Tired of the constant refreshing of the LEA Berlin website? Seeing site outages almost every day? We’re over it too. Here’s another solution to your problem, even if you’re only here as a tourist.
You’ve probably asked us if we can book an appointment for you on your behalf for the Landesamt für Einwanderung (foreigner’s office).
If you’re a freelancer, a job-seeker, a language learner or a uni student, we don’t have any special tricks or shortcuts – we are on the same website with you, getting just as frustrated as you are.
BUT…. you can apply by email or post for any permit. Even if you entered Germany without a residence title (e.g. you entered as a tourist without a visa and are using your 90 days in the Schengen area), as long as you are residing legally in Germany when you send and date the application, your stay in Germany will remain legal until the foreigner’s office has made a decision on your case … or at least until the date of the appointment they offer you. This is outlined here in Section 81 (3) of the Residency Act:
(3) Beantragt ein Ausländer, der sich rechtmäßig im Bundesgebiet aufhält, ohne einen Aufenthaltstitel zu besitzen, die Erteilung eines Aufenthaltstitels, gilt sein Aufenthalt bis zur Entscheidung der Ausländerbehörde als erlaubt.
(3) If a foreigner who is legally resident in the federal territory and does not possess a residence title applies for the issuance of a residence title, his or her residence is deemed to be permitted up to the time of the decision by the foreigners authority.
You have the right to simply post or email your complete application. You don’t have to muck around with the awful website! You always did have this right, even before Corona. Sending an email or a letter (registered mail) containing a complete application is “applying for a residence permit”. You will not find this information clearly anywhere on the Berlin.de website, or if you do, please let me know so I can link to it.
Pre-Corona, we had great success in booking appointments at the foreigner’s office. Those days are gone, at least for the foreseeable future. So we’d like to offer you something different – a consulting call to help you prepare your written application. During the hour, we will
- Answer any questions you have
- Anticipate obstacles you might encounter
- Send you a short, customised cover letter in German
- Send you a customised checklist of documents to include (if you’ve already gathered them, please share your screen and we’ll take a look at them!)
- Give you the correct email address for the right department, so you can send it by email in advance
- Tell you exactly where to post it by registered mail
Your job will be to
- Copy and paste our cover letter into an email and press send
- Print everything out, put the application in an envelope and post it.
You can then sit back, knowing that you are safe to remain in Germany until you hear back from the office – be it in 3 days or 3 months. Experience shows that this technique is the most successful for getting an appointment offered to you quickly.
Book a coaching and we’ll take you through it. Once you’ve sent off your application, you can relax, knowing you’re fine to stay in Germany for as long as it takes to hear back, even if your tourist time comes to an end in the meantime. Then, once you hear back from the office with an appointment,
- Take a Translator (Berlin)
- Take a Translator (Frankfurt)
- Take a Translator (Munich)
with you on the day!
Does this mean that you have to surrender your passport, as one of the documents that you need to send by post? What if your time under visa waiver or your tourist time is coming to an end and you need it in order to leave the country?
No, you send a copy of your passport, by email, by post or both. They invite you to an appointment to approve the permit and sight your original passport.
For a first-time residence permit application, can you work (in Germany) between the time you apply by this method and your eventual appointment?
Sadly, no.
Hi Kathleen,
Just to clarify as an example for me: If my address registration is on (say 3/8), and I don’t have a spousal visa appointment available until end-September or October, an option is to send the form and letter on 4/8? Does the above mean they could issue the visa appointment earlier?
Yes, that could work, if on the 4/8, you are still legally residing in Germany (you haven’t overstayed your visa, for example or your 90 visa-free days). Whether they issue the residence permit appointment earlier or not is absolute pot luck, but at least you’ll know you’ve done everything right and you can stay until the day of the appointment, whenever that may be. Also, check your spam regularly – sometimes the invitations to appointments end up there, and not attending the appointment they give you could cause a huge problem.
Hi,
I have a job offer and German recognised degree and my salary is 80000 euro per month. Please let me know if you can help me with the blue card application process from Berlin as I am already here on a student visa.
Does your job offer come from a German employer? In any case, it’s probably sorted by now, I imagine!
Hi,
I have a follow on question. Because you cannot get a Residency Visa without a Registration certificate (Anmeldebescheinigung), does having an appointment to get your registration certificate also count toward residing legally in Germany when you received your registration appointment under Section 81 (3) of the Residency Act:?
My situation is that I will be in Germany with an apartment in October, but my 90 days on my US passport is up on October 27, and my apartment registration appointment is not until November 3 (earliest appointment I could get online.).
I do not yet have an appointment for Freelance Visa Residency Permit, as the online system has not yielded an appointment. I did get a response via email from B1B2@lea.berlin.de and instructions on who to email all documents to, so I will likely go that route. But, it is my understanding I would need a complete package including the Anmeldebescheinigung before I could submit online.
Any clarification would be helpful.
Hi Kathy, I know we have since discussed this, but for the benefit of others: You can be legally in Germany whether you are registered in a city or not. But until you’ve registered your address in a city, your application might not be considered complete by the authority processing it. Berlin, for example, likes to wait until you are registered in Berlin before they finalise everything. There are other ways to get a residence permit, however, even without being registered in the city, but they are complicated and if you need to go down that route, I’d use an immigration lawyer to argue your case. Having said that, not being registered yet should not prevent you from attending the appointment at the foreigner’s office. It will be easier and quicker for everyone if you’re registered by the time you go to the foreigner’s office, but if you are not, should at least have all the documents with you to register your address (Wohnungsgeberbestätigung, application form, passport) and a future appointment confirmation for the Bürgeramt, booked in your name. They might wait until you do register to complete the permit process, but it’s rare that you would have to go back to the foreigner’s office a second time – they can usually accept it by PDF.
Hi Kathleen,
Thanks for the incredibly insightful and useful article. RTT has been so instrumental in me maintaining my sanity through my relocation!
I am hoping you might be able to clarify something for me.
I arrived in Berlin 01/10/22 , and have an appointment to get my visa on 03/01/23.
Am I right in thinking then, if I am a British citizen, currently residing in Berlin thanks to my 90 days visa-free stay in Germany (the last day of which would be 29.12.22), that once I have sent all my application documents by post and email, I am legally allowed to “overstay” my 90 days, up until my appointment?
Thank you in advance for your time,
Liam
Hi Liam. Yes, that’s correct. You booked the appointment while your 90 days were still valid and you’re also a citizen of a “privileged” country, so even if you hadn’t sent all your docs by post and email, you’d be fine to “overstay” as long as you actually attend the appointment, but having sent all your docs before the end of the year is even better and safer!
Hi Kathleen, Red Tape is keeping me sane!! Some questions about applying by email/post:
1. What kind of response from the LEA can we expect (will we receive an email, a physical letter, etc)?
2. Let’s assume that you’re eligible to stay for 90 days (visa-free) but submit your application on day 30. Are you then allowed to leave the country and return on a later day (e.g. day 85, when your appointment might be)? Thanks for any help.
Hi Sam,
1. If you’ve provided your email address, you will usually be invited by email to an in-person appointment. The invitation might come by post, e.g. if you’ve applied by post and haven’t provided an email address.
2. Yes, you could do that and if you ran into problems at border control, they would most likely be able to see that there is an application pending, or you could just stay in Germany until the application gets processed.
I am working as researcher in a research centre in Berlin and have national (D) visa which is about to expire in a week, but I have applied for the residence permit via mail as I was not getting any appointment and have sent them all the documents in PDF format as asked by one of the administrative person from LEA, still I haven’t got any update from them. Am I allowed to work till they give me appointment?
Yes!