Photo, birth date, marital status: what to leave off a German CV as a foreigner
German CV templates still show photos, birth dates and marital status — but none of it is required. What the AGG anti-discrimination law changed, what employers actually expect in 2026, and the safe default for internationals.
Search for a Lebenslauf template and you'll find the same layout again and again: a photo in the top corner, then a personal-details block with date of birth, nationality, and marital status. For candidates from countries where putting your photo or age on a CV would be unthinkable — or even get your application discarded for compliance reasons — this is the single most jarring German convention. Here's the actual state of it: what's tradition, what the law says, and what to do in practice.
The old convention
The traditional German CV opened with a Bewerbungsfoto (a professional application photo) and a personal-data block: Geburtsdatum und -ort (date and place of birth), Staatsangehörigkeit (nationality), and Familienstand (marital status — sometimes down to the number of children). Plenty of templates, career-advice sites, and older hiring managers still treat this as the default, which is why the convention refuses to die — but it survives on habit, not law.
What the law changed
Germany's General Equal Treatment Act — the Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz, or AGG, in force since 2006 — prohibits discrimination in hiring on grounds of race or ethnic origin, gender, religion or belief, disability, age, or sexual identity (§ 1 AGG).
The practical consequences for your CV:
- None of the personal details above are required. An employer cannot demand a photo, your age, or your family situation as a condition of applying. Nationality is the one nuance: asking where you're "originally from" crosses into the ethnic-origin territory the AGG protects, but employers may legitimately ask whether you hold the right to work in Germany — that's a job requirement, not a protected characteristic. Your passport itself still stays off the CV; a voluntary work-authorization line is a separate call (below).
- Omitting them is not a gap. A German recruiter seeing a CV without a photo or birth date does not read it as incomplete — anonymized application procedures (no photo, no name, no age in the first screen) were piloted nationally by Germany's Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency with employers like Deutsche Post and L'Oréal, and the agency has recommended photo-free first screening ever since.
- Interview questions about, for example, pregnancy or family planning are in general not permissible — you're not obligated to volunteer that information on paper either.
This is also why every German job ad carries the suffix (m/w/d) — männlich/weiblich/divers ("male/female/diverse"). The AGG obliges employers to advertise roles neutrally (§ 11 AGG), and the three letters are the standard compliance shorthand. It says nothing about the role or the team — it's legal boilerplate, not a diversity statement.
What's actually normal in 2026
Practice lags the law, and it's uneven — an honest picture:
- Photos are still common on German CVs, and some traditional employers quietly expect them.
- Larger and internationally-run employers increasingly prefer no photo, and many say so explicitly in their application guidance.
- For the kind of employer hiring English-speaking engineers, a missing photo will not disqualify you — and a mediocre photo (a cropped vacation shot, a dim webcam frame) actively hurts more than no photo at all.
The safe default for internationals
| On the CV | Required? | The safe default |
|---|---|---|
| Photo | No | Leave it off — or invest in a professional headshot if you want one |
| Date and place of birth | No | Leave it off |
| Nationality | No | Leave it off — a work-authorization line is a separate question (below) |
| Marital status, children | No | Leave it off |
| Name, contact details, profile links | Expected | Keep |
| Languages with honest levels | Expected | Keep — English C2, German B1 |
For the rest of the format — sections, order, signature — see the Lebenslauf guide.
Work authorization is your call. Nothing requires you to state it, but if you already hold an EU passport or an unrestricted German work permit, one line saying so can preempt a screening question that your name or degree location might otherwise raise. If your situation is complicated, it's equally legitimate to leave it for the interview.
If you'd rather not rebuild your CV around these rules by hand: our CV generator follows the same default — it lists only the contact details you actually provided, never invents a birth date, nationality, or marital status, and adds a photo only if you explicitly choose one. Match your CV and generate a tailored German CV from any result — no account needed to run the match.
If you do want a photo
It's your choice, and it stays legal to include one voluntarily. If you do: a professional headshot — business attire, neutral background, decent lighting — not a social-media crop. In hiring markets where photos are customary, the quality bar for a photo you choose to include is high.
The bottom line
The personal-data block is a legacy convention, not a requirement. Leave the photo, birth date, nationality, and marital status off by default; let your experience carry the first screen. And if a specific traditional employer clearly expects a photo, a good professional one is a small, reversible concession — the rest of the personal-data block can stay off either way.
For the full application flow — CV format, the cover letter, and how to submit — see the how to apply in Germany guide.