Overview
- The OECD's International Migration Report published Thursday shows Germany's international student population rose 45 percent in 2025 to about 74,000 and labour migration climbed roughly 40 percent while humanitarian arrivals fell by about 35 percent.
- Germany received about 538,000 permanent immigrants in 2025, a drop of roughly 6 percent from 2024, and remained the second largest OECD destination after the United States.
- Across the 38 OECD countries, permanent immigration fell 1.6 percent to 6.1 million in 2025 but stayed about 12.5 percent above 2019 levels, signaling a post-pandemic moderation rather than a return to pre-pandemic flows.
- The report links the shifting routes to national policy and administrative moves such as expanded skilled-worker pathways, tighter visa checks in some English-speaking countries, and backlog processing or legalisation programs in southern Europe.
- The changing mix of migrants matters for daily life because migrants now supply a growing share of care and health workers and drive employment growth, which raises practical challenges for integration, skills matching and public services.