can restrict this.
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Post-study work visa
Aufenthaltserlaubnis zur Arbeitsplatzsuche nach Studienabschluss (residence permit to seek employment after graduation, Section 20 Residence Act) . Up to 18 months
After successfully completing a degree or doctorate at a German higher education institution, a graduate can obtain a residence permit for up to 18 months to look for a job for any qualified employment. Any kind of work is permitted during this job-search period, and the applicant must be able to show their living costs are covered for it. (A separate, later 'Chancenkarte' route of up to 1 year exists for someone who later loses a follow-on job and needs to search again.)
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Route to permanent residence
A graduate who completes a degree or doctorate at a German higher education institution and then works for two years in a job matching that qualification can obtain a settlement permit (unbefristeter Aufenthaltstitel) — an unlimited, permanent residence title. This particular route does not apply to someone holding a residence permit for research purposes. Separately, a graduate with a concrete job offer meeting the required minimum salary threshold has a statutory right to be issued an EU Blue Card.
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Route to citizenship
Naturalisation (Einbürgerung) is governed by the federal Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz (StAG) and administered by each Land's own naturalisation authority, with BAMF publishing the citizen-facing requirements. As of this reading the standard route requires 5 years of habitual, lawful residence in Germany — reduced from 8 years by the reform that took effect 27 June 2024. A shorter 3-year route for exceptional integration achievements existed briefly after that reform (StAG §10(3)) but was itself repealed effective 30 October 2025, confirmed by the current official law text simply marking that paragraph '(weggefallen)' (lapsed) — so 5 years is again the uniform minimum for every applicant rather than one of two tracks. Applicants must also hold secure residence status, be able to support themselves and any dependants without core social-assistance benefits, have no relevant criminal conviction, demonstrate German at CEFR level B1, and pass the Einbürgerungstest (a 33-question test on Germany's legal and social order, history and the applicant's own Land; 17 correct answers required). Since 27 June 2024, Germany accepts multiple nationality for every applicant, not only EU/Swiss nationals as the pre-reform rule allowed: naturalising no longer requires giving up an applicant's existing citizenship — though whether that other country's own law actually lets the person keep it remains outside Germany's control.
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What the government currently prioritises
The most concrete, actionable shortage signal for this dataset's students is Germany's EU Blue Card (Blaue Karte EU, a residence title under Section 18g of the Residence Act for someone with an academic degree and a job offer matching that qualification): it is granted at a reduced minimum gross annual salary when the job is in a recognised shortage occupation (Mangelberuf) or the applicant graduated within the last 3 years — EUR 45,934.20 for 2026 (the 'kleine'/small Blue Card), versus EUR 50,700 for the standard 'große'/large Blue Card, both set by the Bundesagentur für Arbeit and adjusted annually. The Bundesagentur's own current examples of shortage occupations qualifying for the reduced threshold explicitly include: academic specialists in mathematics, computer science, natural science and technology ('Mathematik, Informatik, Naturwissenschaft und Technik', MINT — a category covering engineering under 'Technik'); academic specialists in architecture and spatial/transport planning; doctors ('Ärztinnen und Ärzte'), dentists, vets and pharmacists; and academic nursing/midwifery specialists. A further special rule lets an IT specialist qualify for the reduced-threshold Blue Card without a university degree at all, given at least 3 years of relevant, academic-level professional experience within the last 7 years. The reduced threshold requires the Bundesagentur für Arbeit to first check that pay and working conditions match those of comparable domestic employees; the standard threshold needs no such check. Separately, the Bundesagentur's annual shortage-occupation analysis (Fachkräfteengpassanalyse) found 157 occupations in shortage in its 2025 edition, concentrated in nursing/healthcare, construction and skilled trades — a broader, non-Blue-Card-specific measure that changes year to year (it found IT-sales and software-development shortages had ended compared with the prior year, while a new shortage appeared in surveying-engineering).
