Germany
German Emigration
A record 288,579 Germans emigrated in 2025, three quarters of them graduates, and the country is losing its best people: so runs the claim. Nearly half of that record went to a destination the statistical office lists as unknown, and its own notes say many of those people never left Germany. What remains is real and about half the size. By the standards of its neighbours and of its own past few Germans leave, and far more graduates from abroad live in Germany than German graduates live abroad. Two things survive the check: the net loss of citizens is the largest since 2008, and no statistic records who is leaving.
On 1 June 2026 the Federal Statistical Office published Germany’s migration figures for 2025. On its count more Germans left the country than came back, for the twenty-first year running, and the loss had grown from 81,000 to 97,000. …
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