The new digital platform aims to help people looking to work, study or join family in Germany, and is available to applicants from all over the world.

Germany’s Foreign Ministry has launched a new digital platform for visa applications, with its Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock hailing it as “a real administrative revolution” .

The digital portal, available here, aims to ease access to necessary documents for those wanting to work, study or join their family in Germany.The applicants can choose between 28 categories of national visa online.

The new portal is available since January 1, 2025 to all 167 of Germany’s visa offices all over the world.

Overhauling visa process

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock praised the new system, saying the reform was “long overdue.”

“Every year, Germany is short of at least 400,000 skilled workers,” Baerbock said.

“At times like these, we cannot afford to downright put the best off coming here to roll up their sleeves because of long paper application forms and even longer waiting periods,” she added.

She said: “From now on, it will be available at all 167 of Germany’s visa sections worldwide, providing digital services. Over the last two and a half years, in a comprehensive and long overdue structural reform, we have paved the way and entirely revamped the old visa process. We are now at last bringing Europe’s most modern immigration law into the digital era.

The online visa application process is a real administrative revolution that both craft businesses and major companies have been calling for for a long time. It will strengthen Germany as a business location.”