If you are residing in Germany under a ‘Duldung’ (certificate of suspension of deportation), you are only permitted to work if this is expressly stated in your ‘Duldung’. If you wish to work, you must therefore apply to the Foreigners’ Registration Office for a work permit.

If the Foreigners’ Registration Office had authorised employment during the asylum procedure, it must make a new decision on whether to grant a work permit following the final rejection of the asylum application.

In this case, the Immigration Authority should grant persons with temporary leave to remain permission to work (including vocational training) provided there are no grounds for refusal. The authorisation to work is noted on the temporary leave to remain document.

When processing your application, the Foreigners’ Registration Office usually involves the Federal Employment Agency, which checks the working conditions. After an uninterrupted stay in Germany of more than four years, the Federal Employment Agency no longer needs to be involved.

If you wish to undertake in-company vocational training (dual training), you must apply separately for a work permit for the specific training place. School-based vocational training does not require a permit.

The work permit is granted for a maximum period corresponding to the duration of your current temporary residence status. Where the relevant conditions are met, this may be extended accordingly when your temporary residence status is renewed.

Taking up gainful employment is generally prohibited if

• you have come to Germany to receive benefits under the Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act,
• your removal cannot be enforced for reasons for which you yourself are responsible, or you have breached your obligation to cooperate in removing the obstacle to removal (for example, insufficient cooperation in obtaining a passport or proof of identity, or providing false information regarding your identity or nationality),
• the tolerated stay was granted with the addition ‘tolerated stay for persons of unknown identity’.

If you are from a so-called ‘safe country of origin’, i.e. a Member State of the European Union, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ghana, Kosovo, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (North Macedonia), Montenegro, Senegal or Serbia, and have submitted an asylum application after 31 August 2015 which has been rejected or withdrawn – unless the withdrawal was made following advice from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees – you cannot be granted a work permit. This also applies if you are from Georgia or the Republic of Moldova and submitted your asylum application after 30 August 2023.

If you are from Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, Kosovo, India, Morocco or Turkey, you cannot obtain a work permit unless you were already residing in Germany on a tolerated basis by 6 May 2025 or were in possession of a permit to carry out gainful employment on 11 June 2026.

Even without having applied for asylum, people from safe countries of origin cannot obtain a work permit.

Persons with tolerated status who are required to live in a reception centre may gain access to the labour market after six months, unless specific measures to terminate their residence are imminent. A different rule applies to people who submitted their asylum application after 11 June 2026 and who were already permitted to work during the preceding asylum procedure.