Actually, not much! It all depends on where you as candidate are coming from.
There are several legal ways to get a German work permit you should know about. We at CV Abroad often help both international professionals and companies and know the procedure from both sides.
They don’t require any special effort on the side of the employer. Freizügigkeitsgesetz makes it really easy. Anyone with an EU citizenship can work in another European state without further ado.
The Blue Card EU facilitates the hiring process of professionals with an academic degree from outside the EU by bypassing the former “priority-check” of the Federal Ministry of Work.
The steps are straightforward and bring no tension at all to the workflow, especially paired with the professional relocation service provider (CV Abroad has one, just in case!)
Make sure, that your university and study program is recognised in Germany. It should be listed on the website anabin.de with an H+ status.
There are 3 pages to fill out. The relocation expert can help your employer with this. You have to show the text of your job announcement, the salary you are willing to pay, describe the experience level of the candidate, his or her education, and basically explain why he or she is good for your company.
Your employer can initiate the fast-track visa procedure on your behalf through a competent department of the Immigration Office in advance. Then it takes 6 weeks.
For people with shortage occupations (IT, mathematicians, medical doctors, some engineers) — 15 weeks.
The fast-track procedure can be ordered by the Ausländerbehörde of the city the company is based at. It costs 411 Euro per candidate.
Without a fast track visa procedure, it may take a couple of months.
The Skilled Immigration Act (Fachkräfteeinwanderungsgesetz) has been introduced in Germany in March 2020. It facilitates immigration for qualified candidates, with or without an academic degree. According to this employers don’t have to run a priority check for international candidates anymore. There is no salary threshold either.
A hire still should be approved by the Federal Employment Agency, but it will be done automatically within the visa application process. The Agency simply makes sure that work conditions, such as salary, working hours, and vacation days are the same as for the German citizens.
This formality can be solved within 1 week.
You have to do the following:
Non-university training professionals from abroad (chefs for example) have also been given a green light to enter the German labor market. The difference is they need to recognise their qualifications FULLY, which means sending their documents and their official translations to a recognition body and waiting for the result. It can take 2–3 months.
Again, your employer can order a fast-track procedure for your candidate at the Ausländerbehörde of your city. It costs 411 Euro per candidate. Then it takes 15 weeks total to get a foreign professional to Germany.
If the vacant position doesn’t strictly require a university degree and thus offers the salary lower than 3588€/month, your employer can still hire a university graduate if his/her qualification allows them to do the offered job.
IT specialists with a high level of professional experience can be excluded from the full recognition process.
There’s a type of residence permit specially designed for freelancers (contractors to regularly work with the company).
In order for you to get it, your employer has to give you a letter of intent or a binding offer.
What should it include?
German, or German-English bilingual
corresponds to what you’re applying for, “We would like to hire her/him as XYZ”
“In the past, we worked remotely on XYZ project and are convinced in her/his wonderful professional skills”
hourly or project-based, “500€ a day”
“6 months”, “ongoing project”, …
A letter of intent is usually no longer than 1 page.
To add more value to the intent, your employer can draft a binding offer of a fee contract (Honorarvertrag) or of a service contract (Dienstleistungsvertrag). In this case, it looks like a normal contract but with a sentence “This contract shall enter into force upon issuance of a work permit (residence permit for the purpose of freelance work)”. It can contain many pages with a detailed description of work and remuneration.
This is it!
We hope, you see now, that it is not painful and not hard to relocate a candidate from abroad. If so, our job is done!
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As a relocation consultant, I support people coming from around the world to Berlin for work and take care that they start a new chapter…