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How AMIF money reaches an organisation in Germany

Germany runs ESF Plus and ERDF through seventeen programmes each. AMIF is not like that: one federal programme, one managing authority, one audit authority — and both authorities are units of the same federal agency, BAMF. Their functional separation rests on Art. 71(2) of the Common Provisions Regulation, not on their sitting in different institutions. The programme designates no intermediate body at all: the five Bewilligungszentren that decide and pay are offices inside the managing authority, not bodies beside it. What varies by Land is real but narrow — which Bewilligungszentrum decides your case, what your Land writes about you in the Beteiligungsverfahren (it is asked directly whether it has had negative experience of you in the last five years), and the rules attaching to any Land or municipal money you use as co-financing, which are governed by the relevant Landeshaushaltsordnung and by the co-financer's own directive. Nothing here describes those Land rules, and a Land retention period may be longer than AMIF's five years. Two further boundaries. The figures on this page are the Förderrichtlinie defaults: § 6(2), § 14(1) and § 14(2) let each Förderaufruf change them, and § 28 lets your own Bescheid change the reporting rhythm. And the money arrives as an advance on request, not as reimbursement of checked spending — the opposite of the federal ESF Plus programme, and the most expensive wrong assumption about this fund.

AMIF — Programm Deutschland, Asyl-, Migrations- und Integrationsfonds 2021–2027 (CCI 2021DE65AMPR001), version 6.0, approved by Commission Decision C(2025)7813 of 14 November 2025Reg. (EU) 2021/1147 (AMIF) · Reg. (EU) 2021/1060 (Common Provisions) · Förderrichtlinie AMIF 2021–2027, Stand 11/2025 · Förderhandbuch 2025, Version 6.0 · §§ 23, 44, 91 and 100 Bundeshaushaltsordnung with their administrative provisions · ANBest-P and ANBest-Gk · Verwaltungsverfahrensgesetz and VerwaltungsgerichtsordnungProgramme total 2021–2027: 2,484,074,382.86 euro — 2,242,767,008.00 euro from the Union budget and 241,307,374.86 euro national, of which only 98.1m euro is public money and 143.2m euro is private, largely the own contribution carried by grant recipients themselves. BAMF's public page rounds this to about 1.6bn euro of project funding plus about 500m euro from the thematic facility, excluding the 126.9m euro of technical assistance; its percentage split across the four objectives is calculated on a different base again and cannot be read against the programme table.
CountryGermanyParent funding frameworkProgramm Deutschland — AMIF 2021–2027 (CCI 2021DE65AMPR001)EU policy areaAsylum, Migration and Integration FundProgramme categoryMigration, Asylum and IntegrationProgramme levelNational implementation of an EU fund
One programme, too many disconnected records. Delivery notes, partner decisions, expenditure, results and reporting evidence often sit in different places.

How the money reaches an organisation

Every level here can be asked for its own process map. That is the point of yours.

