COPY LINK

For members

VISAS

How do I get a student visa for Germany and what does it let me do?

Germany offers an excellent quality of education for much lower fees than universities in most English-speaking countries. Plus, a student visa comes with a few extra advantages – if you can get your head around the bureaucracy. Here's what you need to know.

Published: 28 April 2023 17:14 CEST

Students listen to a lecture at Hannover University. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Julian Stratenschulte

In stark contrast to many countries – particularly English-speaking ones – where tuition fees can run you up a bill into the thousands every semester, studying at a German university comes at a typical price tag in the hundreds, yes hundreds, of euros per year. Rather than explicit tuition fees, students at German public universities, even non-EU international ones, pay an “administrative fee” of around €300 a semester, which often includes a transport ticket.

That’s on top of Germany having high quality education and offering a relatively affordable environment for students.

But as with so many things about life in Germany, the key question is: what about the bureaucracy?

While it comes with its fair share of paperwork, a German student visa is a bit simpler to figure out than many other German visas, and it comes with some important privileges other countries don’t always have for their student visas.

Who needs a student visa vs. a student residence permit?

Germany’s residence permit system of immigration means that you generally apply for your right to stay in the country to pursue your studies from your local immigration office after you’ve already arrived, found accommodation, and registered with your local authority at the Bürgeramt.

Any non-EU citizen staying in Germany for longer than three months to study at a German public university, accredited private university, or technical institute needs to apply for this permit.

To get it, you’ll need to make an appointment with your local immigration office and bring your cache of documents. The most important of these, rather obviously, is a certificate confirming your enrolment in an accredited study programme. You’ll also obviously need your application form, biometric pictures, and your valid passport with your valid visa to enter Germany – if you needed one to travel to the country.

A sign on the State Office for Immigration (LEA) on Friedrich-Krause-Ufer in Berlin. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Jörg Carstensen

You may also be asked for proof of health insurance and financial resources to support yourself, which typically will be a deposit in a blocked account proving you have enough money to live in Germany for a year. This is typically just under €1,000 a month. You may also be asked for the same documents you will have used to register your address with your local authority – such as your rental contract or letter from your landlord confirming your address. Then you’ll need to pay the fee.

As many veterans of German bureaucracy might tell you: when in doubt, bring every document you can.

Once your residence permit is granted, you can stay in Germany up to the end of its validity. If you don’t finish your studies by the time it runs out, you can typically apply to extend it by booking another appointment at your local or regional immigration office and providing proof of progress in your studies.

While all non-EU students generally need a residence permit, not everyone needs a student visa to enter the country. If you’re a national of a country that enjoys visa-free travel with Germany, you can enter Germany without applying for a student visa first and stay for up to three months while waiting for your student residence permit to be processed.

Visa application forms

Visa application forms at Hamburg Foreigner’s Office. Recent graduates of German universities are entitled to a special type of jobseeker’s visa, and a shorter wait to permanent residence if they find a job. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Jonas Walzberg

Students who aren’t from a country with visa-free travel with Germany will need to apply for a student visa at a German embassy or consulate abroad to be able to enter Germany. They’ll typically need the same documents as a residence permit applicant will need, along with certain identity documents, like their birth certificate.

Can I work as a student in Germany?

Yes. But there is a limit on how much time you can work while studying. Non-EU students can generally work up to 120 full days per six-month semester – or 240 half days – without approval from immigration offices. This doesn’t count any work that students might do while on semester break, during which no limit applies.

Self-employment is also allowed, but does need the permission of the relevant immigration office, which will determine whether the self-employed work could jeopardise studies.

That said, the government is currently in the process of loosening these rules to make studying in Germany more attractive – and affordable – for people from abroad. New, looser rules could potential come in later this year.

What happens after I graduate?

Owing to the country’s skilled labour shortage, after you graduate your programme in Germany, you can renew your student residence permit and stay in the country for up to 18 months to find a position relating to your qualifications.

