Freedom of movement

Dispersal and geographical restriction

The freedom of movement of asylum seekers is restricted and they have no right to choose their place of residence. According to the Asylum Act, their right to remain on the territory under a permission to stay (Aufenthaltsgestattung) is generally limited to the district of the foreigners’ authority in which the responsible reception centre is located.[1] This ‘residence obligation’ (Residenzpflicht), legally called ‘geographical restriction’ (räumliche Beschränkung), means that asylum seekers are not allowed to leave that area even for short periods of time without permission of the BAMF, except to attend appointments with the authorities or court hearings where their personal appearance is necessary.[2] However, Federal States have the possibility to extend this geographical restriction to the jurisdiction of other foreigners’ authorities or the area encompassing a whole Federal State, or even to another Federal State, provided that there is agreement between the concerned Federal States.[3] Asylum seekers in Brandenburg for example have the freedom to move in all of Brandenburg and Berlin.

As long as the residence obligation applies – i.e. during the initial period of the procedure in most cases – the applicant can also request permission to temporary leave the assigned area for urgent public interest reasons, where it is necessary for compelling reasons or where refusal of permission would constitute undue hardship.[4] As a rule, permission shall also be granted if the asylum seeker intends to take up employment or education in another area. Permission shall be granted without delay in cases where the person has appointments with UNHCR or NGOs.[5] Next to the residence obligation, freedom of movement is often constrained in practice through the remote location of many reception facilities and the lack of accessible public transport (see below, Obligation to stay in initial reception centres). Violation of the residence obligation might have severe consequences. The administrative Court Lower Saxony-Breme, for example, has decided in 2023 that asylum seekers who leave the district assigned to them by local authorities in order to find sanctuary in a church in a different district are no longer entitled to social benefits for asylum seekers.[6]

The law provides that the geographical restriction shall generally expire after 3 months.[7] However, this rule is subject to two important derogations:

• The geographical restriction remains in force for persons who have an Obligation to Stay in Initial Reception Centres.[8] Given that the obligation to stay in these centres has been extended by the 2019 amendment of the Asylum Act, the geographical restriction has also been extended substantially.
• The geographical restriction may be re-imposed if the person has been convicted of a criminal offence or if removal is imminent.[9]

The place of residence of asylum seekers is usually determined by the Initial Distribution of Asylum Seekers (Erstverteilung der Asylbegehrenden, EASY); a general distribution system whereby places for asylum seekers are at first allocated to the Federal States for the initial reception period. Within that Federal State, they are allocated to a particular municipality, usually the place of the initial reception centre at first and possibly another municipality when the obligation to live in the initial reception centre ends.[10]

Distribution of asylum seekers to the Federal States is determined by the following aspects:[11]

• Capacities of initial reception centres;
• Competence of the branch offices of the BAMF for the particular applicant’s country of origin. This means that certain initial reception centres tend to host specific nationalities (see Differential treatment of specific nationalities in reception);
• A quota system called ‘Königsteiner Schlüssel’,[12] according to which reception capacities are determined for Germany’s 16 Federal States. The Königstein key takes into account the tax revenue (accounting for ²/₃ of the quota) and the number of inhabitants (¹/₃) of each Federal State.

The quota for reception of asylum seekers in 2022 (Königsteiner Schlüssel’) in comparison to number of (first) asylum applications in 2023 was as follows:

Source: BAMF, Das Bundesamt in Zahlen 2023, available in German here.

The above table demonstrates that the distribution of applicants was only roughly in line with the ‘Königsteiner Schlüssel’ in 2023. Deviations from the quota can (at least partially) be explained by a flexibility created by inter-Länder agreements and other state (Länder) laws. More recent statistics of 2024 are not yet available.

It is possible for the asylum seeker to apply to the authorities to be allocated to a particular town or district, but such applications are only successful for compelling reasons (e.g. if a rare medical condition requires that an asylum seeker has to stay close to a particular hospital).^[13] The allocation of the asylum seeker to a particular area is not a formal decision that can be legally challenged by the individual.

Obligation to stay in initial reception centre

As a rule,0% until the BAMF has decided upon their applications. The Federal State’s government has published a list of 94 countries of origin which fall under this category.[29]

• Asylum seekers whose application has been rejected as manifestly unfounded or inadmissible until they leave the country or are deported.

In both cases, the maximum period of stay is 24 months and minor children and their parents are exempt.[30]

The Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia had extended the obligation to stay in initial reception centres to a maximum of 24 months for those whose application has been rejected as manifestly unfounded or inadmissible. Families and children are exempted from this regulation.[31] This provision expired on 1 September 2024, so since that date the general federal regulations on the length of stay in reception centres apply.

Finally, the Federal State of Saxony Anhalt made use of Section 47(1b) of the Asylum Act but extended the obligation to 18 months only. Additionally, the State not only exempted families with children, but also single women, persons with severe physical and psychological illnesses, victims of torture and sexual violence, LGBTIQ and asylum seekers who belong to persecuted minorities.[32]

Asylum seekers may leave the premises of the initial reception centres (regardless of whether they are called arrival centres, AnkER-centres or have a different denomination) at any time, subject to no curfew or obligation to stay overnight, but in many centres they have to report to security personnel at the door upon leaving and re-entering. In some AnkER centres such as Regensburg, monitoring of entry and exit is carried out through a bar code card scanned by asylum seekers at the door.[33] The same is true, for example, for initial reception centres in Brandenburg, like Eisenhüttenstadt and Doberlug-Kirchhain. According to house rules, asylum seekers at these facilities are allowed to leave the premises for a maximum of 48 hours only (not including weekends). In the event of prolonged unannounced absence from the initial reception facility, the person concerned can be deregistered and payment of benefits can be suspended.

