Who can vote in Germany's pivotal September state elections?
Three German states head to the polls this September in elections that have become a crucial measure of the country's political trajectory amid rising far-right sentiment.
Saxony-Anhalt votes first on September 6th, followed by Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the city-state of Berlin on September 20th. These contests represent the first in a series of six more state elections before the regularly scheduled national election in 2029.
The stakes are particularly high in Saxony-Anhalt, where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is polling at approximately 41-42 percent, within striking distance of an absolute majority that would allow it to govern alone. This represents a dramatic shift from the 2021 state election, when the Christian Democrats (CDU) won 37.1 percent and the AfD secured just 20.8 percent. The current government is a coalition of the CDU, SPD, and FDP under Minister-President Sven Schulze (CDU), who has been in office since January 2026.
Who is eligible to vote?
Only German citizens can participate in state elections. Voters must be at least 18 years old in Saxony-Anhalt, or at least 16 in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, eligible voters must have resided in the state for at least 37 days, while those aged 18 or older with at least three months of residence can stand for election.
This citizenship requirement means all foreign residents are excluded from state-level voting, though foreigners who have naturalised as German citizens may then vote in the state where they are registered.
Germany's citizenship law reforms, which entered into force on June 27, 2024, have made naturalisation more accessible by reducing the residency requirement from eight years to five years and allowing dual citizenship. These changes contributed to a record 291,955 people gaining German citizenship in 2024, a 46 percent increase from 2023.
The scale of exclusion
With approximately 14 million foreign nationals living in Germany at the beginning of 2025, representing around 17 percent of the total population, the number of people excluded from state elections is substantial.
In Berlin, more than 800,000 foreign residents lived in the city as of the end of 2025, equivalent to 22.5 percent of the entire population. That means nearly one in four Berlin residents cannot vote in the coming election. Saxony-Anhalt was home to nearly 170,000 foreign residents, roughly 8 percent of the state's population, while Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania had just over 100,000 residents, equating to 6.5 percent of the population.
These figures represent total numbers of foreign residents, some of whom would not yet be of voting age.
Different rules for local elections
The regulations differ for local or municipal elections, where foreign EU citizens can participate. This right is guaranteed in the German constitution under Article 28 of the Basic Law, introduced following the Maastricht Treaty, which was signed on February 7, 1992 and entered into force on November 1, 1993.
Berlin is holding both a state election and a local election on September 20th. German citizens resident in Berlin can vote to elect the city-state's House of Representatives, while all resident EU citizens over the age of 16 can vote in district assembly elections on the same date.
Each of Berlin's 12 districts has its own assembly, which exercises significant control over neighbourhood policy and local spending, but does not have the power to enact laws. The other city states of Hamburg and Bremen have a similar district assembly system.
Some cities and regions offer additional ways for foreign residents to participate in local politics. In North-Rhine Westphalia, cities with more than 5,000 foreign residents each elect an Advisory Board for Integration, whose members sit on local councils and advise local politicians about better serving foreign communities.
How Germany compares to other EU countries
Germany maintains stricter voting laws than many European Union countries. While all EU countries limit participation in federal elections strictly to their own citizens, some extend more voting rights to their foreign residents.
In Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands, all foreign nationals who have lived in the country for several years are permitted to vote in local and regional elections.
Tony Venables, founder of European Citizens' Rights, Involvement and Trust (ECIT), which advocates for voting rights for mobile EU citizens, argues that Germany's limits are outdated.
How come we allow EU citizens to vote in local elections, but not fellow Turks or Moroccans or Canadians who are in the same situation? About half the EU countries have done that.
The constitutional barrier
The debate around expanding voting rights in Germany is constrained by a 1990 Federal Constitutional Court ruling. When Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein attempted to expand municipal voting rights to long-term foreign residents in 1989, the court ruled the following year that in the Basic Law, the electorate or "the people" referred strictly to German nationals.
Since then, only one major exception has been made: allowing foreign EU citizens to vote at the local level, in accordance with the Maastricht Treaty.
Further reform would require a constitutional amendment, which demands significant political will. Dr. Tobias Spöri, senior research fellow at d|part, a think tank promoting political participation, explains that changing citizenship rules
operates within an established legal framework and can be framed as rewarding integration.
By contrast, extending voting rights to non-citizens
touches on more fundamental questions of national sovereignty and political identity, which tend to trigger much stronger opposition.
Among Germany's mainstream parties, only the Left (Die Linke) consistently advocates expanding voting rights to all long-term residents at both state and federal levels. The Greens and the Social Democrats (SPD) have also voiced support for expanding voting rights, at least at the local level. The Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and the AfD are staunchly opposed.
Understanding state elections
In state-level elections, citizens elect the state parliament. Voters can vote for both parties and local constituency candidates. In Germany's multi-party system, it is rare that a single party wins an absolute majority of seats in parliament, so parties must negotiate to form a coalition and draft a coalition agreement.
When a governing coalition is formed, the parliament holds a formal vote to elect the state's next leader, called a Minister-President. Regular state elections are held in each German state every five years.
