Information Portal on Voluntary Return and Reintegration

The information portal on voluntary return and reintegration www.ReturningfromGermany.de is available in 10 languages. Migrants can search for counselling centres in their area and receive general information on the return process, support options and projects as well as their countries of origin.

Migrants who are interested in returning voluntarily to their country of origin require comprehensive information to be able to make an informed decision. Considering that going to a counselling centre usually requires more effort than searching for information online, it is crucial that initial information on returning can be found online easily for those who are interested.

This is what the information portal is offering since 2017. The website summarizes relevant information about German return programmes in ten languages, easy to understand and all in one place. The main focus areas are:

• General information on voluntary return: Provides an overview of the process of assisted voluntary return from counselling to reintegration. An explanatory video on the home page displays the process visually.
• Return and reintegration programmes: Informs about support possibilities for those interested in returning to different countries of origin.
• Counselling center search: Lists close by governmental and independent counselling centres.
• Specific country information: Provides specific support options for each return country.
• ZIRF-Counselling: Country information sheets with return-relevant topics such as health and labour in German, English and the respective national language are available for 26 countries. In addition, the integrated ZIRF-Database allows searching for up-to-date answers to case-specific individual requests that have been researched by IOM in countries of origin.
• Virtual Counselling: Shares contact details of IOM counsellors in 16 countries of origin who provide counselling in the respective national language via messenger services such as WhatsApp and others.

Additionally, the portal assists return counsellors in their daily work: They can find guidelines and application documents, information on programme changes and take advantage of the multilingual information if there is no interpreter available. 

The digital information portal is a project of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) with the support of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF).

Contact information

Team Information Portal on Voluntary Return and Reintegration
Phone: +49 911 43000     
E-mail: returningfromgermany@iom.int