Is a German Ausbildung free or paid for? The honest answer for Moroccan candidates

Free: do you mean the training or the whole project?

This is where the confusion starts. In a dual Ausbildung, the route almost every Moroccan candidate is aiming at, you sign a Berufsausbildungsvertrag, a combined work and training contract registered by the chamber of commerce (IHK) or the chamber of crafts (HWK). It is not a paid enrolment at a school: § 17 of the Berufsbildungsgesetz obliges the training company to pay an appropriate wage and to raise it at least once per training year.

The law goes further than the wage. § 14 (1) No. 3 of the same BBiG puts the tools, materials and professional literature needed for the training and for sitting the interim and final examinations on the employer, free of charge; equipment and software are provided free of charge where the training is delivered in mobile digital form (§ 28 (2) sentence 2 BBiG). And § 37 (4) BBiG provides that the final examination is free of charge for the apprentice: the chamber may not bill them for it. On the German side you therefore pay no tuition, no tools and no final examination fee. What stays in your own budget are the items the law does not put on the company: travel to the Berufsschule and, where teaching comes in blocks (Blockunterricht), boarding accommodation — some employers and some chambers contribute to these, so ask for it in writing before you sign.

The project itself is another story. Between the day you decide and the day you board the plane there are German courses, an exam, sworn translations, legalisations, a visa, a ticket and a first month's rent. None of that is covered by the German employer as a matter of course; some do contribute, it is negotiated and it is put in writing. An honest page states both sentences in a row: the training is not paid for, the journey to it is.

How much you earn, and why the figure moves every year

The floor is called Mindestausbildungsvergütung. BIBB, the federal institute for vocational training, publishes the scale: for a contract starting in 2026, the legal minimum in the first year is 724 EUR a month. For a contract that started in 2025 it was 682 EUR. The scale is tied to the year the contract begins, not the current year: once signed, it follows you for the whole training.

That floor rises with every training year. For a 2026 contract: 724 EUR in year one, 854 EUR in year two, 977 EUR in year three and 1,014 EUR in year four. Quoting 724 EUR without saying legal minimum and first year is already a false sentence, and it is exactly what most pages on this topic do.

The observed average sits at around 1,133 EUR gross a month, across all occupations and all training years. The spread is enormous: nursing pays well above it, hairdressing, bakery and hospitality clearly below. One more nuance: under § 17 (3) BBiG a collective agreement may set a lower figure than the legal minimum and then takes precedence — but only if the company is actually bound by that agreement (§ 3 (1) TVG). So the question to put to an employer is: are you tarifgebunden, and under which collective agreement? The word guaranteed has no place in that sentence.

Gross, net, and what the embassy actually looks at before asking for a blocked account

Every figure above is gross. An apprentice pays the employee share of the four branches of social insurance, health, long-term care, pension and unemployment, roughly 21 percent of the gross. Income tax is effectively nil at this level, because the tax-free allowance, the Grundfreibetrag, stands at 12,348 EUR for 2026.

One exception circulates widely and helps nobody: the Geringverdienergrenze, the only case in which the employer carries all contributions alone, is set at 325 EUR a month by § 20 SGB IV and has not moved since 2003. No real Ausbildung sits that low. In other words you do pay your contributions, and the figure written in the contract is not the figure that lands in your account.

Hence the calculation that decides everything. For a company-based dual Ausbildung, means of subsistence are deemed covered once the training wage reaches 1,048 EUR gross a month, that is 822 EUR net for the year 2026: two ways of writing the same threshold, not two different thresholds. A contract at the average of 1,133 EUR gross, which leaves around 890 EUR net, therefore clears it, and no blocked account is required on that basis. The 992 EUR net a month you read everywhere, that is 11,904 EUR a year, is the student figure: it does not apply to an apprentice, and that confusion is what makes candidates abandon a plan that was perfectly workable. Below the threshold, at the legal first-year minimum of 724 EUR gross for instance, you only have to cover the difference and not the whole amount, and accommodation provided or discounted by the employer counts towards the calculation. The real trap is therefore still gross against net: compare like with like, and have the net figure put in writing before you conclude anything.

The exception almost nobody explains: school-based Ausbildung

Alongside the dual route sits the schulische Ausbildung, training at a vocational school. It is very common in allied health professions and in social care. Teaching happens at the Berufsfachschule rather than in a company, so as a rule it pays no wage at all. The same word Ausbildung therefore covers two opposite budgets, and that is the very first question to put to any school.

Public Berufsschulen charge no tuition. Private Berufsfachschulen do: the Schulgeld observed runs from 100 to 600 EUR a month. Several federal states have abolished or absorbed it in health occupations. North Rhine-Westphalia reimburses it at 100 percent for occupational therapy, speech therapy, physiotherapy, podiatry and PTA, Lower Saxony has abolished it, Hamburg guarantees fee-free training for entries until 31 December 2026 in physiotherapy and occupational therapy, Schleswig-Holstein subsidises it until 31 December 2027. None of this is settled nationwide, and these are budget-funded schemes with an end date: check with the school you are targeting, every year.

