Foreign professionals who have completed university or vocational training in Germany can obtain an indefinite residence permit after two years of qualified work in the country.
The current version of §18c Aufenthaltsgesetz provides for a special shortened term for those who have successfully completed vocational training or studies at an institution of higher education directly in Germany. For such specialists, the required period of stay with a qualified work permit is two years, and the required period of payment of contributions to pension insurance is 24 months.
At the same time, the official German portal for foreign professionals Make it in Germany clarifies that this preferential rule is not completely new: it already operated within the framework of a special regime for graduates of German universities and vocational education institutions and was preserved after the reform of immigration legislation. For other skilled workers, the standard period for obtaining permanent status is three years, not five.
To use the two-year path to permanent residence, a foreigner must have a residence permit for at least two years as a skilled worker, researcher or holder of an EU Blue Card under the relevant articles of the law. It is also necessary to work in a position that meets the conditions of a residence permit, to pay contributions to the state pension insurance for at least 24 months, to speak German at the B1 level, to have basic knowledge of the legal and social system of Germany and to have sufficient living space.
For EU Blue Card holders, separate, even faster rules apply. A permanent residence permit can be obtained after 27 months of skilled work, and after 21 months for knowledge of the German language at the B1 level.
In recent years, Germany has been gradually simplifying the attraction and retention of foreign specialists against the background of a shortage of personnel. In particular, the reform of the Skilled Immigration Act expanded entry opportunities for skilled workers, introduced the Opportunity Card for job hunting, and eased a number of procedures for Blue Card holders and their family members.
According to the German Federal Statistical Office Destatis, by the end of 2025, 14.07 million citizens of other states were registered in the Central Register of Foreigners living in Germany. Approximately 5 million of them were citizens of EU countries, and another 4.6 million had the citizenship of other European states.
The largest single group of foreign citizens remained the citizens of Turkey - 1.520 million people. In second place were citizens of Ukraine - 1.410 million, followed by citizens of Syria - 936 thousand, Romania - 904 thousand, Poland - 840 thousand and Italy - 629 thousand. Germany also had about 450 thousand citizens of Afghanistan, 422 thousand citizens of Bulgaria, 413 thousand citizens of Croatia and more than 311 thousand citizens of India.
The number of citizens of India increased by 34,000. At the same time, the number of citizens of Syria decreased by 39,000, Poland and Turkey - by approximately 25,000 in each case, Russia - by 18,000.If you count not by citizenship, but by country of birth, the picture is somewhat different. In 2025, 16.4 million people who immigrated to the country lived in Germany. The largest groups were born in Poland and Turkey - about 1.5 million people each, in Ukraine - 1.3 million, in Russia and Syria - about 1 million each. These five countries accounted for about 39% of all immigrants who lived in Germany. In total, about 21.8 million residents of the country had their own migration experience or were direct descendants of immigrants.
Thus, Ukrainians today are the second largest group of foreign citizens in Germany after Turkish citizens and one of the three largest groups of immigrants by country of birth.
