Exception for guest workers, contract workers and spouses who joined them

Many people who came to Germany under earlier recruitment programmes have lived here for decades. Some now receive a small pension and supplementary basic income support. Special naturalisation rules apply to legally defined groups within this earlier labour migration. The decisive factors are their original route of entry, when they entered and the reasons why they receive benefits today. Certain spouses who joined them are also included.

§ 10(1), sentence 1, no. 3(a) StAG allows people in this group to be naturalised despite receiving benefits under SGB II or SGB XII if they are not responsible for needing them. Unlike the full-time employment exception, this does not require evidence that the person is currently working and has worked full-time for twenty of the last twenty-four months.

This is particularly important in retirement. A person who worked for many years but still needs supplementary basic income support will generally no longer be able to meet the full-time requirement. Point (a) instead provides for an assessment of their particular employment and immigration history. A low pension is neither automatically harmless nor automatically a ground for exclusion.

The provision is not a general exception for all older immigrants. Neither a particular age nor decades of residence replace the statutory entry requirement. Nor is it enough that people around them colloquially describe all earlier labour migration as “guest work”. It must be clear why the individual falls within the defined category.

The official administrative guidance lists recruitment agreements with countries including Italy, Spain, Greece, Türkiye, Morocco, Portugal, Tunisia and Yugoslavia. Nationality of one of these countries alone is not enough. A person from the same country may have entered for entirely different reasons. Their origin, date of entry and connection with labour recruitment must therefore be considered together.

The date must not be replaced by a more familiar historical reference point either. The law specifies 30 June 1974 for the naturalisation exception. For records from around the recruitment ban or a later first job, we distinguish entry, the start of employment and the issue date.

The second group comprises people who entered the territory specified in the Unification Treaty as contract workers by 13 June 1990. The exception therefore also takes account of labour migration to the former GDR. It is not limited to West German recruitment agreements.

The administrative guidance lists agreements with countries including Poland, Hungary, Algeria, Cuba, Mozambique, Vietnam, Mongolia, Angola and China. Again, merely coming from one of these countries is not complete evidence. Study, a private stay or a later entry to take up work does not constitute entry as a contract worker simply for that reason.

Documents from that period may use different terminology and administrative formats from today’s employment and residence papers. What matters is what they establish about the person’s status at the time. An unfamiliar document format should not be dismissed too readily as unsuitable today. We infer from general employment certificates only what they actually establish.

The law includes spouses who joined an eligible person within a connected period of time. They therefore do not themselves need to have entered as workers under a recruitment agreement. Joining a family member may provide access to the exception. Their inclusion also takes account of their particular circumstances at the time.

For the evidence, we record the initial entry, subsequent arrival of the spouse, marriage and the circumstances of family reunification at the time. A marriage entered into only after arrival in Germany or a longer gap may raise questions about the legal boundaries of the rule. We assess these cases by their specific circumstances, not merely the label “family reunification”.

Children and grandchildren are not covered by point (a) merely because of their descent. The exception is tailored to the specified labour migrants and spouses who joined them. The general rules or other applicable exceptions govern descendants. Equally, marrying a former guest worker today does not retrospectively establish that the spouse joined them within a connected period of time back then.

If the original employment contract is missing after decades, we examine which other documents can establish the historical sequence. This does not mean that the status can no longer be proved at all. The official guidance permits a coherent account supported by suitable circumstantial evidence. The assessment may take the long period of time into account without dispensing with a factual basis. AH-StAG 2025, no. 10, paragraphs 175 to 188

Possible evidence includes old employment contracts, work permits, residence papers, entry records or special identification cards. Registration records, a social insurance history or existing authority files may provide additional help. No single document has to prove every requirement at once. One document may support the timing, another the reason for entry and another the family connection.

A social insurance history is particularly useful, but it cannot answer everything. It may show when contributions were paid from employment. This does not necessarily establish which recruitment agreement formed the basis for entry. Conversely, a missing early contribution period does not automatically prove that the employment at the time never took place. The documents must fit with the rest of the person’s life history.

We set out recruitment or placement, entry, first employment, subsequent changes, marriage and family reunification in a factual chronology. We identify approximate recollections as such and do not replace them with invented precise dates. The authority can then make targeted enquiries about which registers or existing documents can resolve the outstanding points.

