Blue Card or skilled worker visa? Which route is yours

Three routes, one definition underneath

German law starts from a single definition. Under § 18 (3) AufenthG a *skilled worker* is someone with either a qualified vocational training or a university degree. Which permit you apply for follows from which of the two you hold, and from what the job pays.

• § 18a — skilled workers with vocational training
• § 18b — skilled workers with academic training
• § 18g — the EU Blue Card

What each route asks you to prove

For § 18a, your foreign vocational qualification must have been assessed as equivalent to the German one. That is the recognition procedure, and for this route it is unavoidable.

For § 18b, your university degree must be comparable to a German degree — usually established via the anabin database or a ZAB statement rather than a full recognition procedure.

Both are normally granted for four years, unless your employment contract runs shorter.

The Blue Card and the numbers that gate it

The EU Blue Card under § 18g is the academic route with a salary condition attached: a university degree and gross pay of at least 50,700 euros in 2026, or 45,934.20 euros in shortage occupations. Miss the threshold and the Blue Card is simply closed to you, however good your degree.

It is not a niche title: at the end of 2025 the Blue Card was the most common residence permit held by foreign workers in Germany.

The advantage that decides more cases than salary does

If you are moving with a partner, one provision often outweighs the rest. A spouse joining an EU Blue Card holder is exempt from the A1 German requirement that otherwise applies before entry (§ 30 (1) sentence 3 no. 5 AufenthG).

In practice that can be the difference between your family arriving with you and your family arriving a year later, after a language course. People compare gross salaries and overlook this — it belongs in the same calculation.

The rule change that widened everything

One simplification now applies across the skilled worker routes: you may take any qualified employment. The job no longer has to relate to the field you trained or studied in.

That matters more than it sounds. A mechanical engineer can take a qualified role in logistics; a trained electrician is not confined to electrical work. If you were assuming your options were narrow, they are wider than they were.

Deciding, briefly

Take the Blue Card if you clear the degree and salary conditions — the family exemption alone usually justifies it. Take § 18b if you hold a comparable degree but the salary falls short, and § 18a if your background is vocational and your qualification has been recognised.

In every case you need a concrete job offer before applying. Finding the employer and getting the paperwork to line up is the part we take on; our work is free for you, and the employer pays our fee.