Turkish Population in Germany: Numbers, History, Citizenship

On 31.12.2025 the Ausländerzentralregister, Germany’s central register of foreigners, held 1,520,400 people with Turkish citizenship and no German citizenship. The Mikrozensus, a yearly sample survey of about 1 % of the population, found 2,648,000 people with an immigration history tied to Türkiye in 2025. One count follows the passport; the other follows who moved and who was born to parents who moved. Both come from Destatis, the Federal Statistical Office. Below: each count with its definition, then the dates behind them, from the 1961 recruitment agreement to the citizenship laws of 2000 and 2024.

Five counts: who is in which number

Destatis, the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden, publishes several counts that readers take for “the number of Turks in Germany”. They answer different questions, so a person can be in one and not in another. The tool above shows how; this chapter gives the numbers.

The counts overlap and must not be added together. A Turkish citizen who moved from Türkiye is in the first four. A German born in Germany to two parents who moved from Türkiye is in the immigration-history count and the older count. A German who also holds Turkish citizenship is not among the register’s 1,520,400; the Mikrozensus counted 389,000 such people in 2025.

The Mikrozensus asks about 1 % of the population each year, relies on what people say about themselves, and covers private households, not shared accommodation. The 2025 results are first results. The register count is a stock of registered people on one day.

1961: why two states signed

West Germany’s economy grew fast in the 1950s. In 1960 about 150,000 people were looking for work and about 650,000 jobs stood open. Until 1961 part of the shortage had been filled by workers who left East Germany; the Berlin Wall, built that year, ended it. Recruiting abroad had begun with Italy in 1955 (bpb).

The road to 1961

1955

The first recruitment agreement is signed, with Italy.

1960

Agreements with Spain and Greece. Turkish newspapers report that West Germany wants to recruit 15,000 Turkish workers for the Ford plants in Cologne, and interest is high.

Türkiye

The country had been in a serious economic crisis since the mid-1950s, with very high unemployment.

1961

The agreement with Türkiye follows. Later come Morocco, Portugal, Tunisia and Yugoslavia.

bpb, pages of 24.10.2011 and 27.10.2021 · checked 27.10.2026 · bpb page

On who asked first, bpb (Stefan Luft, 05.08.2014) writes that the initiative came from Türkiye, which faced high unemployment and a growing population. West German governments first saw no need for an agreement with Türkiye and agreed for foreign-policy reasons: Türkiye guarded NATO’s south-eastern flank.

What the 1961 text set down

The form

An exchange of notes of 30.10.1961, counted from 01.09.1961. It ran for one year and renewed each year unless a side ended it three months before.

The contract

Written in German and Turkish. The workers usually left from Istanbul.

The papers

A Legitimationskarte, an identity card in place of the work permit, valid for at most one year.

The checks

A medical examination, free of charge. People with a prison term in the criminal register were not presented to employers.

The limit

No residence permit beyond a total stay of two years. Family reunification is not mentioned.

bpb, text of the notes (page of 24.10.2011) · checked 27.10.2026 · text

1. Two officesThe German side was the federal labour office (Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsvermittlung und Arbeitslosenversicherung), with a liaison office in Türkiye. The Turkish side was the Türkische Anstalt für Arbeits- und Arbeitervermittlung, the Turkish placement office.
2. Before the journeyThe medical examination, the contract in two languages and the Legitimationskarte. Some workers later compared the examination with the medical check at military call-up (bpb, 27.10.2021).
3. After arrivalWithin three days: report to the local registration office (Meldebehörde) and apply for the residence permit.

1964 to 1983: from two years to staying

The agreements were built on a rotation principle: workers were to go home after their stay and others to take their place. Many employers soon set it aside to keep trained workers (bpb, 27.10.2021). The workers recruited were called “Gastarbeiter”, guest workers.

1. 1964A revised agreement is signed without the two-year limit, at the urging of German employers’ associations and of the Turkish government (bpb, 05.08.2014).
2. 1968 to 1971The number of Turkish employees triples, from 152,900 to 453,100. In early 1972 Turkish workers replace Italians as the largest group of recruited workers (bpb).
3. November 1973After the oil crisis the federal government imposes the Anwerbestopp, the stop on recruiting workers from states outside the European Community. Turkish employees: 605,000 in 1973 and 578,000 in 1980 (bpb).
4. 1974 to 1980Family reunification (Familiennachzug) gains weight: several hundred thousand family members, mostly women and children, move to Germany (bpb, 27.10.2021). The number of Turkish children under 15 doubles to about 420,000 by 1979.
5. 28.11.1983The Rückkehrhilfegesetz, the return-assistance law, offers foreign workers a time-limited payment to leave Germany for good if, for example, they lose their job when a plant closes or goes bankrupt, or work short time. Its aim is to relieve the labour market (bpb, Deutschland-Chronik).

Turkish citizens: year by year

Destatis counts the people on the Ausländerzentralregister on 31 December of each year. Each strip below starts at zero, so its length is the real size.

1. 20141,527,118
2. 20151,506,113 −21,005
3. 20161,492,580 −13,533
4. 20171,483,515 −9,065
5. 20181,476,410 −7,105
6. 20191,472,390 −4,020
7. 20201,461,910 −10,480
8. 20211,458,360 −3,550
9. 20221,487,110 +28,750
10. 20231,548,095 +60,985
11. 20241,544,480 −3,615
12. 20251,520,400 −24,080

The small figure is the change from the year before. In twelve years the count stayed between 1,458,360 (2021) and 1,548,095 (2023). It rose in 2022 and 2023 and fell in 2024 and 2025. A person who becomes German leaves this count even if they keep Turkish citizenship, because Germans who also hold a foreign citizenship are not counted as foreigners.

