Does Germany still have a job seeker visa in 2026?

Not as a route you can apply for from your home country. The Residence Act has no permit called a job seeker visa. People who took their degree, their vocational training, their research post or their recognition procedure in Germany can stay on for up to 18 months to look for work, but that is for people already there. For a job search from abroad, the residence permit is the Opportunity Card. The Consular Services Portal's list of employment visas contains the Opportunity Card and the visas that need a job offer, and no job seeker visa.

What replaced the German job seeker visa, and when?

The Opportunity Card (Chancenkarte). Make it in Germany, the federal portal for skilled workers, lists the introduction of the job search opportunity card under its June 2024 amendments to the Skilled Immigration Act. It is issued for up to a year, it lets you work an average of 20 hours a week and do trial jobs of up to two weeks, and you reach it either as a recognised skilled worker or by scoring at least six points.

Why do so many pages still describe a six-month job seeker visa?

Because some of them have never been updated, and because one official page has not either. The Federal Foreign Office's Visa Navigator still serves a page called Job Seeker (academic) that describes a stay of up to six months with a recognised university degree, although the same navigator's own list of visas does not contain it. Old mission checklists are still online too, some with a monthly funds figure from before 2026. The page you are on links the current sources instead.

I already have a job offer. Do I need the Opportunity Card?

No. The federal questions and answers page says the Opportunity Card is for people who do not yet have an offer of qualified employment. The German Missions in India put it more directly: if you already have a job offer or work contract, apply for the employment visa that matches your training. An offer of up to 20 hours a week is different, because it can serve as your proof of funds for the card rather than replacing it.

Germany Job Seeker Visa in 2026: What Replaced It and Which Route Fits You

If you are looking for Germany’s job seeker visa, you are looking for something the current Residence Act does not contain. There is no permit under that name. Since June 2024, a job search from your home country runs on a different residence permit.

The route is still open. It has a different name, it runs for up to a year rather than the six months most pages still quote, and it lets you work while you search. What changed is which page you should be reading, which document list applies, and how much money you have to show.

So this guide does three things. It explains the two permits people confuse. It explains why the old six-month answer is still everywhere, including on one page belonging to the German Foreign Office itself. Then it sorts the routes by what you already have, so you can go straight to the page that belongs to your situation.

Nothing here decides anything. The German mission you apply to decides, and the foreigners authority decides once you are in Germany.

What you can actually apply for

If you have never studied or trained in Germany and you want to come and look for work, there is one permit for you: the Opportunity Card. It is a residence permit for finding a job, or for getting a foreign qualification recognised. It runs for up to one year at first. During that year you may work up to 20 hours a week on average, and take trial jobs of up to two weeks at a time so an employer can see you work. It arrived in June 2024 with the Skilled Immigration Act, and that is the month your search term stopped describing a live route.

There is a second job-search permit, and it is the one the old pages half-remember. If you finished a degree, a vocational training, a research post or a recognition procedure in Germany, you can stay on and look for work for up to 18 months, working part-time without restriction while you do. It is a good permit, but it exists only for people who were already here. The law’s own name for it is job search after a stay in Germany, Arbeitsplatzsuche im Anschluss an Aufenthalte im Bundesgebiet. It was never a visa you could apply for from abroad, which is why pages that merge the two produce a “six to eighteen months” answer that fits nobody.

Why the old answer is still everywhere

Search for the job seeker visa today and the first federal result is the Opportunity Card page. Below it sit consultancy pages describing a six-month permit as though nothing had happened. They are not the only reason the old answer survives.

German visas are applied for online through the Federal Foreign Office’s Consular Services Portal. Its list of visas for taking up employment has the Opportunity Card, the EU Blue Card, three visas that require a job, a placement-agreement visa and a qualification analysis. It has no job seeker visa.

Yet the same portal runs a Visa Navigator, and one page inside it, Job Seeker (academic), still describes a stay of up to six months to find a job matching your degree. Nothing links to it. The navigator’s own list of visas has no Job Seeker entry at all, so the page is orphaned rather than current. It does carry the portal’s standard warning that any decision will be based on the current version of the Residence Act, and that warning is what settles the question.

Old checklists have the same problem, and a checklist looks authoritative. Some mission PDFs still in circulation give a monthly funds figure from before 2026. If a page or a file tells you what to prove, check the amount against something dated this year before you move any money.

