Access to entry scores 90, agency processing 27. In Berlin, since 2025, you cannot book an appointment yourself: you file through a form and wait between two weeks and three months for the first reply.
Germany is recruiting skilled workers: 163 shortage occupations, about 628,000 unfilled vacancies in 2025, several working entry routes and no salary threshold on the main one. The tough rhetoric and the 2025-2026 returns campaign target asylum seekers and people without status, but tighter integration rules affect legal workers too.
Execution is what breaks, especially in Berlin. Since 2025 you cannot book an immigration office appointment yourself: you fill in an online form and wait anywhere from two weeks to three months for a first reply. The state publishes no refusal figures by purpose of stay, only a total for all national visas: 257,941 refusals out of 1,979,931 in 2025. An address registration (Anmeldung) appointment in Berlin takes about 27 days on average, and without it there is no tax number and no bank account.
Skilled-worker status is fragile. The law gives no grace period on this route if you lose your job: the office may shorten the permit, and the date on the card guarantees nothing; in practice 3-6 months are often granted, but there is no right to it. In the first two years, changing employer needs prior approval from the employment agency and the immigration office, and the new job must be in the same professional field. An objection or lawsuit does not by itself stop the end of lawful residence.
There are strengths too. If you apply for renewal on time, you get a certificate (Fiktionsbescheinigung) that keeps your status and right to work until the decision. A spouse may work without restriction from the day the permit is issued, spouses of skilled workers are exempt from the language and housing proof, and children go to state school for free. But on this route the EU directive allows up to 9 months for a family reunification decision, 3-9 months in practice.
Neobanks open accounts with just a passport and no registration, but some banks refuse citizens of certain countries. There is not and never has been a special tax regime for newcomers: on a salary of $2,500-3,856 a month income tax runs at about 13-19%.
The index score ignores nationality. This is what changes for citizens of specific countries.
Visa-free short stays, as in the rest of the Schengen area. On top of that, US citizens may enter without a visa and apply for a residence permit inside Germany (§ 41 of the Residence Ordinance), skipping the D visa.
A work visa for any occupation without recognition of qualifications: you need a contract with a German employer and approval from the employment agency. The quota is 50,000 applications a year; the rule has applied indefinitely since 1 June 2024.
No permit needed at all: EU free movement rules give the right to live and work.
EU temporary protection is extended to 4 March 2028. Since 31 July 2026 new applicants must show they left in line with their military obligations; people who already hold the status are not affected.
When we checked on 9 August 2026 we found no direct nationality restrictions on the skilled-worker route. For Russian citizens the EU visa facilitation agreement has been suspended since September 2022: applying from Russia costs more, takes longer and is harder. Some banks refuse to open accounts for Russian citizens; other banks can be used instead.
The place interval 42-63 shows where the country lands when the data is nudged and the index is recalculated. One place of difference in the table means nothing; a difference of a league means something.
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The strongest category here is Access to entry: 90 out of 100, against a 97-state average of 65.7. The weakest is Agency processing: 27 against 48.7. Above the world average: 3 out of 7.
All 97 states are calculated for one applicant: 35 years old, income of $2,500 and $3,856 a month before tax, passport not counted, the most accessible route that is actually in use.
Your passport, your income and your family do not change the table. They change which of its lines apply to you. A different income makes entry read differently, a family makes the family category read differently, and your passport makes everything read differently.
There is no binding deadline. In Berlin the path from first contact to the card takes 6-11 months: consulate, immigration office, card production; plus 2-4 months to recognise your degree before applying.
Yes: the freelancer visa (§ 21) or the Opportunity Card to look for work for up to 12 months. There is no digital nomad visa.
D visa €75, first permit €100, renewal €93, half price for children. About €361 per adult and €903 for a family of three over five years.
Yes. A skilled worker who loses their job has no guaranteed grace period: the office may shorten the permit. EU Blue Card holders have it easier, as they are usually given at least 3 months to find work.
Permanent residence after 3 years with A2 German. Citizenship after 5 years with B1 German and a test, dual citizenship allowed; the 3-year fast track was abolished on 30 October 2025.
The state actively recruits skilled workers and the entry bar is low. The pain is in execution: in Berlin you cannot book the immigration office yourself, waits run for months, and in the first two years your status hangs on your employer.
97 states, 26 indicators, seven categories, 2,522 scores. Every score has a source and a source class: primary means the texts of laws and government portals; reliable secondary means reports by international organisations, tax reviews by audit firms and specialist legal publications; weak means community posts and single secondary sources. The classes add up to a confidence level for the country, and a country with low confidence gets neither a score nor a place.
Every indicator is scored against a fixed ruler, not against its neighbours. Adding new countries therefore does not move the old ones, and a change in a score means a change in policy and nothing else.
A high place does not mean a good country. It means one thing: the state machine treats newcomers predictably and by the rules. Living there may be expensive, dull or hot; that is not our question.
Checked 01/10/2026. Facts come from the country's index card and official websites.
We make mistakes and we will go on making them: policy changes faster than any database. Our answer is not a pose of infallibility but a visible trail of corrections. Every correction is published: what it was, what it became, the source and the reason for the error. The corrections log opens with the second issue, together with the first block of changes.