Applying for an employment permit for persons with tolerated status

If you are a tolerated resident in Germany, you are only permitted to work if this is expressly stated in your toleration permit (certificate of suspension of deportation). If you wish to work, you must therefore apply for an employment permit from the Foreigners' Registration Office.

If the foreigners authority had authorised employment during the asylum procedure, the foreigners authority must make a new decision on the employment permit after the enforceable rejection of the asylum application.

In this case, the foreigners authority should authorise tolerated persons to work (including training) if there are no grounds for refusal. The authorisation of employment is noted in the tolerated stay permit.

Tolerated persons who are obliged to live in a reception centre only have access to the labour market after six months.

In order to process your application, the foreigners authority usually involves the Federal Employment Agency, which checks 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 an in-company vocational training programme (dual training), you must apply individually for an employment permit for the specific training position. School-based vocational training does not require authorisation.

The employment permit will be issued for the maximum duration of your current tolerated stay permit. If the requirements are met, this can be extended accordingly when the tolerated stay is renewed.

The pursuit of gainful employment is generally prohibited if

• You have travelled to Germany in order to obtain benefits under the Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act,
• Your residence cannot be terminated for reasons for which you are responsible or you have violated your duty to co-operate in removing the obstacle to deportation (e.g. insufficient co-operation in obtaining a passport or proof of identity, deception about identity or nationality),
• the tolerated stay was issued with the addition "tolerated stay for persons with unclear identity".

If you are 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 have submitted an application for asylum after 31 August 2015 that was rejected or withdrawn, unless the withdrawal was based on a consultation with the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, you cannot obtain a work permit. This also applies if you come from Georgia or the Republic of Moldova and have applied for asylum after 30 August 2023. Even without an asylum application, people from safe countries of origin cannot obtain an employment permit.