The grounds for withdrawal of refugee status are defined in Section 73(4) of the Asylum Act: international protection ‘shall be withdrawn if it was granted on the basis of incorrect information or withholding of essential facts and if such recognition could not be based on any other grounds.’
The procedure for withdrawal of protection status is identical to the revocation procedure, and usually the examination of the various grounds is carried out as a combined ‘revocation and withdrawal procedure’. Therefore, the information given above on procedures and on statistics for the revocation procedures also applies to withdrawal of protection (see section on Cessation: Revocation).
If refugee status is revoked or withdrawn, this does not necessarily mean that a foreigner loses their right to stay in Germany. The decision on the residence permit has to be taken by the local authorities and it has to take into account personal reasons which might argue for a stay in Germany (such as length of stay, degree of integration, employment situation, family ties). Therefore, it is possible that even after loss of status another residence permit is issued on another ground. Since this is decided on the local level, no statistics are available concerning the number of cases in which people were granted a new residence permit after revocation or withdrawal of protection status.