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Is this role a shortage occupation in Germany?
Search any job title against the official Engpassberufe list published by the Bundesagentur für Arbeit for 2025.
German and English titles both work.
The full 2025 list
Every occupation on the Bundesagentur für Arbeit's official shortage list, alphabetically.
- Aerospace technology
- Agricultural & construction machinery technology
- Agriculture
- Auditing
- Automation technology
- Aviation, marine & automotive electronics
- Bakers & confectioners
- Bookkeeping & accounting
- Building construction
- Building electrics
- Building planning & site supervision
- Building services engineering
- Building-materials production
- Building-materials testing
- Bus & tram drivers
- Chain / quick-service restaurants
- Chefs / cooks
- Civil engineering / groundworks
- Computer engineering / technical IT
- Construction accounting & cost estimation
- Cost accounting & calculation
- Curative education care & special-needs education
- Dairy production
- Dental assistants
- Dental technology
- Dentists & orthodontists
- Dietetics & nutrition therapy
- Disinfection & pest control
- Driving instructors
- Early-years education & childcare
- Electrical engineering
- Electrical machinery technology
- Electrical plant operation technology
- Emergency medical services / paramedics
- Facility management
- Flooring installation
- Food production
- Food service & restaurants (specialised)
- Fruit & vegetable growing
- Garden, landscape & sports-ground construction
- Glazing
- Hearing-aid acoustics
- HGV / truck drivers (freight transport)
- Home & family care
- Horticulture
- Hotel service
- In-company training & vocational pedagogy
- Insulation
- Insurance clerks / brokers
- IT / computer science
- Law firm & notary assistants
- Livestock farming
- Meat processing
- Mechatronics
- Medical assistants (physician's office)
- Medical technology
- Medical-technical professions — radiology (MTR)
- Metal construction
- Metal surface treatment
- Motor-vehicle technology
- Non-medical therapy & healing practice (specialised)
- Nursing professions
- Occupational safety & security engineering
- Occupational therapy
- Optics / opticians
- Orthopaedic & rehabilitation technology
- Paint & coating technology
- Paviors / stonesetters
- Physicians (other specialisation)
- Physiotherapy
- Pipeline & cable installation & maintenance
- Pipeline construction
- Plant, tank & apparatus construction
- Plastics & rubber production
- Plumbing, heating & air-conditioning
- Podiatrists / chiropodists
- Pool & lifeguard supervision
- Property/personal protection, fire safety & occupational safety (specialised)
- Rail infrastructure monitoring & maintenance
- Rail-track construction
- Rail-traffic operations monitoring
- Refrigeration technology
- Restaurant & food service
- Retail sales — electrical & household goods
- Retail sales — food
- Retail sales — furniture & furnishings
- Retail sales — jewellery & watches
- Retail sales — meat products
- Retail sales — office supplies, gifts & toys
- Retail sales (specialised)
- Road & asphalt construction
- Roller-shutter & blind construction
- Roofing
- Sales — bakery & confectionery
- Sales — food (specialised)
- Sales — medical & sanitary supplies
- Scaffolding construction
- Sewer & tunnel construction
- Sheet-metal working / plumbing
- Ship masters — inland & port shipping
- Signage & illuminated-advertising production
- Singers
- Social work & social pedagogy
- Specialist physicians — anaesthesiology
- Specialist physicians — internal medicine
- Specialist physicians — neurology, psychiatry & psychotherapy
- Specialist physicians — paediatrics
- Specialist physicians — surgery
- Speech therapy
- Stonemasonry
- Supervisors — automotive, aerospace & shipbuilding
- Supervisors — building construction
- Supervisors — building planning, site supervision & architecture
- Supervisors — building services engineering
- Supervisors — civil engineering
- Supervisors — education & social work
- Supervisors — electrical engineering
- Supervisors — food & beverage production
- Supervisors — food preparation
- Supervisors — food service & restaurants
- Supervisors — horticulture
- Supervisors — interior fit-out, drywall, insulation, carpentry & glazing
- Supervisors — medical, orthopaedic & rehabilitation technology
- Supervisors — metal construction & welding
- Supervisors — personal care services
- Supervisors — plumbing, heating & air-conditioning
- Supervisors — retail sales
- Supervisors — warehousing, delivery & freight handling
- Supervisors — woodworking & processing
- Surgical & medical-technical assistance
- Surveying technology
- Tax advisory
- Technical research & development
- Technical service staff — maintenance & repair
- Tyre & vulcanisation technology
- Veterinarians
- Veterinary assistants
- Vocational-school teachers
- Welding & joining technology
- Window & glass cleaning
What shortage status does — and doesn’t — decide
Shortage status is useful, but it is one input among several. It is easy to assume it settles the visa question. It doesn’t.
