Germany Jobs for Foreign Workers: Work Visas and the EU Blue Card
A job offer in Germany does not issue a residence title. For the EU Blue Card, Make it in Germany describes a specific offer that meets a minimum length, a qualification match, and a salary threshold. The threshold is an immigration condition for that residence title. It is not a statement of what engineers, nurses, or software workers are usually paid. If the offer does not meet the Blue Card conditions, the same portal points to other work routes, including the work visa for professionals with an academic qualification under section 18b of the Residence Act. Those routes have their own pages.
How a job offer differs from permission to sponsor in other countries is in how to find employers that can sponsor foreign workers. Checking who is asking for money is in how to verify a visa sponsorship job.
What the Blue Card offer has to be
Make it in Germany, describing section 18g, says the offer must be for at least six months and the job must match the qualification. Where the profession is regulated, a licence to practise must be in place or in prospect when the visa is applied for. The qualification and the licence are not the same document, and neither one is the residence title.
The portal states a gross annual salary of at least €50,700 as of 2026. It also describes a lower figure, at least €45,934.20 as of 2026, for cases that need approval from the Federal Employment Agency. The Consular Services Portal of the Federal Foreign Office states the same two amounts as of 2026, and it discusses mathematics, IT, natural sciences, health professions, recent graduates, and IT specialists with several years of experience in separate paragraphs. Those official descriptions of who may use the lower amount are not worded as one identical list. Use the page that matches the application you are making. Do not combine the paragraphs into a single rule, and do not read either amount as a typical wage.
The visa and the card are two applications
The Consular Services Portal says you apply for the Blue Card residence title at the local foreigners authority in Germany, and that you need an entry visa first if your nationality requires one. The entry visa states a purpose of entry. It is not the Blue Card. Make it in Germany directs the visa application to that portal. An official at-a-glance graphic, marked January 2026, says Federal Employment Agency approval is obtained during the visa procedure except where the salary meets the €50,700 threshold, and it gives a visa fee of €75 in local currency. It also says fees for the residence title may add up to €100. Those are government fees on that graphic, not a recruiter’s charge.
IT work is one of the cases the Consular Services Portal describes separately, including a path based on professional experience rather than a degree, with its own salary condition. A software job title does not by itself put an application on that path. The experience, the contract, and the salary still have to match the paragraph that applies.
Read a German offer against the portal
- Confirm the contract length is at least six months if the route is the Blue Card.
- Match the duties to the qualification, and if the profession is regulated, identify the licence to practise as its own requirement.
- Compare the gross annual salary with the 2026 threshold for the case the official page describes, and keep that comparison separate from salary surveys.
- If the lower threshold might apply, read both Make it in Germany and the Consular Services Portal. Do not rely on a summary that merges their categories.
- Plan the entry visa and the later appointment at the foreigners authority as two steps.
Sources
- Make it in Germany: EU Blue Card
- Federal Foreign Office, Consular Services Portal: Blue Card (EU)
- Make it in Germany, at a glance (January 2026): EU Blue Card steps
