How Many Doctors Does Germany Really Have? Workforce Statistics 2025 and Career Prospects

How many doctors work in Germany?

According to the workforce statistics of the German Medical Association, 446,120 doctors were working in Germany on 31 December 2025, 2.0 percent more than in 2024. Around 593,300 people were registered with the state medical chambers, including some 106,000 who have retired. The smaller figure, the number in active practice, is always the one that matters for patient care.

The overview below summarises the reporting year. Two of its rows appear in no publication in this form: the hospital-sector total and the number of doctors under 35 only emerge once the sub-totals published by the German Medical Association are set against one another.

Sources: German Medical Association, workforce statistics as at 31 Dec 2025, and health data from the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians. The rows on the hospital sector and on doctors under 35 are our own calculations from the published sub-totals.

One figure here deserves particular attention. Around 104,300 doctors in active practice have reached the age of 60, but only about 84,800 are younger than 35. For every 100 people in the older group there are therefore around 81 in the younger one (our own calculation based on the 2025 workforce statistics). The next generation is not filling the ranks one for one.

I now bring this calculation into many advisory conversations. Almost no one asks about the headline total. What people ask is whether there will be too many doctors in ten years' time and whether the degree will still pay off. The age distribution answers that more honestly than any forecast, because it assumes nothing beyond the calendar.

Where do doctors in Germany work?

Of the 446,120 doctors in active practice in Germany at the end of 2025, around 233,500 worked in the hospital sector on this calculation and 173,912 in outpatient care, plus 12,050 in public authorities and statutory bodies and 26,639 in other areas. The hospital remains the profession's largest employer.

The hospital sector is still hiring

The number of doctors working in hospitals rose by 2.4 percent in 2025, that is, faster than the profession as a whole. For those entering the profession this is the decisive figure, because specialist training takes place overwhelmingly in hospitals. In 2024 the German Medical Association issued 15,378 specialist certifications, 3.4 percent more than the year before; 2,140 of them were in general practice.

In outpatient care the form of employment is shifting

Here the internal structure is more interesting than the total. The number of doctors working in outpatient care rose by 1.7 percent in 2025 to 173,912. Within that group two developments run against each other: the number of doctors in independent practice fell by 1.3 percent and is around 8 percent below the 2019 level, while the number of salaried doctors grew by 6.7 percent to 68,648. Since 2020 that is an increase of around 48 percent. Today 39 percent of everyone working in outpatient care is salaried.

This is not a shrinking of outpatient care but a shift in legal form. The younger generation of doctors more often chooses a salaried post in a medical care centre or a group practice over running a single-handed practice. Anyone who wants neither a practice loan nor entrepreneurial risk will find considerably more salaried positions today than ten years ago. Anyone who does want their own practice will find it easier to find one whose owner is ready to hand it over.

How old is the German medical profession?

At the end of 2025, 23.4 percent of doctors in active practice in Germany were at least 60 years old: 60,826 people between 60 and 65 and 43,444 over 65 who are still working. Just over 19 percent are under 35. In 2024 the Federal Statistical Office counted around 31 percent aged 55 and over.

This distribution is the single most important finding in the whole data set. It describes a replacement need that depends neither on the economic cycle nor on political majorities. Anyone starting a medical degree in 2026 will finish specialist training at roughly the point when this age block has left the profession. The demand of those first working years is already fixed today.

On everything else one has to stay honest. The age structure says nothing about the region or the specialty in which that need will arise. It says nothing about on-call burden, working hours or pay either. Secure demand is not a promise of a pleasant workplace.

The share of women also shows the generational shift: 50.5 percent across everyone in active practice, 32 percent among those over 65, and 59 percent among doctors in specialist training. The group that will carry patient care for the next two decades is majority female.

Why does the number of doctors grow without the staffing need falling?

The workforce statistics count heads, not hours. The share of doctors working part-time in Germany rose from 15 percent in 2014 to 28 percent in 2024, and average weekly working time in 2024 was 40.3 hours. An increase of 2.0 percent in headcount therefore means noticeably fewer additional working hours.

The figures can be checked. Full-time means 46.0 hours, part-time 25.6 hours. With a part-time share of 28 percent that works out at 40.3 hours on average, exactly the figure in the statistics. Apply the same method to the 15 percent part-time share of 2014 and the result is around 42.9 hours. The change in the part-time rate alone has therefore reduced the volume of work per head by around six percent (our own calculation, rounded).

Of every ten doctors, close to three now work reduced hours; in 2014 it was one and a half. On top of that come tasks that are not patient care: documentation, coding, quality assurance, dealings with payers. Together these two things explain why a growing number of doctors and unfilled posts are not a contradiction.

I work as a dentist in Bern, so in a different system and a different field. The movement is the same nonetheless. Reduced workloads have become normal among younger colleagues, and nobody feels the need to justify them. Anyone starting the degree today is entering a profession that accommodates life planning better than it did twenty years ago. That is an achievement, not a shortfall.

How many foreign doctors work in Germany?

At the end of 2025, 71,480 doctors in active practice in Germany did not hold German citizenship, which is 16 percent. In 2025 a further 3,378 joined, an increase of around 5 percent. The largest groups by country of origin are Syria with 7,959, Romania with 4,617 and Turkey with 3,532 doctors.

