Lehrer/in (Teacher)

Teaches at a state or private school. The most state-fragmented profession in this repo, and one where your passport, not your qualification, may decide your pay for life.
Official title Lehrer/in, by Lehramt (e.g. Lehramt an Gymnasien)
Protected title Yes — via state school law and the Lehramtsbefähigung
Category education
Typical qualification Degree + two Staatsexamen (or M.Ed. + Referendariat)
Regulated Yes — state teaching qualification required
Usual status Beamte/r — read beamte-vs-angestellte first
Last reviewed 2026-09

Sixteen school systems, not one

Education is exclusively Länder competence (Kulturhoheit). There is no federal school law, no federal teaching qualification and no federal curriculum. Each Bundesland has its own school law, teacher training regulations, subject combinations, exam structure and Besoldung.

The KMK coordinates mutual recognition between states, but a qualification from one state is not automatically usable in another — transfers happen constantly and are negotiated case by case, often with conditions. This is worse fragmentation than Erzieher/in, because here the pay system is state law too.

Choose the Bundesland deliberately and early. It determines your training, your salary, your subject combination and whether you are made a Beamter at all.

Lehrämter

Lehramt Level
Grundschule / Primarstufe Years 1–4
Sekundarstufe I Haupt-, Real-, Gesamtschule
Gymnasium / Sekundarstufe II Upper secondary, Abitur
Berufsbildende Schulen / Berufskolleg Vocational schools — the deepest shortage
Sonderpädagogik / Förderschule Special needs — also acutely short

You qualify for one Lehramt. Moving between them means retraining.

The two-subject rule — the trap for foreign teachers

Almost every German Lehramt requires two teaching subjects (Fächerkombination), studied to depth, plus educational science. Some combinations are restricted; some are in demand.

Foreign teachers overwhelmingly qualify in one subject. This is the most common reason foreign teaching qualifications fail equivalence assessment — not language, not pedagogy, but a structural mismatch in what the qualification contains. It is frequently fixable by studying a second subject, which costs years.

Route in

  1. Degree — Bachelor plus Master of Education in most states; Bavaria and Saxony retain a Staatsexamen structure. Either way it counts as the first phase.
  2. Referendariat / Vorbereitungsdienst — 12 to 24 months depending on state, teaching under supervision, paid as an Anwärter/in. In NRW 2026 that is €1,760/month (A 12) or €1,793 (A 13).
  3. Zweites Staatsexamen — the second phase exam.
  4. Einstellung — hiring runs through state allocation procedures, often with a ranked list and regional assignment rather than a free job market.

Quer- und Seiteneinstieg — lateral entry — exists in every state for shortage subjects (MINT, Informatik, Musik, Kunst, Sonderpädagogik, vocational fields). Terms vary wildly: some routes lead to full Lehramtsbefähigung and Verbeamtung, others leave you permanently angestellt. Ask precisely which, in writing, before accepting.

Pay

As a Beamter — Besoldung, and therefore state law. NRW 2026, verified 2026-09, table valid 01.04.2026 – 28.02.2027:

Grade Typical role Gross/month
A 12 Grundschule / Sek I in states that have not equalised €4,505 – €5,771
A 13 Gymnasium, Berufskolleg, Sonderpädagogik — and increasingly all Lehrämter €5,221 – €6,381
A 14 Senior posts, Fachleitung €5,531 – €7,035
A 15 Schulleitung €6,356 – €7,906

“A13 für alle” — the long campaign to pay primary teachers the same as secondary — has succeeded in most Bundesländer over recent years. Whether it applies to you is a state-by-state question and one of the first things to check.

As an employee — TV-L, all states except Hessen, valid 01.04.2026 – 28.02.2027:

Grade Gross/month
E 11 €4,178 – €6,051
E 12 €4,311 – €6,627
E 13 €4,759 – €6,765

The gross figures look comparable. They are not comparable. A Beamter on A 13 nets substantially more than an employee on E 13 — no pension contribution, no unemployment insurance, Beihilfe instead of full health premiums — and retires on Ruhegehalt rather than the statutory pension. See beamte-vs-angestellte.

Workload

Teaching load is measured in Pflichtstunden (Deputat), not office hours: roughly 25–28 lessons per week at Grundschule, 23–25 at Gymnasium, varying by state. Preparation, marking, parent contact, conferences and documentation sit on top, within a nominal 40–41 hour week. Correction-heavy subject pairs — German, languages — are materially more work than the timetable shows, which is worth weighing when choosing subjects.

Demand

Severe and structural, but uneven. Acute shortage in Grundschule, Sonderpädagogik, MINT subjects and vocational schools, and in rural and eastern regions. Closer to balance, occasionally oversupplied, in Gymnasium humanities in attractive cities. “Teacher shortage” is true in aggregate and false for some specific combinations — check your Lehramt and subjects, not the headline.

Foreign-trained candidates

  1. Apply to the Zeugnisanerkennungsstelle of your target Bundesland. No national procedure exists.
  2. Both phases must be matched. German qualification has two: academic study and a supervised Referendariat with its own exam. A foreign degree that included little supervised practice will usually be found incomplete, and the remedy is an Anpassungslehrgang or Anpassungsqualifizierung.
  3. The two-subject requirement is the most common failure point — see above.
  4. Language: C1 minimum, and C2 is commonly required for Lehramt recognition. The highest language bar in this repo. The reasoning is that you are modelling the language of instruction.
  5. Visa: §16d AufenthG for recognition, then §18b.
  6. Verbeamtung generally requires EU/EEA/Swiss citizenship (§7 BeamtStG). A recognised, fully qualified third-country teacher will typically be hired as an Angestellte/r on TV-L — lower net pay, statutory pension, no tenure — and stay there unless they naturalise. This is the single most consequential fact in this file, and it has nothing to do with competence.

Pitfalls

  • Choosing the Bundesland late. It sets training, subjects, pay and Verbeamtung. Changing later is a negotiation, not a transfer.
  • The citizenship gate on Verbeamtung — permanent, large, and invisible in job ads.
  • Age limits for Verbeamtung (commonly 42–47 at appointment) catch career changers, and the Referendariat itself consumes one to two of those years.
  • The amtsärztliche Untersuchung can refuse appointment on health grounds even after you have completed everything.
  • Seiteneinstieg terms vary enormously. Some routes dead-end as permanent Angestellte.
  • Subject combination is a lifelong workload decision, not just an academic one.

Sources

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