Nearly 38 percent of people who have received Germany’s basic income support for at least five years are foreign nationals, according to a Federal Employment Agency evaluation released in response to a parliamentary inquiry. In addition, separate data shows that 63.4 percent of people on welfare have a migration background, which includes foreigners and German citizens with a migration background, with the country on track to spend approximately €21.2 billion in 2026.
The figures for long-term welfare recipients, covering the end of 2025, show that roughly 1.4 million people have depended on the benefit for five years or longer. That group represents about two-fifths of all employable recipients of the support, formerly known as the citizen’s income and earlier as Hartz IV. Of those long-term recipients, 37.8 percent do not hold a German passport, while 62.2 percent are German citizens, the agency data indicate.
The new report does not mention the share of German citizens among long-term recipients who have a migration background. However, current data released for 2026 shows that 63.4 percent of people on welfare have a migration background.
Furthermore, in the first half of 2026, €10.6 billion has been spent on foreigners on welfare alone. If that figure continues at the same rate, that means for the entirety of 2026, it will cost €21.2 billion to pay for welfare for foreigners. In total, Germany spends at least €50 billion a year on foreigners, including housing, education, welfare, integration services, and border control.
However, this data does not reveal the true amount of money going to foreigners.
As Glut Magazine reports, the number of foreigners is decreasing in the welfare data while the number of “Germans” goes up. The reason for this? More of the foreigners are becoming German citizens through naturalizations.
“Part of this shift could be due to naturalizations. Anyone who receives a German passport while receiving citizen’s income no longer appears in the statistics as a foreigner, but as a German – along with their payments. Notably, in January 2026 the number of German recipients increased by around 12,000, while the number of Syrians decreased by 12,500 in the same month – more than in any other month. Syrians are the largest group among naturalized citizens. Since June 2025, their number in citizen’s income has decreased by 15.6 percent, more than any other large group,” the magazine wrote.
The evaluation, provided to the German Press Agency, also highlights sharp regional differences. Berlin recorded the highest share, with about 45 percent of its basic-income recipients in the long-term category, followed by Bremen at 43 percent. Nationwide, the statistics include 199,229 recipients under age 25.
René Springer, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) parliamentary group’s spokesperson on labor-market policy, criticized the findings.
“It cannot be that so many people receive citizen’s income at the taxpayers’ expense, even though they could go to work,” he said.
Springer renewed his party’s call for mandatory community service. Under the proposal, employable recipients who have been on basic income support for more than six months would be required to perform 15 hours of civic work per week. Those who refuse would face a shift to benefits in kind or, in the most severe cases, loss of support, according to the AfD.
Similar motions have drawn opposition from other parties in the Bundestag. During debate, CSU social-policy lawmaker Peter Aumer pointed to the core principle of the German welfare state that people who need help must receive it.
The federal government introduced stricter participation rules and benefit reductions in a recent reform of the system. The AfD has argued those changes do not go far enough and continues to press for a community-service requirement.
The citizen’s income was introduced in early 2023 and was replaced by a new basic income support framework in July 2026.
