Before Moving to Germany, What you need to know — The ultimate Guide
Are you planning to move to Germany? At Ocyan, we made a checklist of the things that you need to do in order to start living and working in Germany.
Before you start reading, we wrote some relevant content that might help you as well.
- Relocating to Germany? Some advice for the first time movers from the UK
- Get your finances up to speed when you move to Germany
- Who are the Financially excluded in Europe? It’s not just who you think
- An Expat’s Journey to Europe
Before you arrive
Germany, is part of the Schengen area which means that nationals from the EU, EEA and Switzerland have and easy and free access to move without any special visa controls at the border, or a requirement for special permit to work is necessary either.
Germany has a great set of visa option, depending your case
Students have their own category and preferable treatment. If you can prove that you are moving to Germany for studies, by providing the paperwork of your past degrees you are eligible for an up to 3-months non-work remain permit. Once you are admitted to a school, getting a student visa and a permit to work up to 120 days per year is easy enough through your university. In addition, you can be eligible for an extension of a 6-months remain permit while you are looking for a job after your graduation. More info here.
If you are a student, self-employed, highly skilled or just young enough you might be eligible for special categories of permits.
Moreover, you may not be a student but just young enough (18–30 years old) to have your own dreams of moving to Germany, then a category exists just for you. The Youth Mobility Program that accepts young population from Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, Korea and New Zealand with special condition that you can read more about here.
Special treatment also enjoy the “business-purposed” expatriates. So if you are moving to Germany and aiming to start immediately as a contractor, freelancer (aka self-employed) or just opening any kind of business, you might be eligible for a 3-year-long permit with real potentials of ongoing extensions too. More to read about, you can find here.
Although you might not be young enough, or student, or a national from the mentioned areas, but you might be skilled enough to not miss out. Then for you there’s a program called EU Blue Card (Blaue Karte EU) where you can read more about here.
As it regards the rest of the world (UK nationals included) visa requirements are in place. Although some countries have special treatment to enter into the country and stay up to 3 months without any special arrangement, to register to work would still require a residence permit.
If you are a national from the US, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Canada or Israel you should be able to stay up to 3 months without a special permit.
For employment visas the best place to get an advice from would be the consulate office in your home country. You can find further info about this here.
What’s new due to COVID-19?
Finally, due to the current development before you attempt to move, it would be wise to check the new border restrictions that may be in place due to the COVID-19 development. Such announcements get updated daily, so reading from authorised government sites like this would be your best resource.
Hello from Ocyan
Ocyan is a new Service, that you can access from your mobile or laptop, and gives you a direct access to services and tasks that you need to know about when you move to Germany. Anything from Banking to health insurance to even getting a new mobile contract, join Ocyan.
