Policy · 6 min read
Chancenkarte, six months in
Germany's points-based opportunity visa opened in June 2024. The first official totals from the Bundesagentur für Arbeit are now in — and they tell a different story from the policy press releases.
By Klaus Bergmann · January 20, 2025
Klaus Bergmann
Berlin Bureau · Berlin, DE
The Chancenkarte opened on 1 June 2024 as part of the Fachkräfteeinwanderungsgesetz package. The policy premise is that a points-based route — language, qualifications, work experience, age, Germany-connection — opens a legal front door for qualified non-EU jobseekers.
The first six-month totals from the Bundesagentur für Arbeit were released in December 2024. 2,089 Chancenkarten were issued. Of those, 1,443 holders had entered Germany at the time of release.
The policy was costed on an expected 50,000 issuances per year. The first six months are tracking at roughly 8% of the costed rate.
The three biggest reasons we found, from interviews with 24 Chancenkarte holders across Berlin, Hamburg and Munich: the German-language B1 threshold on the standard scoring; the equivalence-recognition requirement (ZAB — the Zentrale Stelle für die Anerkennung ausländischer Berufsqualifikationen); and the slow build-out of the Konsulat appointment capacity in the sending countries.
The illegalin.eu career-consultants directory, when it opens, will prioritise employers who sponsor Chancenkarte holders through to the signed-contract phase — the operational bottleneck that the policy framework itself does not solve.