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On 24 March 2026, the Federal Administrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht) delivered its decision in case BVerwG 1 C 6.25. The case concerned whether Germany was required to grant a residence permit to a person who had previously been recognised as a refugee by another EU Member State following a transfer of responsibility.

The applicant, an Ethiopian national recognised as a refugee in Italy, entered Germany in 2019 and applied for asylum. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees rejected the application as inadmissible and ordered her return to Italy. Since the applicant could not be returned to Italy, the domestic courts ordered the defendant State to issue a new refugee travel document and to grant her a residence permit.

The question before the Federal Administrative Court was whether Germany was also obliged to grant a residence permit under national law in light of the prior recognition of refugee status in Italy. The Court upheld the Government’s appeal against the decision of the Bavarian Administrative Court of Appeal ordering the authorities to grant a residence permit and considered that neither national law nor international and EU law imposes an obligation on Germany to grant a residence permit in such circumstances. It found that the conditions for issuing a residence permit under § 25(2) sentence 1 alternative 1 of the Residence Act were not met, as refugee status had been granted by Italy and not by German authorities.

It considered that the legal framework of the Geneva Refugee Convention and Directive 2011/95/EU does not require a Member State to grant a residence permit to a person recognised as a refugee by another Member State, as responsibility for residence rights remains with the recognising State.

Unofficial translation by the EWLU team