Which route fits what you already have

Sort yourself by what is in your hand today, not by what you hope to hold in a year. Each route ends at an official page, because each is decided by somebody other than us.

No job offer yet, and a qualification finished abroad. This is the Opportunity Card. The German Missions in India put the test in one sentence on their Opportunity Card page: it is the right visa if you intend to work in Germany but have not yet received a job offer or contract. There are two ways in. If your foreign qualification is fully recognised in Germany, you count as a skilled worker and need no points. Otherwise you need a state-recognised degree or a vocational qualification of at least two years, German at A1 or English at B2, and at least six points. Our guide to the Opportunity Card requirements and documents sets out both routes and what proves each condition.

A job offer or contract already in hand. Then this is not your route. The Opportunity Card is for people who do not yet have an offer of qualified employment, as the federal questions and answers spell out, and the Indian missions say the same: with an offer or a contract, you apply for the employment visa that matches your training. The portal lists the employment visas by what you hold, and the EU Blue Card, the skilled-worker visas and the visa for people with work experience each have their own conditions. One exception is worth knowing. An offer of up to 20 hours a week does not push you off the Opportunity Card. It can serve as the proof that you can support yourself during the search.

A training place rather than a job. Vocational training is a separate route with its own visa, and it pays a training allowance while you learn. The Residence Act also allows a stay of up to nine months to look for a training place, for applicants under 35 with a secure livelihood, a qualifying school certificate and sufficient German. Our Ausbildung in Germany guide walks the whole route, and the Ausbildung requirements guide covers what applicants from outside the EU have to show.

A study place, or the search for one. The same nine months are available to apply for a university place. Study is not a job-search route, and the Opportunity Card is not the visa for it. The portal’s study and training visas are where that starts.

A qualification you earned in Germany. Then the stay-on permit is yours, not the Opportunity Card, and it is better: up to 18 months, and part-time work without restriction while you look.

Still not sure. The federal Quick-Check starts from why you want to come, and the Visa Navigator asks a few questions and names a visa. Both are federal services, not commercial ones, and neither of them is us.

What the Opportunity Card actually gives you

A year, if your funds cover a year. Twenty hours of work a week on average, and trial jobs of up to two weeks so an employer can see you work before hiring you. Permission to look for a recognition measure as well as for a job, which matters if your qualification is only partly recognised.

It also has a second stage that the six-month framing never had. If you find a contract or a binding job offer for qualified employment during the year and the Federal Employment Agency agrees, the card can be extended by up to two more years as a follow-up card, for people who do not yet meet the conditions for one of the other employment permits.

The money side is the part readers underestimate. You have to show a secure livelihood for the period you apply for, and the published figure is 1,091 euros net a month, the amount applicable in 2026. That is money you show, not money you spend. Our Opportunity Card cost guide separates the two, and the application guide covers the online portal, the appointment and the deadlines that quietly delete an application.

Two questions with no honest answer

Your chances. People search for a success rate for this visa. No German authority publishes one, so anybody quoting a percentage is quoting a number they do not have. What does exist is one observation from the German Missions in India: since the Opportunity Card was introduced, job seekers who travel to Germany without having researched the available jobs and possible employers rarely find work there, and at least some German has proved very helpful. That is the closest thing to advice on your chances that comes from the people processing the applications, and it is about preparation, not luck.

How long it takes. The mission decides, and processing times differ by mission and by season. No page can promise you a date, including this one.

Where German fits

On the points route, German is worth points: one at A2, two at B1, three at B2 or above. The points calculator on this site shows what your own answers add up to under the published table, in your browser, with nothing sent anywhere. It is unofficial and it decides nothing.

Language matters after the visa too, in a way the points table does not capture. Twenty hours of permitted work a week is only useful if you can be interviewed. The missions’ remark about German helping is about the job search, not the application.

Your next step

If you have no offer yet, start with the Opportunity Card requirements and documents guide to find out which of the two routes applies to you, then run the free points calculator if it is the points route. Read the current funds figure on the Consular Services Portal or your own mission’s page before you transfer anything, because that is the figure your application is measured against.

If a training place is the plan instead, Ausbildung in Germany is the route in order, from choosing an occupation to the correct visa page.

If your route is settled and the German is what is missing, which B1 exam to take explains what the level means and which certificate proves it, and both guides are free here.