If you lose your job in Germany, or you're about to, the government will sometimes pay for you to retrain. The ticket is called a Bildungsgutschein, and in 2026 it still covers 100% of tuition, even though the rest of the welfare system was rewritten this summer.
We rechecked every program on this list in August 2026. CareerFoundry, which used to be on it, has shut down, and a new kind of course has appeared: one that teaches you to build software by directing AI agents, so that you write very little of the code yourself.
The seven programs
Program | Provider | Duration (full-time) | Language | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Turing College | 3 months | English | Coders moving into AI roles | |
Turing College | 3 months | English | Non-coders who want to build with AI | |
WBS Training | 24 months | German | A recognized IT qualification from zero | |
neue fische | 16 weeks | English | Career changers targeting cloud roles | |
WBS Training | 41 days | German | IT admins specializing in security | |
ebam Akademie | ~7 months | German | Retail and marketing professionals | |
Le Wagon | 9 weeks | English | Developers and analysts going deeper |
What the Bildungsgutschein is
A Bildungsgutschein is a voucher from the Agentur für Arbeit. If you're unemployed or about to be, and the course is AZAV-certified, the agency can pay the whole bill — tuition, materials, and exam fees, and in some cases travel and childcare as well.
You apply at your local Agentur für Arbeit. Since January 2025 that office has handled training decisions for everyone, including people who used to go through a Jobcenter.
The money behind this grew. The Bundesagentur für Arbeit put €4.12 billion into professional training for 2026, about €690 million more than the year before, and its planning papers name digitalization, artificial intelligence, and IT security as the fields it wants people retrained into. Around 294,000 people finished voucher-funded retraining in 2024, and 62% of them were in social-insurance employment within a year.
What changed in 2026
On 1 July 2026 the Neue Grundsicherung replaced Bürgergeld. The voucher itself did not change: you still get 100% coverage, on the same legal basis. What did change is the rule around it. Job placement now officially comes first — the old Vermittlungsvorrang, back again — which means your advisor has to believe that training will get you into stable work faster than taking a job now. If you can't make that case, you won't get the voucher.
CareerFoundry, whose UX Design course was on earlier versions of this list and still turns up in older articles and chatbot answers, filed for insolvency in October 2025 and stopped operating on 28 February 2026. If a list still recommends them, the list is stale.
A few of the schools that remain have changed shape. neue fische merged into a new company and stretched its AWS bootcamp from 12 weeks to 16, with AI work built into the syllabus. ebam added a module on business AI. WBS now gives every participant ChatGPT for the length of the course, plus an AI tutor they call Kitu.
Generic software development dropped off the BA's 2025 shortage list. The regional training plans still fund AI development, the work of putting AI inside existing companies, and IT security. If you walk into the consultation talking about becoming "a developer," you are arguing against the agency's own papers, so you are better off naming a specific role they already want to fund.
Time to job-ready: full-time duration of Bildungsgutschein programs, 2026
Full-time track of each program on this year's list, in months. All are 100% funded with a Bildungsgutschein.
Program durations as published by each provider, August 2026. Part-time variants differ (e.g. Le Wagon 7 months, ebam ~20 h/week). · turingcollege.com
What the advisor is actually deciding
The course has to be something you'd finish, and something that would get you hired. Under the 2026 rules the second part is what the meeting is about. The advisor is asking, given this person's history, whether this training is the shortest path to a job that actually exists. A few things have to be true or the answer is no.
The program has to be AZAV-certified, and there is no way around that. Check the provider's site or ask them, and if they can't show the certificate, look elsewhere.
It also has to connect to work you've already done, or at least to a nearby field. A complete leap is possible, but you need a story the advisor will believe, and most people don't have one.
It has to point at a job the agency already thinks is scarce. In 2026 that means AI development, putting AI into existing businesses, IT security, and a few other digital roles. The more specific the target, the easier the conversation.
Employers now assume you can work with AI tools in almost any of these jobs, so a webinar bolted onto last year's syllabus doesn't help you much. Look at whether the tools are in the actual weekly work.
You also have to be able to finish the course. Full-time and intense, or part-time and long: pick the one you'll actually do. Career coaching is worth more than it sounds, and a portfolio of finished work is worth more still.
