Neither the federal government nor any other state agency has a clear picture of whether short‑term work migrants from developing countries leave Germany again.
Research by “Welt am Sonntag” shows that a new legal framework was introduced in 2024, which allows up to 25,000 foreigners without qualifications or language skills to take part in a “short‑term contingent employment” in Germany each year.
If a person does not come from a visa‑free country and wants to use this regulation, they must first obtain approval from the Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit, BA). The BA checks whether a concrete German employer actually intends to hire the individual. The applicant must also secure a visa from the Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt). With both approvals, a work assignment of up to eight months is permitted.
The BA told “Welt am Sonntag” that it granted 14,963 approvals last year under paragraph 15d of the Employment Regulation. It does not record how many of those approvals actually resulted in employment, nor does it track how many migrants who arrived since the new regulation in March 2024 have departed again.
According to the Foreign Office, not all applicants who receive BA approval are granted a visa. In 2025, the ministry reported that roughly 7,650 national visas were issued in this context, indicating that the regulation is still underused. Since the introduction, the main source countries of applicants have been Vietnam, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Kosovo, Uzbekistan, and Turkey. Both the BA and the Foreign Office do not register whether these individuals return home after the agreed period or remain in Germany; this information is simply “not captured”.
The BA and Foreign Office point to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) and the higher Interior Ministry for any potential data on this migrant group. However, neither of those authorities records entries and exits. The BAMF reports that only a small fraction of these migrants appear in the Foreign Nationals Central Register.
It is unknown to any state agency to what extent short‑term employment of unqualified individuals leads, through subsequent residence permits for vocational training or asylum applications, to permanent immigration. The BAMF does, however, note that about one in six asylum seekers initially arrives on a visa before submitting a protection claim. In the first nine months of the previous year, of 87,787 asylum applicants, 13,700 had entered Germany with a visa.