Most European tech job ads never say whether they sponsor visas

If you are looking to apply for a job in Europe, the first thing you should check is whether or not the employer sponsors work visas. However, there are usually few clues. So we scanned every tech job description on our board: 3,342 job descriptions from 184 employers, for engineering, data, product and design roles open in Europe. 93% say nothing about visas.

More ads rule sponsorship out than offer it

Only 79 of the 3,342 ads say the employer sponsors visas. 145 say the opposite: that they cannot sponsor, or that you must already have the right to work in the country. So an ad that mentions visas at all is more likely to be closing the door than opening it. Relocation help is more common than sponsorship: 382 ads offer to help you move (a relocation package, flights, help finding a flat). Counting both, 384 ads (11%) mention some help for someone coming from abroad.

The help comes from a handful of employers

Those 384 ads come from 32 of the 184 employers. The five that mention it most account for 233 of them (61%), and Helsing alone for 104: nearly every one of its 110 open ads says it.

That concentration matters more than the average. For most employers you cannot tell from the ad, but for these ones you can, in writing, before you apply.

Country by country

The picture changes a lot by country. Of the countries with at least 100 open tech ads, Germany has the highest share mentioning help (22%). In the United Kingdom, 82 ads rule sponsorship out against 33 that offer it.

Language is the other filter. 14% of Germany's ads ask for German, 12% of France's ads ask for French. Across Europe as a whole, 6% of the ads ask for a language besides English.

What it means if you are applying from abroad

1. Silence is not a no. Most employers that sponsor do not say so in every ad. If the role fits, apply and ask the recruiter in your first reply, or check the company's careers page.
2. Start with the employers that say yes. They are few, and they are named above. Their ads promise it in writing, so a rejection there is about the CV, not your passport.
3. Answer the question before it is asked. Put your status on the first lines of your CV: the permit you need or already hold, where you live now, and when you could start. A recruiter who has to guess usually moves on.
4. Read the “must” lines twice. “Must already have the right to work” and a required local language are the two things a strong CV cannot get past.

How we counted

The board reads open jobs directly from employers' own job pages (184 European employers that publish through Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Teamtailor, Personio, Recruitee or Workable), so it leans towards tech companies and scale-ups rather than banks, agencies or the public sector. A tech job here is an engineering, data, infrastructure, product or design role, based in a European country or open across Europe.

Each job description is read by fixed rules, not by an AI model: specific sentences that say the employer sponsors visas, cannot sponsor, needs an existing right to work, depends on the case, offers relocation help, or requires a language. Every label is stored with the sentence it came from, which you can see on each job's page. Checked by hand on the distinct sentences found on 1 October 2026: “cannot sponsor” 24 of 24 correct, “existing right to work” 13 of 13, “sponsors” about 30 of 31, relocation help 68 of 68, required languages about 29 of 30.

An ad that says nothing tells you about the ad, not the employer's policy. The numbers are recounted every day, so they may have moved since this was written; the visa-sponsorship pages carry the same counts for each country and role.

Counted from the job descriptions' own wording, not checked with employers. Not immigration advice: confirm any permit on the government's website.