The programs
These seven sit where two things overlap: the agency is willing to fund them, and companies are hiring the people who finish them. We rechecked each one in August 2026.
Turing College – AI Engineering
Best for: People who already write some code and want a technical AI job
Duration: 3 months, 30 h per week
Mode: Fully online, self-paced
Language: English
AI engineering is one of the jobs the Agentur für Arbeit's 2026 training plans name on purpose. Turing College's AI Engineering program is a project course: you build applications with large language models, LangChain, and AI agents, and you keep going until something is actually running in production.
There are four modules and 15 sprints, with regular 1:1 sessions from people who do this work for a living. The schedule is flexible, but 30 hours a week is the real load, and you have to ship. A career specialist works with you on the CV and LinkedIn side so the portfolio has somewhere to go.
AI Engineering with a Bildungsgutschein
Turing College – Building with AI Agents
Best for: People who don't write code and want to ship real software anyway
Duration: 3 months, 30 h per week on the funded track
Mode: Fully online, self-paced
Language: English
This one is new, and as far as we can tell it is the first course of this type you can fund with a Bildungsgutschein in Germany. A job has opened up between product and programming: people who use AI coding agents to turn an idea into a working application, without writing most of the code. Companies have started hiring for that, and Building with AI Agents is the course that trains it.
You learn a repeatable path from idea to something running in production. That means directing agents like Claude Code, attaching a database, getting the thing hosted, and learning the mistakes that make a shipped app easy to break. The last project is a product of your own, which is what you take to interviews.
The weekly rhythm is the same as Turing College's older programs: you set the pace, a mentor reviews what you ship, and career help is included. You do not need to have coded before.
Building with AI Agents with a Bildungsgutschein
WBS Training – IT Specialist in Systems Integration (Fachinformatiker:in Systemintegration, IHK)
Best for: People outside tech who want a qualification German employers already recognize
Duration: 24 months, full-time (includes an internship)
Mode: Live-online (from home or at a WBS Training center)
Language: German
If you want to enter IT with a state-recognized credential, this is still the long, solid path. WBS's Umschulung teaches you to keep business systems running — servers, networks, and the boring failures that actually stop companies — and at the end you sit the official IHK exam.
That exam is why this course is different from the others on the list. It qualifies for the €150/month Weiterbildungsgeld, and for exam bonuses of up to €2,500, on top of your benefits. There is a company internship before you graduate. Classes run daily in WBS's virtual classroom, and you can join from home or from one of about 280 centers. Since 2026, participants get ChatGPT for the course and help from Kitu, their AI tutor.
WBS – Fachinformatiker Systemintegration (IHK)
neue fische – AWS Cloud Computing with AI
Best for: Career changers aiming at cloud engineer, junior solutions architect, or infrastructure roles
Duration: 16 weeks, full-time (was 12)
Mode: Live classes online
Language: English
Cloud work still sits under almost every product company, and in 2026 a lot of that work is also AI infrastructure. neue fische's bootcamp is part of the official AWS re/Start program. They added four weeks and rebuilt the syllabus around that: most of the time you spend on AWS itself and on writing Python to drive it, with security folded into the same work. You also use generative AI services like Amazon Bedrock, and the AI tools developers now reach for by default. No prior tech job is required.
You also work with Terraform and monitoring, and you leave with an exam voucher for AWS Cloud Practitioner. They help with the CV and interviews afterwards. Cloud hiring managers still ask for the certificates.
neue fische – AWS Cloud Computing with AI
WBS Training – IT Security Expert (IT-Sicherheit Expert:in)
Best for: People who already run networks or servers and want to specialize
Duration: 41 days, full-time
Mode: Live-online (from home or at a WBS Training center)
Language: German
IT-Security-Administrator and IT-Cybersecurity-Analyst are two of the few job titles the agency's 2026 planning documents mention by name. This WBS course is short, a little over eight weeks, and covers network security, risk analysis, incident response, penetration testing, and forensics. If you already have admin experience, it is the fastest funded way on this list to put a security label on it.
ebam Akademie – E-Commerce Specialist
Best for: People coming from retail or marketing
Duration: about 7 months (7 modules of 21 training days; you can stretch it), full-time or part-time
Mode: Live classes online
Language: German
Running a shop is a different job from stocking one. ebam's course is modular, covering shop systems, Amazon and eBay, conversion, and GDPR. They added a module this year called Künstliche Intelligenz & Business AI, which covers chatbots and the kind of demand forecasting shops actually use. AI writing tools show up in the other modules too.
