Timelines

In Germany, the gross salary threshold is €47,600 for professionals in the fields of mathematics, computer science, natural sciences, and technology, and €37,128 for doctors. If there is no specific job offer, academics have the option of applying for a six-month visa to look for work locally. However, after its introduction, the applications for the Blue Card that the federal government had expected failed to materialize. According to Der Spiegel, the card had been approved 8,878 times by 2013, but only 2,536 of the applicants came from abroad. The remaining individuals included in the statistics were already living in Germany and simply changed their residence status in order to obtain approval. Critics attribute the reluctance to apply to the complicated bureaucracy of the application process and the excessively high gross salary threshold. In addition, they argue that the Blue Card is not well known abroad because the federal government does little to promote it.