Guides / How to write a German CV (Lebenslauf) as a foreigner

How to write a German CV (Lebenslauf) as a foreigner

What a German Lebenslauf contains, what to leave out, the photo question and the documents that follow it, based on the Federal Employment Agency's own guide.

Published 2026-10-08; sources checked 2026-10-08

If you apply for a job in Germany with the CV you used at home, it may still work, but German employers are used to a particular shape. This guide follows the Federal Employment Agency's (Bundesagentur für Arbeit) own application guide, "Bewerbung leicht gemacht – Bewerbungskompass für Arbeitsstellen", so each point can be checked against the source. The guide is written in German; we translate the relevant points. This is general information about common practice, not career, legal or tax advice, and individual employers may ask for something different. Always follow the instructions in the job advert.

The basic shape: tabular, complete, clear

The Agency describes the Lebenslauf as "tabellarisch, logisch aufgebaut, übersichtlich und lückenlos": tabular, logically structured, clear and without gaps. It says the CV should have two columns and two sections.

• Section 1, personal data: name and address, phone number(s) and e-mail address. The Agency says these can also sit in the header.
• Section 2, your history, with month and year: jobs (employer, place, short description of your duties), education and/or university studies, further training, school education (highest qualification only), and skills such as languages, computer skills and mobility or driving licences.
• Optional: voluntary work and hobbies, if they are relevant to the job.
• Do not forget: place, date and signature.

On order, the guide says it is common today to start with your current activity, which means reverse-chronological: newest first. On gaps, it says that gaps between two jobs shorter than three months no longer necessarily need an explanation. The Agency also advises tailoring the CV to the job description and leaving out skills that are not relevant.

What the Agency says you can leave out

For a foreigner this is the most surprising list. The Agency's guide has a heading "Nicht verpflichtend, im Zweifel eher weglassen" (not obligatory, when in doubt leave out) and names:

• date and place of birth,
• nationality,
• marital status and children,
• primary and secondary schools that did not lead to your highest school qualification,
• parents,
• religious denomination (only to be given if it is relevant for the job).

If you have used a CV format from your home country with a long personal section, this is the part to shorten.

See the German CV and cover letter templates on Polar

The photo

On the application photo, the Agency writes that employers may no longer demand an application photo ("dürfen von Arbeitgebern nicht mehr verlangt werden"), but that photos are still common ("sind aber immer noch üblich"). The guide itself recommends a professional photo and advises against selfies; it gives a size of about 4 x 6 cm for the CV. The Agency also advises not to leave the photo out ("Verzichten Sie deshalb nicht auf ein Bewerbungsfoto"). So, according to the Agency, including one is your decision, not an obligation, but its advice is to include it. If you include one, make it a clean, professional portrait.

Layout, fonts, file format

The Agency's tip is not to mix typefaces; it names Garamond, Helvetica and Georgia as recommended, mentions Arial as often used, and gives 10 to 12 points as the font size. It suggests using the same typeface across the whole application. For applications by e-mail, the guide's example puts the cover letter, CV and certificates together in one PDF file (it names a maximum of 5 MB in its example). It also says a cover sheet (Deckblatt) is no longer required, because most applications are sent online.

What goes after the CV

Certificates (Zeugnisse) are normally submitted in full and follow the CV: employment references, degree certificates, vocational qualifications, and relevant training certificates. The Agency says not to attach originals and that notarised copies are usually only requested by some public authorities. If your qualifications were issued abroad, check the job advert or the employer for what they expect, since the guide does not cover foreign certificates.

A starting point in Word

Setting this up well in Word takes time: the two-column table, consistent fonts, the cover letter layout. We made German-language Word templates for exactly this shape: eight .docx templates (CVs in two designs, one- or two-page versions, cover pages and cover letters) plus a guide, delivered as one ZIP. The files are in German, so you write your own content, in German, into the prepared layouts. The templates do not write your CV for you, and we cannot promise any result from an application.

See the German CV and cover letter templates on Polar

Once you are sending several applications, a simple list helps you see which employer you have written to and when. Our Bewerbungs-Tracker is an Excel file for that (English and German version), with columns for company, position, date applied, status and notes.

Sources

All pages read on 2026-10-08.

• Bundesagentur für Arbeit: "Bewerbung leicht gemacht – Bewerbungskompass für Arbeitsstellen" (PDF in German; edition September 2023 as printed in the document). Sections used: Lebenslauf, Bewerbungsfoto, Deckblatt, Zeugnisse.

About this guide

Written by Template House, an independent maker of downloadable templates. We sell the templates mentioned above. We are not lawyers or tax advisers, and this guide is not legal or tax advice.

Created with AI assistance under our creative direction and reviewed by us.

This guide is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Rules change and your situation may differ; check with the authority or a qualified adviser.

AI disclosure: Created with AI assistance under our creative direction and reviewed by us.