Next come the Russian Federation with 3,138, Austria with 3,076, Greece with 2,963 and Ukraine with 2,820; around 24,300 come from EU member states. The growth comes predominantly from countries outside the European Union, where it amounted to 7.6 percent. The fastest-growing groups in 2025 were those from the Americas at 13 percent and from Asia at 9.8 percent.

This group is young. Close to half of the doctors who have immigrated are under 35, against 22 percent in the profession overall. According to the health data of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, 71 percent of them work in the hospital sector.

Why different sources quote different shares

Anyone comparing the figures will come across discrepancies. They are not contradictions but questions of definition. The German Medical Association counts chamber members by citizenship and arrives at 16 percent for 2025. The Federal Statistical Office analyses employment data and reported a share of 13 percent for 2024, around 64,000 people, against 7 percent ten years earlier. Count doctors with a migration background who hold a German passport as well, and the share according to the Federal Statistical Office is 24 percent, or around 121,000 people. Three figures, three reference populations, none of them wrong. For questions of patient care the chamber statistics are the more precise, because they also record professional status.

How does Germany compare on doctor density in Europe?

According to Eurostat, Germany had 466.3 practising doctors per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023, placing it in the upper range within the European Union. Austria leads with 551.4; Finland is at the bottom end with 288. Around 1.98 million doctors were practising in the EU in 2023.

The comparison only becomes interesting when the training output is placed alongside it. The table below sets out two Eurostat data sets that are almost never cited together in German reporting.

Source: Eurostat, data sets hlth_rs_prs2 and hlth_rs_grd2, reporting year 2023.

The pattern rarely surfaces in public debate. Germany and Norway have a high density of doctors but, measured against their populations, train fewer than the EU average of 15.5 graduates per 100,000 inhabitants. Poland is near the bottom on density and trains considerably more. Austria manages both. Countries with high density and low domestic training output close the gap through immigration and through their own citizens who study elsewhere in Europe.

One caveat belongs with this. The most recent Europe-wide comparable Eurostat figures are from the 2023 reporting year and are therefore three years old, while the German chamber statistics reflect the position at the end of 2025. The ranking is likely to be stable; the absolute values are not.

United Kingdom: 42 percent with a foreign primary qualification

Just how far this can go is shown by the UK's General Medical Council. According to its Workforce Report 2025, 138,405 licensed doctors working in the United Kingdom obtained their primary medical qualification outside the country, 42 percent of the entire profession. The share of non-UK graduates in specialty training posts rose from 26 percent in the 2018/19 academic year to 34 percent in 2023/24.

Switzerland shows the same mechanism. The Swiss Medical Association FMH counted more than 42,600 doctors in active practice in 2024, an increase of 3.7 percent, and reports for 2025 that a quarter of the Swiss medical profession is at least 60 years old. In the other direction, 2,197 doctors left Germany in 2024 according to the German Medical Association, 675 of them for Switzerland and 331 for Austria. The European labour market is real and permeable.

What do the doctor numbers mean for studying medicine from 2026?

Three robust points follow from the 2025 workforce statistics for anyone considering the degree: demand for medical labour is demographically secure, the bottleneck is access to a study place rather than the labour market, and a place of study within the European Union is no obstacle to practising later.

On the first point: around 104,300 doctors in active practice are 60 or older, weekly working time per head is falling, and the outpatient sector is creating salaried posts at a rapid pace. A profession with those three characteristics will be needed for decades.

On the second point: in the 2024/25 winter semester around 15,900 students began a degree in human medicine according to the Federal Statistical Office, 30 percent more than ten years earlier. Capacity has therefore grown. Measured against the population it nevertheless remains, at 12.2 graduates per 100,000 inhabitants, below the EU average of 15.5.

On the third point: within the European Union a medical degree is recognised automatically under Directive 2005/36/EC, provided the minimum training requirements are met. Anyone who studies in Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Croatia or Slovakia will later move in the same labour market as any German graduate.

I studied dentistry in Sofia from 2015 to 2021 and then went through MEBEKO recognition in Bern. What I took from that time above all is this: the paperwork is rarely the real issue. The real issue is whether someone can keep going for six years, far from home. That is why in advisory conversations I ask early about everyday life and only late about recognition.

My assessment: the annual growth rate of around two percent will hold, because entry to the profession is capped by the number of study places and a growing part of the increase comes from abroad. The headcount will keep rising, the volume of work per head will keep falling. I cannot prove this projection; it follows from the trends between 2014 and 2025 and not from any official forecast.

Which route fits in an individual case depends on grades, languages, budget and personal circumstances. Anyone who wants to work through that can book a free consultation with us.

How to read the workforce statistics correctly

Two distinctions are decisive. Registered doctors and doctors in active practice are not the same thing: the frequently quoted figure of around 593,300 also includes retirees, while the 446,120 in active practice are what matters for patient care. And headcounts are not full-time equivalents: without the part-time rate of 28 percent, any statement about the state of care remains incomplete.

The figures in this article come from the workforce statistics of the German Medical Association as at 31 Dec 2025, the health data of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, publications of the Federal Statistical Office, the Eurostat data sets hlth_rs_prs2 and hlth_rs_grd2 for the 2023 reporting year, and the General Medical Council's Workforce Report 2025. The position is as at August 2026. This article does not replace legal advice in an individual case.