Which German hospitals hire doctors without full licences
162 of 13,580 German doctor job ads on 3 Nov 2026 accept a temporary licence. See which states, specialties and job levels, and what to write when an advert stays silent.
Ahmed Quteishat
Assistenzarzt, Innere Medizin (Berlin) · Founder of Klaro
On 3 November 2026 we counted 13,580 doctor job adverts in Germany. Only 162 of them said plainly: a temporary licence (Berufserlaubnis) is enough. That is 1.2 percent.
That number looks small, and it is. But it does not mean the other 13,418 hospitals said no. Most adverts simply do not mention the licence question at all.
What is a Berufserlaubnis
It is a temporary work permit for doctors who do not have the full licence (Approbation) yet. This permit comes from a law called the Bundesärzteordnung, section 10.
It lets you work as a doctor for at most 2 years in total. Your state authority decides who gets one and for how long.
Where these 162 jobs are
Bavaria has the most, 40 adverts. Lower Saxony has 21, Brandenburg 19, North Rhine-Westphalia 17. The rest are spread thin across the other 13 states.
Which specialty takes you fastest
Psychiatry leads by far, with 52 of the 162 jobs. Internal medicine has 21, surgery 20, neurology 10. The rest sit in smaller numbers across other fields.
Psychiatric hospitals and rehab clinics post most of these jobs. They run wards with long-term patients and steady staffing needs. A doctor on a 2-year permit still fits their planning.
What job level is open
117 of the 162 are junior doctor (Assistenzarzt) posts. 39 are for a specialist (Facharzt) and 13 for a senior doctor (Oberarzt). If you are early in training, the odds favor you.
An advert with no mention: is that a no?
No. Most hospitals just assume applicants already hold the full licence, because most German-trained doctors do. Silence is not a rule against you, it is an advert written for someone else.
The only way to know is to ask the department directly. Do this before you spend a week preparing a full application.
What to write to the department
- Name the post you saw and the date it was posted.
- Say you hold a temporary work permit (Berufserlaubnis), or are close to getting one.
- Ask directly: can you start on the temporary permit, or do you require the full licence (Approbation) first?
A department that answers this in a day usually means yes. One that goes quiet usually just has not thought about it. Call the secretary and ask again.
What to do now
- Check your state authority's page for how long your temporary permit (Berufserlaubnis) can run, since it caps at 2 years total.
- Search psychiatry and internal medicine jobs first, they carry the most posts open to a temporary permit.
- Email the department of any advert that does not mention the licence, using the 3 lines above.
- Keep a short record of which hospitals answered yes, so you are not asking twice.
Stand: 2026-11-07. This is a guide, not legal advice. Every German state has its own rules, and rules change. Check with your state's medical chamber (Landesärztekammer) before you act.
Ahmed Quteishat — Assistenzarzt, Innere Medizin (Berlin) · Founder of Klaro
Ahmed built Klaro after watching how much of a doctor's move to Germany gets lost in paperwork rather than medicine.
