Guide
How to make friends in Berlin as an expat
Making friends in Berlin is hard for one main reason: the city is transient. Many meetups and apps introduce you to new people each time by default. What works is the opposite: a small group, the same people, on a schedule, for long enough that trust replaces small talk. Here is what 1,884 people told us they wanted, and how to get it.
Why Berlin is harder than most cities
Three things stack up.
- It is transient. People arrive for a job or a relationship or a feeling, and a large share leave within a few years.
- The culture is reserved. People are friendly in the moment and slow to let you in.
- Almost everyone you meet is also new. Also busy, also starting over, which makes for warm first conversations and very few second ones.
The result is a loop most expats recognise. You show up hopeful: a meetup, an app, a class. You meet nice people once. Everyone scatters. Months pass and you still don't have anyone to call when life happens. So you go back to the start, or you stop trying.
Berlin is a transient city, so people come and go.
Applicant to The Analog Circle
I'm tired of loud and shallow networking. I'd love to be able to deepen my connections.
Applicant
What people in Berlin say they want
Everyone who applies to The Analog Circle answers one open question: what are you hoping to receive from a group? We looked at 1,884 answers. Most are short, the median is seven words, and they are strikingly consistent. This is what came up, and how often.
| Theme | Share of answers | Words people actually used |
|---|---|---|
| Friends and friendship | 38% | "friends", "real friendship", "good friends", "lasting friendships" |
| Connection | 27% | "genuine connections", "meaningful connections", "deeper connection" |
| Depth and meaning | 21% | "meaningful", "deep", "genuine", "beyond surface level" |
| Community and belonging | 18% | "sense of belonging", "community", "my people", "a tribe" |
| Support and care | 17% | "support each other", "people I can rely on", "being there for each other" |
| Consistency and the long term | 14% | "stable group", "over time", "long-term", "the same people" |
| Conversation | 14% | "deep conversations", "exchange ideas", "talk about real things" |
| Activities and fun | 14% | "explore the city", "hikes", "dinners", "board games" |
| Growth and learning | 13% | "grow together", "learn from each other", "new perspectives" |
| Feeling at home in Berlin | 9% | "feel at home", "settle", "build a life here" |
| Networking or career | 7% | "network", "professional" |
Two things stand out.
- What is missing. Only 7% mention networking, and almost nobody mentions dating. People are not asking for contacts. They are asking for friends.
- How often the answers describe time rather than people. "Stable group", "over time", "long-term", "each other": the phrase "each other" alone appears 93 times. What people are describing is not an introduction. It is a relationship that has had the chance to repeat.
- words in the median answer
- 7
- times "each other" appears
- 93
- mention networking
- 7%
- explicitly ask for the same people over time
- 1 in 7
To form consistent, trust-based friendships and have a reliable social space where we can share experiences, support one another, and skip the surface-level icebreakers.
Applicant
If at the end I will get one person we will be close friends with, I will be happy.
Applicant
I have had a lot of friends over the years, but my life continues to evolve and I would like to find friends who fit my new reality.
Applicant
I am a person who is open, but takes time to really fully open up with new people, and hope a consistent environment would give me that chance.
Applicant
Quotes are from applications, anonymised and lightly edited for spelling.
Who actually follows through
Wanting friends is universal. Doing something about it is not. The people who apply span every age and every job; the people who join and stay are a narrower group, and they are not who most guides are written for.
- They are settled, not new. Of our members who told us how long they had lived in Berlin, six in ten had been here four years or more, and over nine in ten had been here more than a year. Almost every "how to make friends in Berlin" guide is written for the first month. The people who commit to fixing it are years in.
- They are in their thirties. The average member is 35; members range from their mid-twenties to their late forties.
- They are not the loud ones. Nine in ten describe themselves as introverts or ambiverts. Extroverts are a small minority.
- They come from everywhere. Members come from more than 25 countries, and no nationality makes up more than a small share.
If you recognise yourself in that list, a few years in, thirties, not a party person, tired of starting over, the advice below is written for you.
What doesn't work, and why
Not because these things are bad. Most of us have met good people through them. It is because of what they are built to do.
- Big open events. They are built for meeting many people at once, so who you meet changes from one event to the next.
- Friend apps. In Germany, Bumble For Friends (formerly Bumble BFF) matches you one to one, and you arrange any meeting yourself. There is no group or schedule by default.
- Dinner-with-strangers apps. Timeleft and similar services are a good night out and an efficient way to meet lots of people. They seat you with a new group by default. Timeleft's Repeat feature lets you invite people you have met before, but its pages describe no group that stays together over time. We compared them in detail here.
- Waiting for it to happen at work. In a city where your colleagues are also expats on two-year contracts, work friendships tend to leave when the contract does.
