How Many Hours Can International Students Work in Germany?

How Many Hours Can International Students Work in Germany?Non-EU students can work up to 140 full days or 280 half-days a year — how that limit actually works, what doesn't count toward it, and how it's different for EU/EEA students.

Non-EU/EEA students: 140 full days or 280 half-days per calendar year — a full day is more than 4 hours, a half-day is 4 hours or less.

On-campus jobs (HiWi/tutoring/research assistant roles) and mandatory curriculum internships don't count toward the limit at all.

EU, EEA, and Swiss students aren't bound by this limit — full, unrestricted access to the German labor market, no work permit needed.

Going over the limit is a real risk to your residence permit, not just a technicality — track your days if you're close.

The basic rule: 140 full days or 280 half-daysIf you're a non-EU/EEA student on a student residence permit (§16b AufenthG), you're allowed to work up to 140 full days or 280 half-days per calendar year — you can mix the two as long as the total stays within that budget. A "full day" means a shift longer than 4 hours; a "half-day" means 4 hours or less. This has been the limit since March 1, 2024, when it was raised from the previous 120 full days / 240 half-days.The calendar year resets the count, not your enrollment date — so it's worth tracking roughly how many days you've used as the year goes on, especially if you're working multiple part-time jobs at once.Or: calculated by the hour insteadThere's a second way the limit can be calculated, and which one applies can depend on how your specific case is assessed: during the lecture period, you can work up to 20 hours a week; outside the lecture period (semester break), you can work more flexibly, spread across up to 2.5 days a week.If you're not sure which calculation method applies to your situation, ask your local Ausländerbehörde or your university's international office directly — this is exactly the kind of detail worth confirming rather than assuming.What doesn't count toward the limitWorking on campus — as a HiWi (student research assistant), tutor, or in another role at your university or an affiliated academic/research institution — doesn't count toward the 140/280-day limit at all, and doesn't need approval from the Federal Employment Agency.A mandatory internship that's a required part of your degree program also doesn't count toward the limit. A voluntary internship you choose to do, on the other hand, generally does — so it's worth checking which category yours falls into before assuming it's free.EU, EEA, and Swiss students: this doesn't apply to youIf you're a citizen of an EU or EEA country, or Switzerland, none of the above applies — you have full, unrestricted access to the German labor market under freedom of movement rules, the same as a German citizen. No work permit, no day limit, no separate approval.This guide is specifically about the residence-permit-based limit that applies to non-EU/EEA students — if that's not your situation, the only real limit on your work hours is the same general labor law that applies to everyone (rest periods, maximum working time, etc.), not anything student-visa-specific.