In nursing the law settles the matter the other way: § 24 (3) No. 1 of the Pflegeberufegesetz renders void any agreement making the student pay a Schulgeld, and § 19 (1) requires the provider of the practical training to pay an appropriate wage, funded through an equalisation fund at federal-state level (§ 26 ff. PflBG). Training as a Pflegefachfrau or Pflegefachmann is therefore both free and paid, at roughly 1,340 to 1,490 EUR gross in the first year depending on the TVAöD-P or TVöD collective agreement. Entry requirements do not change: access is governed by § 11 PflBG. Without the baccalauréat the full three-year training is not directly accessible — the route provided for is a one-year nursing assistance course combined with a recognised school-leaving qualification, the two being cumulative. And below B2, the only door left open in the sector is the Pflegefachassistenz, on the strength of an aptitude forecast from the school; everywhere else schools require a B2 certificate.

There is a visa consequence that surfaces too late: with no wage, means of subsistence must be proven another way. For a school-based Ausbildung you must have at least 959 EUR net a month available for the year 2026, through a blocked account, a Verpflichtungserklärung or a scholarship. A side job of up to 20 hours a week can be taken into account if the contract is attached to the application and the activity differs from the training. Treat that as a possibility at the consular post's discretion, never as an acquired right.

What your departure really costs, item by item

German first. At the Goethe-Institut in Morocco a course level costs around 3,000 MAD, the B1 exam 2,500 MAD and the B2 exam 2,800 MAD. B1 is the legal minimum for the Ausbildung visa, and the German embassy in Rabat asks for the original certificate and reserves the right to check your actual level. It is the heaviest item in the budget and the only one you cannot buy: you have to earn it.

Then come the file and Moroccan paperwork: sworn translations of your diplomas, legalisations and apostille, copies of the CIN, standard-format photographs. Then the national category D visa itself: 75 EUR, or 37.50 EUR for a minor, payable in dirhams. Filing in Rabat goes through TLScontact without exception, whose service fee was recorded at 275 MAD, as of August 2026 — check the amount on the TLScontact website before you pay.

If your employer triggers the fast-track procedure under § 81a AufenthG, add 411 EUR. Watch this line, it is written back to front almost everywhere: the 411 EUR are owed by the candidate, not by the company, which only covers them through a written Kostenübernahmeerklärung. The procedure is initiated by the employer, which is a different thing from paid by the employer. And one item you can cross out immediately: there is no APS for Morocco, the Akademische Prüfstellen only cover China, India, Vietnam and Mongolia.

That leaves the flight, insurance, first rent and deposit. We convert none of these amounts into dirhams: a euro figure translated inside an article turns false without anyone noticing. Every amount stays in its original currency, and you check the rate on the day you change your money.

What is never paid for: three signs of a scam

First sign: a German employer never charges a candidate for being hired. § 12 (2) BBiG renders void any clause obliging an apprentice to pay compensation for their training (No. 1), any contractual penalty (No. 2) and any lump-sum damages imposed on them (No. 4). If a training deposit appears in a contract, it is the contract that is at fault, not you.

Second sign: the guaranteed place. No intermediary decides who gets a training place or who gets a visa. That is the company, the chamber, the consular post and the Ausländerbehörde. Selling a guarantee means selling what you cannot deliver. Serious support commits to means, that is to a file, to applications and to interview preparation, and puts that in writing.

Third sign: vagueness about who pays what. In nursing, the state quality label Faire Anwerbung Pflege Deutschland, under the German federal health ministry, rests on the Employer-Pays-Principle: recruitment must be free of charge for the recruited nurse, with written information on their rights in a language they understand. The label is voluntary and limited to nursing: its absence does not make a recruiter illegal, its presence is a good signal.

One distinction deserves to be made plainly: a Moroccan provider may charge for its own services, meaning application documents, courses, translations and interview preparation. That is a contract under Moroccan law, separate from the German training contract, and paying for it is nothing unusual. What must be in writing is what is done, what is not, and what nobody can promise.

Three questions to ask before believing anyone

One: dual or school-based? Ask for the exact name of the contract. If it is a Berufsausbildungsvertrag registered with the IHK or the HWK, you are on the dual route and you are paid. If the conversation is about enrolment, semesters or Schulgeld, you are on the school route, and the full budget belongs before the commitment, not after it.

Two: which amount, which year, gross or net? Have the first-year wage and its progression put in writing. Remember that 724 EUR is a floor for the first year and that the average of 1,133 EUR is a gross figure, never a net one. A serious employer answers in one line; an intermediary who dodges the question has answered it too.

Three: which federal state, which school? Whether Schulgeld applies depends on the state, on the school and on the end date of the scheme in question. Write to the school directly, German schools do reply. The language certificate, by contrast, depends on no state at all: it is prepared from Morocco, before everything else, and half the case is won there.

Last reflex, and not a minor one: never transpose the rules of the French apprenticeship system. Funding through an OPCO, a percentage of the minimum wage by age, a CFA, none of that exists in Germany. That is precisely the content occupying the first results page in French and leaving the real question unanswered.