- Language classes. Genuinely useful for German. As a friendship route they end when the course does.
The pattern is the same in each case. The format introduces you and then stops. Nothing in it makes the same people come back.
What works: seven rules
- Pick a format that repeats. The single most important decision. Whatever you choose, it needs a fixed group and a fixed rhythm, monthly at least. Weekly small Meetup groups, a sports club, a choir, a book club with a cap on numbers, or a matched circle all qualify. A one-off event of any size does not.
- Keep it small. Six to eight people. Above that, you cannot follow everyone's story and the group splits into strangers again. Below four, one absence ends the evening.
- Meet in homes, not bars. A living room does something a bar cannot: it lowers everyone's guard. Being hosted, and hosting, is how acquaintances become friends. If you can, rotate hosts so nobody carries it alone.
- Commit to a season, not an evening. Decide in advance that you will show up for a year. Most new friendships in Berlin die around month three, when novelty wears off and nobody has made the next plan. A commitment carries you through that dip.
- Talk about real things, early. Structured conversation, one question everyone answers, gets a table of strangers past small talk in a single evening. It feels artificial for ten minutes and then it doesn't. Every one of our dinners uses a prompt for this reason.
- Aim for two, not twenty. Our definition of a successful year is that you have two people you would call good friends. That is a realistic target and it changes how you spend your energy: depth with a few, not coverage of many.
- Start before you feel ready. The people who make this work have often been in Berlin for years, and almost all of them say they wish they had started sooner. There is no point at which you will feel settled enough. The settling comes from the people.
Where to look in Berlin
Honest options, including the ones that compete with us.
- Small, weekly Meetup groups. Search by interest, skip anything with hundreds of RSVPs, and look for a group of ten that meets every Tuesday.
- Sports clubs (Vereine). Berlin's club culture is built on repetition. A football team, a climbing group or a choir gives you the same people every week, and Germans join them for exactly this reason.
- Language tandems. One person, a fixed weekly slot. Slow but reliable, and it doubles as German practice.
- Dinner apps like Timeleft. Best if you are new and want breadth before depth.
- InterNations. Large official events and interest groups for internationals, with membership by approval. It does not match you into a fixed group. We compared the alternatives here.
- Your own supper club. Invite three people you half-know, ask each to bring one, repeat monthly. It is roughly what we do, minus the matching and the logistics.
- The Analog Circle. A matched circle of eight curated expats who meet for eight dinners a year, in each other's homes, plus one-to-ones and community experiences. Built for the stage after you have tried the rest. It costs money and asks for a commitment, so it is not for everyone.
How we know this
The figures on this page come from applications to The Analog Circle, a friendship community for expats in Berlin, and from our member profiles. The applicant data is 1,884 free-text answers to the question "what are you hoping to receive?", coded by theme; each answer can count towards more than one theme, so the percentages do not sum to 100. Member figures are from the members who answered each question. Nothing here identifies an individual, and quotes are anonymised. Last updated September 2026.
Questions people ask
Is it hard to make friends in Berlin?
Yes, and not because of anything you are doing wrong. Berlin is transient, the local culture is reserved, and most other expats are also starting over. The people who succeed usually change the format they use, not their personality.
How long does it take to make friends in Berlin?
With a repeating format, the same small group monthly or more often, people typically describe real friendship after six to nine months. With one-off events it can take years, or never happen. Our own target for members is two good friends within a year.
Why is it so hard to make friends with Germans?
Reserve, mostly. Friendships with locals tend to form through repeated contact in a shared context, a club, a team, a neighbourhood, rather than through socialising for its own sake. That is also why joining a Verein works better than going to bars.
What are the best apps for making friends in Berlin?
Bumble For Friends (formerly Bumble BFF) for one-to-one matches, Timeleft for dinners with strangers, and Meetup for interest groups. All of them are good at introductions. None of them keeps one group together by default, which is where many expats get stuck.
How do I make friends in Berlin in my 30s or 40s?
The same way you would at any age, with less tolerance for wasted evenings. Pick one repeating format, keep the group small, and commit for a year. Most of our members are in their thirties or forties and had been in Berlin for years before they joined. You are not late.
I've been in Berlin for years and still have no close friends. Is that normal?
It is the most common situation we see. Six in ten of our members had been here four years or more when they joined. Being settled in your job and your flat and still unsettled in your friendships is the norm for expats here, not the exception.
Is The Analog Circle a good way to make friends in Berlin?
It is one way, built for a specific person: an expat aged 25 to 48 who has tried the usual routes and wants a small group that repeats. It costs €400 a year paid once (€33 a month), or €39 a month on a 6-month commitment. It asks for a commitment, and we curate very carefully. If that is not you, the options above are honest alternatives.
If you have been here a while and want the same people, not new ones, apply.
Apply to The Analog Circle