If you find a relevant job, you can then convert your student permit into an applicable work visa and stay in Germany to work.

For more information on how that works, you can check out our dedicated article on the subject.

Member comments

Become a Member to leave a comment.

With the German far right coming out on top in two state elections earlier this month, the socialist-led national Berlin government has reimposed border controls on Western frontiers that are supposed to see freedom of movement in the European Union’s Schengen zone.

The Netherlands government, which includes the party of Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders, announced on Wednesday that it had requested from Brussels an opt-out from EU rules on asylum, with Prime Minister Dick Schoof declaring that there was an asylum “crisis”.

Meanwhile, new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the left-wing Labour Party paid a visit to Rome for talks with Italian counterpart Georgia Meloni, whose party has neo-fascist roots, to discuss the strategies used by Italy in seeking to reduce migration.

Far-right parties performed strongly in June European elections, coming out on top in France, prompting President Emmanuel Macron to call snap elections which resulted in right-winger Michel Barnier, who has previously called for a moratorium on migration, being named prime minister.

We are witnessing the “continuation of a rightward shift in migration policies in the European Union,” said Jerome Vignon, migration advisor at the Jacques Delors Institute think-tank.

It reflected the rise of far-right parties in the European elections in June, and more recently in the two regional elections in Germany, he said, referring to a “quite clearly protectionist and conservative trend”.

Strong message

“Anti-immigration positions that were previously the preserve of the extreme right are now contaminating centre-right parties, even centre-left parties like the Social Democrats” in Germany, added Florian Trauner, a migration specialist at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the Dutch-speaking university in Brussels.

While the Labour government in London has ditched its right-wing Conservative predecessor administration’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, there is clearly interest in a deal Italy has struck with Albania to detain and process migrants there.

Within the European Union, Cyprus has suspended the processing of asylum applications from Syrian applicants, while laws have appeared authorising pushbacks at the border in Finland and Lithuania.

Under the pretext of dealing with “emergency” or “crisis” situations, the list of exemptions and deviations from the common rules defined by the European Union continues to grow.

All this flies in the face of the new EU migration pact, agreed only in May and coming into force in 2026.

In the wake of deadly attacks in Mannheim and most recently Solingen blamed on radical Islamists, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government also expelled 28 Afghans back to their home country for the first time since the Taliban takeover of Kabul.

Such gestures from Germany are all the more symbolic given how the country since World War II has tried to turn itself into a model of integration, taking in a million refugees, mainly Syrians in 2015-2016 and then more than a million Ukrainian exiles since the Russian invasion.

Germany is sending a “strong message” to its own public as well as to its European partners, said Trauner.

The migratory pressure “remains significant” with more than 500,000 asylum applications registered in the European Union for the first six months of the year, he said.

‘Climate on impunity’

Germany, which received about a quarter of them alone, criticises the countries of southern Europe for allowing migrants to circulate without processing their asylum applications, but southern states denounce a lack of solidarity of the rest of Europe.

The moves by Germany were condemned by EU allies including Greece and Poland, but Scholz received the perhaps unwelcome accolade of praise from Hungarian right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Moscow’s closest friend in the European Union, when he declared “welcome to the club”.

The EU Commission’s failure to hold countries to account “only fosters a climate of impunity where unilateral migration policies and practices can proliferate,” said Adriana Tidona, Amnesty International’s Migration Researcher.

But behind the rhetoric, all European states are also aware of the crucial role played by migrants in keeping sectors going including transport and healthcare, as well as the importance of attracting skilled labour.

“Behind the symbolic speeches, European leaders, particularly German ones, remain pragmatic: border controls are targeted,” said Sophie Meiners, a migration researcher with the German Council on Foreign Relations.

Even Meloni’s government has allowed the entry into Italy of 452,000 foreign workers for the period 2023-2025.

“In parallel to this kind of new restrictive measures, they know they need to address skilled labour needs,” she said.