Gastarbeiter is German for 'guest worker'. It refers to foreign or migrant workers; particularly those who had moved to West Germany (BRD) mainly in the 1960s and 1970s; seeking work as part of a formal guest worker programme.

Similarly; the Netherlands and Belgium had a parallel scheme called the gastarbeider programme. Sweden; Denmark; Norway and Finland had similar programmes called arbetskraftsinvandring (workforce-immigration).