Germany EU Blue Card: Salary, Qualification and the Job Offer
The EU Blue Card for Germany is a residence title for a specific job. It is not permanent residence, and the salary on the rule is an immigration threshold, not a typical German wage. The entry visa, if you need one, is also not the card. You apply for the title at the local foreigners authority after you enter for that purpose. The figures below are from the Federal Foreign Office consular portal on 25 September 2026, marked there as of 2026. Looking for work in Germany, and the other work visas that exist if this one does not fit, is covered in Germany jobs for foreign workers.
The qualification and the contract
For a university degree, the degree must be recognised or comparable in Germany, and the employment contract must be appropriate to that qualification. A tertiary qualification that is equivalent to a university degree can also be the basis. It has to be at least level 6 of ISCED 2011 or level 6 of the European Qualifications Framework, shown on the recognition notice. A regulated profession, such as medicine or law, also needs a licence to practise. The federal portal Anerkennung in Deutschland is where that licence question is answered. A contract alone does not replace recognition.
The 2026 salary thresholds
The general minimum is €50,700 gross a year. A lower minimum of €45,934.20 applies in two situations described on the same page. One is employment in mathematics, IT, natural sciences and technology, or in human medicine and other health professions. The other is a degree or tertiary programme completed no more than three years ago. In either of those lower-threshold cases, the Federal Employment Agency must approve the employment. Do not treat every technical job, or every recent graduate, as automatically inside the lower figure. The page ties the lower figure to those fields or to that three-year completion rule, and then to agency approval.
IT specialists
A separate tile covers IT specialists who rely on experience rather than the degree route. You need at least three years of IT professional experience gained in the last seven years, a contract in information and communications technology, and the same €45,934.20 gross a year, as of 2026. That experience route is not the recent-graduate rule, and it is not the general €50,700 rule.
What this title is not
If the qualification, the match between job and qualification, or the salary is missing, the Blue Card is not the route. The portal points to other visas for academic employment or for skilled workers with professional training. Those are different applications. A later settlement permit, if you want to stay without this title, has its own conditions and is not granted by the Blue Card itself.
Some German missions use an external service provider to take in applications, and that provider may charge a fee. That fee is not the salary threshold. The mission tells you during the application whether it applies.
Sources
- Federal Foreign Office: The Blue Card (EU)
