Where the "21.7 billion euros of Buergergeld for foreigners" figure comes from, and what the fact-check says it leaves out
Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD's lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, told the broadcaster MDR that "over 20 billion euros" goes on Buergergeld payments to non-German citizens alone. With a state election on 6 September, the number is now circulating widely. The state's domestic intelligence service classifies the Saxony-Anhalt AfD as confirmed right-wing extremist.
MDR checked the arithmetic and found it holds up. In the 2025 budget year 46.65 billion euros of Buergergeld was paid out, according to a federal government answer in the Bundestag. Foreign nationals made up 47.6 percent of the people receiving it. Take that share of the total and you get roughly 21.7 billion euros.
What that calculation is worth knowing about is how it is built. It applies a headcount share of recipients to a total sum. It is not a breakdown of what was actually paid out by nationality, and no such breakdown has been published. The fact-check also attached the other half of the same sum: almost exactly as much goes to German citizens. Under German law Buergergeld is a benefit that everyone who meets the conditions is entitled to, whatever their origin.
A second claim was rejected outright. Siegmund said Saxony-Anhalt alone had spent hundreds of millions, even billions, on migration, asylum and integration over ten years. The state interior ministry called that false. Spending under the Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act in Saxony-Anhalt came to about 1.2 billion euros between 2016 and 2025, which places the state at the lower end nationally both in total and per head. The equivalent Germany-wide figure is about 58.7 billion. Total migration and integration spending cannot be stated exactly, because public budgets do not separate it out.
The state government put the other side of the ledger. The interior ministry said a full economic assessment has to count what foreign employees contribute in taxes and social insurance. Just under 70,000 foreign nationals were in jobs covered by social insurance in Saxony-Anhalt in January 2026, about nine percent of all employees, and 2,035 doctors in the state hold a foreign passport. The labour and social affairs minister said medical care there could not be maintained without international doctors.