If you are currently undergoing asylum proceedings, you are only permitted to work if this is expressly stated in your residence permit. If you would like to work, you must therefore apply for a work permit from the immigration office. This also applies to vocational training or internships.
If you have been residing in Germany for three months with permission, are no longer required to live in an initial reception center for asylum seekers (also known as an accommodation center, arrival center, or anchor center), and have already found an employer who is willing to hire you, you may be permitted to work.
To process your application, the immigration office will usually involve the Federal Employment Agency, which will check the working conditions. After more than four years of uninterrupted residence in Germany, the Federal Employment Agency no longer needs to be involved.
If you would like to complete vocational training in a company (dual training), you must apply for a work permit for the specific training position on an individual basis. School-based vocational training does not require approval.
The work permit is issued for a limited period for the duration of the approval by the Federal Employment Agency, at the latest until the expiry of the residence permit.
The following restrictions apply:
You are generally prohibited from engaging in gainful employment as long as you are required to live in an initial reception center. You will only be allowed to engage in employment if your asylum procedure has not been completed within nine months.
If you are an asylum seeker 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 you submitted your asylum application after August 31, 2015, you cannot obtain a work permit during the asylum procedure.
Asylum seekers whose asylum applications have been rejected as manifestly unfounded or inadmissible and whose appeals have not been granted suspensive effect also do not have access to the German labor market.