In general, people can travel freely within the town and district in which the reception centre is located, although the limited accessibility of certain initial reception centres by public transport raises questions concerning freedom of movement. For example, the authorities provide asylum seekers in the AnkER centres with subsidised public transport tickets. However, residents in accommodation centres attached to AnkER centre (Dependancen) located outside the municipality of the competent AnkER centre – e.g. Schwandorf, located 38km from Regensburg, or Garmisch, located 90km away from Munich – are only provided with public transport tickets to travel to the competent AnkER centre for official appointments such as interviews with the BAMF. Applicants have to cover their own travel costs for any other appointments, including meetings with NGOs or doctors, that are not present in Dependancen. The set-up and location of the Dependancen therefore poses an additional barrier to asylum seekers’ access to essential services.[34] In most Federal States, applicants need a special permission to travel to other parts of the state or to other parts of Germany (see Residenzpflicht above).

[1] Sections 55(1) and 56(1) Asylum Act.

[2] Section 57 (3) and Section 58 (3) Asylum Act.

[3] Section 58(6) Asylum Act.

[4] Section 58(1) Asylum Act.

[5] Section 58(2) Asylum Act.

[6] Infomigrants, Bremen court ruling: Benefits can be cut for migrants receiving church asylum, 13 Decemeber 2023, available in German at: https://bit.ly/4bJIOba.

[7] Section 59a(1) Asylum Act.

[8] Section 59a(1) Asylum Act.

[9] Section 59b(1) Asylum Act.

[10] BAMF, ‘Initial Distribution of Asylum-Seekers (EASY)’, 2 February 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/48PNzOz.

[11] Section 46(2) Asylum Act.

[12] Section 45 Asylum Act.

[13] Stahlmann in Hofmann, Ausländerrecht §57 AsylG para. 6f., 2016.

[14] Section 47(1) Asylum Act.

[15] Section 47(1a) Asylum Act.

[16] Section 47(1) 3rd Sentence Asylum Act.

[17] Section 47 (1b) Asylum Act.

[18] Refugee Council North Rhine-Westfalia, Übersicht: Regelungen zum §47 Abs. 1b AsylG, 23 March 2019, available in German at: https://bit.ly/3wopA7n.

[19] Section 47(1b) Asylum Act.

[20] Wiebke Judith, ‚Druck auf die Länder? Lex AnkER im „II. Hau-Ab-Gesetz’ in: Informationsverbund Asyl und Migration (ed), Das Migrationspaket: Beilage zum Asylmagazin 8-9/2019, September 2017, available in German at: https://bit.ly/4aqKg1x, 74.

[21] Refugee Council North Rhine-Westfalia, Übersicht: Regelungen zum §47 Abs. 1b AsylG, 23 March 2019, available in German at: https://bit.ly/3wopA7n.

[22] Section 49(2) Asylum Act.

[23] Section 49 (1) Asylum Act.

[24] Section 50 (1) Number 1 Asylum Act.

[25] Bayerischer Flüchtlingsrat, ‘Die Geschichte der ANKER Zentren, available in German at: https://bit.ly/3HE4ho3.

[26] Section 2(2) Bavarian Reception Act (Aufnahmegesetz), as amended by the Act of 23 December 2021, available in German at: https://bit.ly/2uE71MT.

[27] PROASYL and Refugee Council Berlin, Das Asylbewerberleistungsgesetz – Einschränkungen des Grundrechts auf ein menschenwürdiges Existenzminimum für Geflüchtete, November 2022, available in German at: https://bit.ly/3XrdSox, 269.

[28] Section 12(3) Saxon Refugee Reception Act (Flüchtlingsaufnahmegesetz), as amended by the Act of 14 December 2018, available in German at: https://bit.ly/2VaJLkY, in conjunction with Section (1) and (2) Saxon Residence Restriction Extension Decree (Wohnpflichtverlängerungsverordnung), as amended by the Act of 20 April 2020, available in German at: https://bit.ly/2Zgcgku.

[29] Addendum to the Saxon Residence Restriction Extension Decree of 3 May 2019, available in German at: https://bit.ly/2CBBAKl.

[30] Section 3 Saxon Residence Restriction Extension Decree (Sächsische Wohnpflichtverlängerungsverordnung).

[31] Section(1) Implementing Act to Section 47(1b) of the Asylum Act, available in German at: https://bit.ly/2BcfuO5.

[32] Section(1a) Reception Act, as amended by the Act of 14 Febrary 2019, available in German at: https://bit.ly/2YAXTbC.

[33] ECRE, The AnkER centres Implications for asylum procedures, reception and return, April 2019, available at: https://bit.ly/2W7dICZ.

[34] Ibid.