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The rules feed
What changed, and what it means for you
Every figure that decides whether a route is open to you — the salary you must be offered, the money you must show, the trades a government counts as short. Each one is dated, each one links to the official page it came from, and each one says which pages here carry it.
This is not a news page. We log a change only when we can point at the official page it came from, so the list is short on purpose. If you have heard a rule has changed and it is not here, we have not been able to verify it yet — not that it is untrue.
7 entries shown.
- 3 November 2026Date we checked the sourceGermanyHow many people came throughTradesService
Germany: how many Opportunity Cards have actually been issued
11,497 Opportunity Cards were issued in the first 13 months of the route. India was the largest single nationality, with 3,721.
- 3 November 2026Date we checked the sourceGermanyHow many people came throughTradesServiceStudent
Germany: qualification recognition applications in 2024
About 71,000 applications for recognition of a foreign qualification were filed in 2024, around 14 per cent more than the year before.
- 3 November 2026Date we checked the sourceGermanyShortage listTrades
Germany: which skilled trades are counted as short
The Federal Employment Agency assessed 68 of 177 skilled trade occupations as having a shortage, including electrical trades, heating and sanitary installation, and automotive technology.
- 1 January 2026Figure applies from this dateGermanySalary thresholdService
Germany: EU Blue Card general salary threshold for 2026
The general threshold is a gross annual salary of EUR 50,700.
- 1 January 2026Figure applies from this dateGermanySalary thresholdService
Germany: reduced Blue Card threshold for shortage fields and new graduates
The reduced threshold is a gross annual salary of EUR 45,934.20. It applies in shortage occupations (STEM and healthcare), to IT specialists without a degree, and to people who graduated less than three years ago.
- 1 January 2026Figure applies from this dateGermanyMoney you must showStudent
Germany: student blocked account for 2026
A student visa applicant must show about EUR 11,904 in a blocked account, released at about EUR 992 per month after arrival.
- 1 January 2026Figure applies from this dateGermanyMoney you must showTradesService
Germany: proof of funds for the Opportunity Card
An Opportunity Card applicant must show at least EUR 1,091 net per month, which is EUR 13,092 for a full year, or a formal declaration of commitment from someone in Germany.
How to read the dates
Three kinds of date appear in this feed, and we label which one you are looking at. Figure applies from this date means the source states the figure for that period. Date the source was published means the official page carries that date itself. Date we checked the source means the page carries no date we can quote, so we show the day we read it instead. We never show a date we cannot explain, and every entry says in one sentence where its date comes from.
The newest entry in this feed is dated 3 November 2026. For the age of every individual source behind the site, see the evidence index. For how we decide what to publish at all, see how we work.