A method for operating a motor vehicle internal combustion engine that has an exhaust tract with an exhaust gas purification unit acting catalytically and/or by filtration with which combustion air supplemented by exhaust gas diverging from the exhaust tract is fed to the combustion chambers of the internal combustion engine by exhaust gas branching off from the exhaust tract at a total exhaust gas recirculation rate. The total exhaust gas recirculation rate has a low-pressure proportion diverging downstream from the exhaust gas purification unit and a high-pressure proportion diverging upstream from an exhaust gas turbocharger turbine arranged in the exhaust tract. An essentially decreasing low pressure proportion is set with at least approximately the same operating points of the internal combustion engine with an increasing operating period of the exhaust gas purification unit.