• 30.7 years is the average time Turkish citizens on the register have lived in Germany. For all foreign citizens it is 14.8 years. About 1.01 million have lived here for 25 years or more.
• 47.7 years is the average age, against 38.2 years for all foreign citizens. 261,370 are 65 or older and 89,855 are under 18. 47.6 % are women.
• 1,113,815 were born in Türkiye (73.3 %) and 345,695 in Germany (22.7 %); 46,230 are filed under other or unknown birth states.

Older figures, rounded, come from bpb (05.08.2014): about 1.0 million Turkish citizens in 1974, 1.2 million in 1978 and 2.1 million in 1998. The register was cleaned up between 2000 and 2003, which lowered the total number of foreign citizens by 617,750 people, or 8.4 % (Destatis).

Where in Germany: Länder and cities

Germany has sixteen Länder (singular Land), the federal states. Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen are cities that are also Länder. The strips show Turkish citizens on the register on 31.12.2025, in order of count.

1. North Rhine-Westphalia483,035
2. Baden-Württemberg265,975
3. Bavaria193,605
4. Hesse166,045
5. Berlin112,480
6. Lower Saxony94,475
7. Rhineland-Palatinate62,250
8. Hamburg46,050
9. Schleswig-Holstein30,525
10. Bremen23,730
11. Saarland10,440
12. Saxony9,675
13. Brandenburg6,900
14. Saxony-Anhalt6,120
15. Thuringia5,535
16. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern3,565

North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), the Land of Cologne, Duisburg and Dortmund, held 483,035 of the 1,520,405 in the Land figures. Destatis prints the Land figures rounded to multiples of 5, so they add to 1,520,405 rather than 1,520,400.

Cities. Destatis lists the cities where Turkish is among the five most frequent foreign citizenships. The small figure is the share of the city’s foreign citizens; Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen are in the list above.

1. Cologne49,100 20.9 %
2. Munich40,710 7.6 %
3. Duisburg32,025 24.4 %
4. Frankfurt am Main24,740 9.6 %
5. Dortmund21,025 14.3 %
6. Gelsenkirchen19,730 25.8 %
7. Stuttgart17,980 10.3 %
8. Essen16,115 11.8 %
9. Mannheim16,085 16.5 %
10. Nuremberg15,885 10.1 %
11. Düsseldorf14,530 7.6 %
12. Bielefeld11,625 16.6 %
13. Wuppertal11,380 11.9 %

Citizenship: 2000, 2014, 2024

Three dates changed who can become German. The text below says what each law provides and since when. The details for Turkish citizens are in the German-language guide to dual citizenship.

1. 01.01.2000The Gesetz zur Reform des Staatsangehörigkeitsrechts of 15.07.1999 takes effect. Next to descent (ius sanguinis) it adds the birthplace principle (ius soli): under certain conditions a child born in Germany to foreign parents can acquire German citizenship. The time of lawful residence that gives a right to naturalisation (Einbürgerung) falls from 15 to 8 years (bpb, Destatis data).
2. 20.12.2014Children with German citizenship by birth in Germany who grew up here no longer have to choose between it and their parents’ citizenship, the old duty of option (Optionspflicht). It stays for those who did not grow up in Germany (bpb).
3. 27.06.2024The Gesetz zur Modernisierung des Staatsangehörigkeitsrechts (StARModG) takes effect. Naturalisation can come after 5 years instead of 8 (§ 10 StAG), and the earlier citizenship can in general be kept. A route with special integration achievements could shorten the wait to 3 years; it was struck from the law at the end of October 2025 (Destatis).

Naturalisations of people with Turkish citizenship, in selected years. The small figure is the share of all naturalisations that year, where the source prints it. Years 2000 and 2009 are from bpb, using Destatis data; 2021 to 2025 are from Destatis.

1. 200082,900 44.4 % of all
2. 200924,600 25.6 % of all
3. 202112,245
4. 202214,265
5. 202310,735
6. 202422,525 8 % of all
7. 202534,185 10.3 % of all

• 24.1 years was the average time those naturalised in 2025 had lived in Germany (2024: 23.1 years; all nationalities in 2025: 12.4 years).
• 53,300 applications came from people with Turkish citizenship in 2025, 11 % of all 467,400 applications. Destatis counts applications for the first time for 2025; the figures are preliminary.
• 1,410 of 10,735 (13.1 %) of those naturalised in 2023 kept Turkish citizenship. Since the 2024 law the statistics no longer record whether the earlier citizenship continues.
• By Land in 2025: North Rhine-Westphalia 11,179, Bavaria 6,495, Baden-Württemberg 5,102, Berlin 4,099 and Lower Saxony 2,076 (Destatis).

The Turkish side: what the state offers abroad

Turkish state pages describe four things that matter to Turkish citizens in Germany and to people who gave up Turkish citizenship.

Related guides on this site:

Dual citizenship

Doppelte Staatsbürgerschaft Deutschland–Türkei (German)

Passport

The Turkish passport

Marriage

Marriage in Türkiye

Inheritance

Inheritance law in Türkiye

Documents

Notarization in Türkiye · Legalization of foreign documents

By car

Mit dem Auto in die Türkei (German)

Elsewhere in Europe

Turks in France

Quick answers

Sources and limits

Photos and the map are from Wikimedia Commons, each with its author, date, licence and file page in the caption. The suitcase picture is a drawing.

This page reports counts and rules as the pages above print them on the dates shown. It is general information, not a legal opinion on any single citizenship case.