What it helps with
- • Supports the labour-market assessment for a work permit
- • Earns points under the Chancenkarte
- • Signals where Germany is actively short of people
What it doesn’t settle
- • Which permit route the candidate should take
- • Whether a foreign qualification is recognised in Germany
- • What salary the role has to pay
- • Whether the application will be approved
The routes, briefly
The EU Blue Card is the best-known route but not the only one, and it is not restricted to particular occupations. It needs a recognised university degree — or, for IT specialists, several years of relevant experience instead — plus a salary meeting the applicable threshold (€50,700 for 2026, or €45,934.20 where the reduced threshold applies).
If the salary or the degree doesn’t fit, that is not the end of the hire. Skilled worker permits under §18a and §18b AufenthG have no minimum salary, and the Chancenkarte and the Recognition Partnership under §16d cover further situations. Which one applies is a case-by-case question.
FAQ for HR teams
What is a shortage occupation (Engpassberuf) in Germany?
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A shortage occupation is one the Bundesagentur für Arbeit has identified as having too few qualified workers. It publishes the list once a year in its Fachkräfteengpassanalyse, scoring every occupation against six labour-market indicators. The 2025 list covers occupations across nursing and medicine, construction and skilled trades, IT and engineering, transport, catering, and childcare.
What does shortage status actually do for a work permit?
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It helps, but it does not decide anything on its own. Shortage status supports the labour-market assessment the Bundesagentur für Arbeit carries out when a permit is applied for, and it earns points under the Chancenkarte. It does not determine which visa a candidate gets, what salary is required, or whether an application succeeds — the qualification, its recognition in Germany, and the salary matter more.
Does a shortage occupation mean a lower EU Blue Card salary threshold?
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Not automatically, and the two are governed separately. The EU Blue Card's reduced threshold of €45,934.20 for 2026 (against €50,700 standard) is set by §18g AufenthG for particular occupational groups, alongside separate routes for recent graduates and for IT specialists with several years' relevant experience. Whether it applies in a given case is assessed by the authorities, not read off the shortage list.
Can any occupation qualify for an EU Blue Card?
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In principle yes — the EU Blue Card is not restricted to a fixed list of occupations. What it requires is a university degree recognised in Germany (or, for IT specialists, several years of relevant professional experience instead) and a salary meeting the applicable threshold. If either is missing, the Blue Card is not the route, but a skilled worker permit under §18a or §18b AufenthG may still be — those have no minimum salary.
The salary we can offer is below the Blue Card threshold. Is the hire off?
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No. The EU Blue Card is one route among several, not the whole system. Skilled worker permits under §18a (vocational qualification) and §18b (academic qualification) have no salary floor, and other routes exist including the Chancenkarte and the Recognition Partnership under §16d. relokate assesses which route fits a given hire and files it.
Our candidate has a degree — is that enough?
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Not by itself. A foreign degree has to be recognised in Germany, which for academic qualifications usually means an entry in the anabin database or a ZAB assessment, and for regulated professions a formal recognition process before the person may work in the role at all. relokate coordinates recognition with the responsible authority in all 16 federal states alongside the visa application.
The job title in our contract isn't on the list. What now?
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Job titles vary between employers and the official list uses generic occupational descriptions, so a non-match is common and rarely the end of it. What counts is the work actually described in the employment contract, not the internal title. relokate reviews the role and identifies which permit routes are open for that hire.
Who decides whether a role counts as a shortage occupation?
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The Agentur für Arbeit, as part of its assessment of an actual application. No tool or advisor can make that determination in advance — this page reproduces the agency's published list so employers can plan, but the binding assessment happens in the procedure itself. relokate prepares and files the application and handles the correspondence with the authorities.
Hiring from abroad this year?
We work out which permit route fits each hire, coordinate qualification recognition, and file the application with the authorities — so your team isn’t the one interpreting immigration law.
Related tools & guides
EU Blue Card Salary Calculator
Check a salary against the 2026 thresholds
Regulated Professions Checker
Does this role need formal recognition before day one?
Visa Eligibility Pre-Check
Find the routes open to a specific candidate
EU Blue Card — Complete Guide
Requirements, process, documents, fees, and timeline
Sources
- Bundesagentur für Arbeit — Fachkräfteengpassanalyse 2025 (report and data)
- §18g AufenthG — EU Blue Card, statutory text
- Make it in Germany — EU Blue Card (federal government portal)
Last updated: July 2026. The occupation list reflects the Bundesagentur für Arbeit’s Fachkräfteengpassanalyse 2025. Salary figures are the 2026 EU Blue Card thresholds. This tool supports HR planning and is not a legal assessment: whether a role counts as a shortage occupation, and which permit is granted, is decided by the German authorities in the individual procedure. relokate accepts no liability for the accuracy, completeness, or applicability of this content to an individual situation.
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