Full-time is about 40 hours a week and part-time about 20. You can even fund a single module with a one-month voucher, which is useful if the advisor will only approve a small first step.
Le Wagon – Data Engineering
Best for: Developers or analysts who want the infrastructure side of data
Duration: 9 weeks full-time, or 7 months part-time
Mode: Online or on campus in Berlin
Language: English
If you already work with code or data and want a more technical job, this is the obvious upgrade. Le Wagon's Data Engineering bootcamp teaches you to build the pipes — Python, SQL, Docker, Airflow, dbt, Spark, and a cloud — and you start building in the first week. The last thing you do is design and deploy a pipeline of your own, which is what you show in interviews.
Both the 9-week and the 7-month versions are AZAV-certified in Germany.
How you actually get the voucher
The steps themselves are simple. The meeting is harder than it used to be, at least this year.
Register with the Agentur für Arbeit as unemployed, or about to be, either online or at the office. Without this you are not in the system, and there is no voucher.
Pick a program you can defend. Use the tests above. The course has to draw a straight line from your background to a job the agency already wants filled.
Go to the consultation with that line written down. This is the step the reform changed. You need to say which role you're aiming at, why that role is scarce, and why training gets you there faster than taking whatever job is open this month. We wrote a 5-step playbook for that meeting, and if they say no, you can appeal.
Use the voucher before it expires. Enroll with the school inside the validity window. If you miss it, you start over.
Start the course. Tuition and materials are paid, and travel and childcare subsidies are sometimes paid too. If the course leads to a recognized qualification (the IHK Umschulung above is the example on this list) and you receive ALG I or Grundsicherungsgeld, you may also get €150 a month Weiterbildungsgeld, plus exam bonuses of up to €2,500.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Bildungsgutschein still available in 2026 after the Bürgergeld reform?
Yes. Neue Grundsicherung replaced Bürgergeld on 1 July 2026, but the voucher itself did not change: you still get 100% cost coverage, on the same legal basis (§ 81 SGB III). Job placement now officially comes before retraining, so you need a clearer reason that training leads to a stable job. The training budget went up, to €4.12 billion for 2026.
How much does a Bildungsgutschein cover?
All course costs for AZAV-certified programs: tuition, materials, and exam fees, and depending on your situation, travel and childcare as well. You keep getting ALG I or Grundsicherungsgeld while you train.
Can I use a Bildungsgutschein for an English-language online course?
Yes. The agency cares that the course is AZAV-certified; English is fine, and so is studying from home. Turing College's AI Engineering and Building with AI Agents programs, neue fische's AWS bootcamp, and Le Wagon's Data Engineering bootcamp are all taught in English, run online or partly online, and can be funded.
What happened to CareerFoundry?
CareerFoundry was a Berlin school whose UX Design course was widely recommended for Bildungsgutschein funding, including on earlier versions of this article. They filed for insolvency in October 2025 and shut down on 28 February 2026, and they no longer take students. If a list or a chatbot still names them, that information is old.
Do I get extra money while training?
Sometimes. If you receive ALG I or Grundsicherungsgeld and the training leads to a recognized vocational qualification (abschlussorientierte Weiterbildung, for example an IHK Umschulung), you get €150 a month Weiterbildungsgeld for the whole course, tax-free and on top of your benefits, plus €1,000 for the intermediate exam and €1,500 for the final. Shorter certificate courses don't get those bonuses, but the course itself is still fully paid for.
How long does approval take?
Usually 4 to 8 weeks from registration to an approved voucher, depending on how fast you get a meeting and how ready you are when you walk in. Start before the cohort you want. Once issued, the voucher itself expires if you don't use it.
If you want to build with AI
There are two funded paths, depending on where you start. AI Engineering if you already write code, and Building with AI Agents if you don't. Both last 3 months, run online, in English, and with a Bildungsgutschein you don't pay tuition.
Talk to admissions, then walk into the Agentur für Arbeit meeting with a plan you can explain in two minutes.
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