For GDR contract workers, a negative pension decision may itself be helpful: if the pension insurer expressly refuses to count a claimed employment period as a German contribution period because the work took place under a GDR labour agreement, the reasons may provide evidence of former contract-worker status. We therefore examine such a refusal for indications about the former employment as well as its effect on payment. It still does not replace proof of the date of entry, but it may explain the historical basis of the employment. The BMI guidance, no. 10, paragraphs 185–186, addresses this particular evidential situation.

Belonging to the historical group alone is not enough for the exception. The person must also not be responsible for receiving SGB II or SGB XII benefits. This concerns whether the need for support can legally be attributed to them. The question is not limited to intentional or negligent misconduct in the everyday sense.

The assessment considers why subsistence is not adequately covered and what reasonable opportunities there were to avoid that situation. Illness, limited opportunities to work, necessary care responsibilities or a low pension despite continuous employment may be significant. The actual circumstances of the person’s working life must also be considered. Low wages cannot be explained away retrospectively simply by pointing to theoretically better earning opportunities.

Someone who worked for many years but was able to build up only a small pension entitlement is therefore in a different position from someone who failed to undertake available and reasonable work over a longer period without a sound reason. Nevertheless, the assessment requires a connection between the conduct criticised and the current receipt of benefits. Not every gap in a person’s employment history explains their entire pension shortfall.

A statutory old-age pension is an insurance benefit. By contrast, supplementary basic income support in old age falls under SGB XII. We therefore include both decisions in the naturalisation assessment. Only then is it clear which funds come from the person’s own insurance entitlements and which needs are covered by social assistance.

The exception may be particularly relevant where a pensioner needs supplementary assistance despite a largely continuous working life. The official guidance expressly mentions this situation. It does not demand an unrealistic retrospective correction of an employment history that can no longer be changed in retirement. At the same time, it remains necessary to explain why current resources are insufficient and which circumstances were decisive.

Since 1 July 2026, the benefit under SGB II has been called Grundsicherungsgeld. This change of name must be distinguished from the long-established basic income support in old age and for reduced earning capacity under SGB XII. Older applicants may find the similar wording confusing. The statutory provision on the benefit decision provides more clarity here than the everyday name.

The past can matter, but not indefinitely in the same way. Under the former general exception, conduct in the distant past must be a significant cause of current social assistance receipt; attributing responsibility for it is subject to time limits. This particularly concerns the long-term effects of earlier gaps in employment on later basic income support.

Under the former legal position, an eight-year period was used for attributing responsibility in this way. The 2025 administrative guidance generally uses ten years for the present assessment, allowing departures according to the circumstances. This must not be turned into a supposedly unambiguous statutory ten-year bar. That figure does not appear in point (a), nor does every conceivable earlier decision become irrelevant simply because of how long ago it was made.

We therefore examine objections to earlier employment periods against the specific circumstances. What work would actually have been possible at the time? What health or family reasons were present? How strongly does that particular gap affect the current need for support? A blanket criticism of the person’s entire life history does not replace these questions.

These relaxations must be assessed separately from the financial exception. The fact that someone belongs to the eligible group for the language rule does not answer whether they are responsible for currently receiving social benefits. Nor does the relaxation mean that all naturalisation requirements cease to apply. Identity, residence rights and other personal requirements remain relevant.

The financial exception must therefore be justified separately even if the relaxed language assessment has already been accepted. For details of the oral language requirements and exemption from the test, see the related topic Relaxed requirements for guest workers and contract workers. The focus here, by contrast, is on how historical status, current need for support and its causes can be evidenced together.

A person who does not meet this historical exception is not necessarily left without a route to naturalisation. For an application made by 23 August 2023, the transitional rule under § 40a StAG may open up a more general assessment of benefit receipt for which the applicant is not responsible. This depends on the application having been made in time and on comparing which rule is more favourable.

In cases involving age, illness, disability or other significant difficulties, particular hardship in discretionary naturalisation may also be relevant. This route must be distinguished from the statutory exception for former labour migrants. It requires its own justification and does not follow automatically from being older.

When preparing your application, we distinguish three questions:

1. Does the person belong to the group defined in the law?

2. Which benefits do they currently receive?

3. Why do they depend on those benefits? This structure makes it possible to evaluate old documents in a targeted way and explain current financial circumstances clearly, without reducing decades of life history to the amount of a single payment.