For most people on a standard student visa, the honest answer is no — but there are real exceptions worth checking, and applying anyway costs nothing.
If you're in Germany on a residence permit issued under §16, §16a, or §16b of the Residence Act — the standard permit for coming to Germany specifically to study — that permit on its own does not entitle you to BAföG (Germany's state student funding). This is the situation most international students on StudentHubs are actually in, so it's worth saying plainly rather than burying it under a list of exceptions.
That's not the end of the story, though — BAföG eligibility for non-German students runs through a separate set of conditions (§8 BAföG) that have nothing to do with your study permit itself, and it's genuinely possible to qualify through one of them even while holding a standard student visa.
A settlement permit (Niederlassungserlaubnis) — an unlimited residence title — qualifies you without further conditions. Recognized refugees and people granted asylum or humanitarian protection status qualify too, as do their family members in many cases.
Employment-based paths: if you've personally worked in Germany for at least 5 years before starting your studies, or at least one parent has been legally employed in Germany for at least 3 years within the last 6 years, that can qualify you. A family tie to a German citizen — being married to one, or having custody of a German citizen child — is another real pathway. Being a tolerated foreigner (Duldung) who has lived in Germany legally and continuously for at least 15 months is another.
Every one of these has its own fine print (exact durations, what counts as "legally employed," which family relationships qualify), so treat this as "these categories exist and are worth checking against your situation" rather than a checklist to self-assess against alone.
If you're a citizen of an EU or EEA country, or Switzerland, you're not evaluated under the same conditions as non-EU students above. You can generally qualify by having lived legally in Germany for 5+ years yourself, having a parent who has, having "migrant worker" status (roughly: employed 12+ hours a week for 10+ weeks), or having worked in Germany for 6+ months in a field related to your studies before starting them.
This is still a real set of conditions to meet, not automatic funding just for being an EU citizen studying in Germany — but it's a meaningfully shorter list than the non-EU one.
Because these rules genuinely are this complicated, the Studentenwerk offices that process BAföG applications explicitly recommend applying regardless of how confident you are about your own eligibility — the Amt für Ausbildungsförderung reviews your specific documented situation, not just a general rule you read online (including this guide).
If it turns out you're not eligible, that's worth knowing early rather than late — and it's also the moment to look at what most international students actually rely on instead: scholarships (DAAD's database is the standard starting point), the Deutschlandstipendium, and your university's own funding office, which often knows about smaller, less-advertised options specific to your program.