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Two different day-count rules should not be confused: the 120-full-days/240-half-days limit above applies to a residence permit for study purposes (enrolled degree students). A separate, unrelated day limit applies to residence permits for study-preparation stays (e.g. attending a language course before enrolling), which is not the rule described here. make-it-in-germany.com — the Federal Government's official skilled-migration portal, which publishes much of this same material in English — returned an automated bot-verification challenge to this collector's non-browser fetch tools and so could not be archived and cited directly; every figure in this entry is instead cited to BAMF and Auswärtiges Amt pages, which independently state the same rules. Read 16 August 2026. Deepening pass, 17 August 2026: inDemandOccupations replaced with EU Blue Card salary-threshold detail, per the project brief's explicit ask for a country whose reduced threshold is tied to named shortage professions. Cited to arbeitsagentur.de (the Bundesagentur für Arbeit's own ZAV international-placement newsletter page), an already-allowlisted Germany domain — no domain change needed. The 2026 figures (EUR 50,700 standard / EUR 45,934.20 reduced) and the shortage-occupation category names (MINT academics, architecture/planning academics, doctors, dentists, vets, pharmacists, academic nursing/midwifery, plus the IT-specialist-without-degree carve-out) are this page's own words, not a conversion from another currency/scale. Note precisely what 'MINT' covers: it is the Bundesagentur's own umbrella term for mathematics, computer science (Informatik), natural science and technology (Technik) graduates — it names the category, not the word 'Ingenieur'/engineer literally, though Technik is understood to include engineering; this entry says so explicitly rather than overclaiming a literal citation. The prior Fachkräfteengpassanalyse content (157 shortage occupations, 2025 edition) was kept as a second, shorter paragraph rather than deleted, since it remains accurate and gives a broader (non-Blue-Card) shortage signal. citizenshipRoute added 17 August 2026: the 5-year figure and B1/Einbürgerungstest conditions are cited to bamf.de's own 'Einbürgerung in Deutschland' page (896146c8106c6a83, read the same day this note was written, so it reflects the post-30-October-2025 rule). The repeal of the 3-year fast track was independently confirmed against the current official law text of StAG §10 on gesetze-im-internet.de (5e754a29c205e76e, already an allowed Germany domain by virtue of being added this pass — see IMMIGRATION_DOMAINS), which shows paragraphs (3) and (3a) both marked '(weggefallen)'. The dual-nationality statement ('Seit dem 27.06.2024 werden alle Staatsangehörigen unter Hinnahme von Mehrstaatigkeit eingebürgert') is cited to auswaertiges-amt.de (18cff8083a4e04bb), an already-allowed Germany domain, rather than bamf.de, since BAMF's own citizen-facing page does not itself state the Mehrstaatigkeit rule in as much detail. bmi.bund.de — the ministry that owns this policy — returned HTTP 400 to every fetch attempt this pass (both the project's default fetcher and WebFetch) on several different URLs tried, so it could not be used despite being an already-allowed domain; a future collector with different network conditions should retry it. naturalisationStatus set to 'published-route' on 18 August 2026: the authority already cited under citizenshipRoute publishes criteria a foreign resident could actually follow, which is the only claim this field makes. It is deliberately not a judgement about how attainable that route is in practice. studentVisaFunds added 19 August 2026. The Auswärtiges Amt's own central Sperrkonto page (snapshot d25a23872dd8b603) deliberately publishes no number: it says the amount 'variiert je nach Aufenthaltszweck', is based on the BAföG maximum rates, and tells the applicant to look it up 'auf der Webseite der zuständigen Auslandsvertretung bzw. im Auslandsportal' — its English twin (64a22d6737946bc0) says the same. The figure is therefore cited to a German mission's own page on diplo.de, the Federal Foreign Office's domain for its embassies and consulates and the body that actually issues the national visa, which is why diplo.de was added to Germany's IMMIGRATION_DOMAINS this pass. The Paris embassy page was chosen because it states the monthly and the annual figure in one sentence and also carries the Studienbewerber and scholarship conditions. Three further missions were archived the same day as an independent cross-check and all state the same rate: Quito (ab3cb26e3eff1eeb) '12 x 992,- = 11.904,- €', Tiflis (2185f74496cc1197) 'der jeweils gültige BaföG-Satz, der aktuell 992,-- Euro beträgt', and Tashkent (55cad36d3daedc62) '11.904 Euro für das gesamte erste Jahr'. The widely-circulated 11.208 Euro figure is the pre-September-2024 rate and was not used; the Auswärtiges Amt's own FAQ page on study financing (d7cc582456ad8fde) no longer prints any figure at all. make-it-in-germany.com, though allowlisted, again returned a JavaScript/bot-challenge stub of 93 characters to plain HTTP fetching and so could not be archived.
Open the immigration authority's own page ↗You will need a blocked account for this visa. Open one (partner link)
