For The First Time In More Than 25 Years, More People Are Moving From Germany To Poland Than Vice Versa

What is the reason for this change?

For a long time, Germany, neighboring Poland, was a symbol of prosperity and attracted many people from other countries. Jobs, infrastructure, a thriving economy - Germany was seen as a promise of a better life. But figures for 2024 suggest otherwise, says Euronews.

According to the Federal Statistical Office, 90,807 people will move from Germany to Poland and 82,082 from Poland to Germany in 2024. The so-called "migration path", which has been moving continuously in one direction since the 1980s, seems to have come to an end for the time being and changed vector.

"Not so many people are returning to Poland. The real change is that far fewer people are moving from Poland to Germany," explains Bastian Sendhardt, a political scientist at the Berlin office of the German Institute for Poland. - Although emigration from Germany to Poland has increased slightly, a much larger factor in the negative balance is that the inflow from Poland is simply declining."

In 2024, Polish nationals accounted for 6.6 percent of Germany's foreign working-age population - the third largest group of foreigners after Turks and Ukrainians. In 2024, net immigration of this group fell for the first time since the introduction of free movement of labor in 2011 - net migration fell from plus 15,000 to minus 11,000.

According to the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), about 30.7% of Poles living in Germany are considering leaving the country. Some 4.1% already have concrete plans to leave - of these, 68% want to return to Poland, especially among young people under the age of 35.

What is the reason for this change? Sendhardt describes it as two parallel processes: "On the one hand, the pull factors that make Germany attractive and attract people from Poland have decreased. On the other hand, the factors that encourage people to emigrate from Poland have decreased."

This is consistent with the IAB survey data: Poles cite the general economic situation in Germany (57.7%), the political situation (56.0%), high taxes (45.9%) and expensive bureaucracy (38.0%) as the main reasons for a possible departure from Germany.

Poland's image of Germany has changed, notes Sendhardt: "For a long time, Germany was a country that people looked up to. The weather might not be good there, people didn't have a good sense of humor, but you could make good money, and infrastructure projects worked. Today, that image no longer holds up. Promises of prosperity no longer work in Germany."

At the same time, Poland is developing rapidly. The country is now the sixth largest economy in the EU and its economic growth last year was 3.2%, with forecasts for 2026 even higher. While Germany had a record year this decade with growth of 2.7% - eight years ago - Poland has regularly grown at around five percent a year.

If you look at the labor market, the picture also looks different from a generation ago: the unemployment rate in Poland in February 2026 was 3.2%, making it one of the lowest in the entire EU. In Germany, the rate is 4.0%, and the EU average is 5.9%.

Zendhardt speaks of a change in mentality: "There is a completely different spirit in Poland now when it comes to looking at the future. While people in Poland think that tomorrow will be better than today, people in Germany tend to think that tomorrow will be worse than today. Whoever travels from Germany to Warsaw by train enters a city where the digitalization of everyday life is much more developed than here."

From 2022, Poland will offer tax incentives for returnees. Under the so-called "Ulga na Powrót" (return benefit), people who have lived abroad for at least three years can claim an income tax break of 85,528 zlotys (about 19,700 euros) per year for four consecutive years. Together with the general Polish tax-free benefit, returnees can earn up to PLN 115,000 (about EUR 26,500) per year tax-free.

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