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European Commission — DG Migration and Home Affairs
The fund is set in Regulation (EU) 2021/1147 and the financial rules in Regulation (EU) 2021/1060. The Commission approves Germany's programme and each amendment of it under Arts. 23 and 24, and pays Germany, never you. Under the single-audit arrangements in Art. 80 it may obtain documents and audit evidence directly from a beneficiary; § 31(2) of the Förderrichtlinie states that the Commission and the European Court of Auditors both hold audit rights and cites Art. 80 for both. The Commission also sits in the Begleitausschuss as a non-voting adviser, alongside the EUAA and the BAMF research centre.
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Bundesministerium des Innern (BMI) — policy owner
BMI owns AMIF policy for Germany and leads the programme jointly with BAMF. Chair and secretariat of the Begleitausschuss are held by BMI and the managing authority together — so the body that approves the selection methodology you are scored against is chaired by the ministry that sets the policy and the authority that applies it. Its consent is needed before the managing authority may issue Konkretisierungen und Ergänzungen to the Förderrichtlinie (§ 33 sentence 1), and further besondere Nebenbestimmungen need the Federal Ministry of Finance's agreement and a hearing of the Bundesrechnungshof. BMI decides no individual application. One thing we do not claim: who formally issued the November 2025 Förderrichtlinie is not stated in it — that document names BAMF as Herausgeber, while the superseded 2022 version was issued by the then Bundesministerium des Innern und für Heimat.
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AMIF-Verwaltungsbehörde des BAMF — the single managing authority
One managing authority for the whole of Germany under Art. 71 of the Common Provisions Regulation, and also the body designated to receive the Commission's payments. It publishes the calls, decides applications, pays, runs management verifications and on-the-spot checks, monitors, evaluates and reports. Three central units in Nürnberg — Grundsatzangelegenheiten, Finanzen, Operative Steuerung — plus the five regional offices; 165.1 full-time equivalents planned, about 70 per cent of them in the regions. Holding a uniform administrative practice across the five offices is named in the programme as a task of the central units. No intermediate body is designated under Art. 71(3). Programme contact: AMIF2021-2027@bamf.bund.de.
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Bewilligungszentren — the five desks that decide and pay your case
Which one you deal with is fixed by your Land, and it is the same office for the life of the project. Hamburg covers Niedersachsen, Bremen, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Berlin covers Berlin, Brandenburg, Sachsen-Anhalt and Sachsen. Düsseldorf covers Nordrhein-Westfalen alone. Gießen covers Hessen, Thüringen, Rheinland-Pfalz and Saarland. München covers Bayern and Baden-Württemberg. Each is reachable at BZ-HAM, BZ-BER, BZ-DUS, BZ-GIE or BZ-MUC followed by .Posteingang@bamf.bund.de. They advise, check applications, write the Zuwendungsbescheid or the Ablehnungsbescheid and stay with the project — but individual advice is given only on the basis of a submitted Projektskizze or, preferred, an Antragsvorschau in ITSI.
👉 Your organisation sits at this level
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Zuwendungsempfänger — the organisation that holds the grant
You receive an administrative act, not a contract — unless you are a federal body or an international organisation, which sign a Finanzhilfevereinbarung. You carry the Eigenanteil, which may be financed from third-party money but never met with contributions in kind. You draw the AMIF share in advance and must spend each tranche on payments falling due within six months or interest runs against you. You keep the records and you answer for all of it. Lead a cooperation and you file one unified Verwendungsnachweis covering every partner's expenditure, and become a Zuwendungsgebende with audit rights over them.
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Zielgruppe — the people the project is for
They are the target group, not beneficiaries in AMIF language. To prove they belong to the specific objective's target group you record name, date of birth, sex, country of origin, nationality and the type and number of the residence title or Duldung — a file that identifies migration status directly, and membership normally has to persist for the whole measure. Their contact data may not be entered in ITSI at all, and any Zielgruppennachweis uploaded for audit must have contact data redacted first.
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Audit and control — the route upward from your receipts
Your receipts and separate project ledger → the managing authority's management verifications and Vor-Ort-Kontrollen → the Prüfbehörde AMIF, which audits the system and a sample of operations and may audit you at your premises under Art. 79(3) → the European Commission. Say the structure plainly: the Prüfbehörde sits inside BAMF alongside the managing authority, with 12.9 full-time equivalents planned, and its independence rests on Art. 71(2) rather than on separate institutions. Standing beside that route rather than inside it: the Bundesrechnungshof under §§ 91 and 100 BHO, the European Court of Auditors and OLAF. Complaints are narrower than people hope. The managing authority is the contact point for the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and runs an electronic mailbox, with an equivalent arrangement for the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and reports to the Begleitausschuss at least once a year; section 4 of the programme names the Antidiskriminierungsstelle des Bundes, the Schlichtungsstelle nach dem Behindertengleichstellungsgesetz, the Deutsches Institut für Menschenrechte and the Bundesfachstelle Barrierefreiheit as the bodies it brings in. There is no ombudsman for a funding decision — that route is the Widerspruch.

Process maps under this programme

Where this came from

Human reviewed2026-09-20Automatically checked2026-09-21Current source statusAutomatic baseline required

Read against the source on 2026-09-20. This is the human-reviewed version.

What that check changed: Reviewed and updated on 20 September 2026 against the Förderrichtlinie AMIF 2021–2027 (Stand 11/2025), the Förderhandbuch 2025 version 6.0 of 9 September 2026 and the approved programme document version 6.0 (CCI 2021DE65AMPR001); 17 sources are listed below. Calls are decided by the Prioritätsprinzip, and 75% is a ceiling, not a standard rate. The handbook carries two lists: documents mandatory at submission, which cannot be supplied later, and documents that may be nachgereicht, among them the co-financing commitment and the cooperation and pass-through agreement. European added value is scored criterion 1, worth 23 points with a minimum of 15. The €100,000 minimum applies across the grant years. Direct award now runs to €50,000 net. Your own Bescheid carries binding Auflagen alongside ANBest-P/GK — read them, and ask your Bewilligungszentrum which cash-office retention rule applies.

Independent process overview based on publicly available information. It is not official guidance and is not endorsed by the European Union, the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees or any granting body. This map covers the federal AMIF programme for Germany only. It does not cover the separate rules attaching to Land or municipal money used as co-financing, which are governed by the relevant Landeshaushaltsordnung and the co-financer's own directive, and it does not cover the AMIF thematic facility managed directly by the European Commission. The figures and deadlines here come from the Förderrichtlinie, the Förderhandbuch and Förderaufruf 2025: each Förderaufruf may vary them and your Bescheid may vary them again. Users must verify current conditions against the Förderaufruf they are applying under, the current Förderrichtlinie and Förderhandbuch, and their own Bescheid.