EU Blue Card holder seeking permanent residency

I relocated from the USA to Germany in early 2021 with my family and have been employed by a global pharmaceutical since then as a senior leader, contributing to the statutory pension insurance consistently.

I meet the minimum residency duration required for permanent residency. I also have A1 German course certificate.

Could you please inform me about the other necessary requirements tailored to my specific situation? I would greatly appreciate your guidance and assistance in this matter.

Thank you very much for your help.

7 Comments

Reply (7)

Barbara Stasiak_Community Manager

Updated:

Dear @Alinity , thank you for reaching out to us. If you want to become a permanent resident, in addition to the requirements you mentioned above, you must also have enough living space for you and your family. The standard size varies from state to state. Please, check with your local immigration office or counseling center for more information: https://bamf-navi.bamf.de/de/Themen/Migrationsberatung/ In addition, you will need to have successfully completed the Orientation Course: https://www.make-it-in-germany.com/en/visa-residence/living-permanently… If you have any further questions, please let me know. Best Barbara

Alinity

Thank you, Barbara. When I received my Blue Card under section 18B Abs.2 s.1, the officer informed me that I was exempt from integration and orientation courses. We are also meeting the housing requirements. My colleague, who moved to Germany a year before me, obtained her permanent residency without needing to take any orientation course, citizenship test, or integration course. It's quite disheartening to see the inconsistency in how different foreign registration offices operate, leading to significant confusion for people like us.

Barbara Stasiak_Community Manager

Hey @Alinity , I understand you very well. I understand you very well. Many rules are different in each state and each case is always individual. I suggest that you first contact the immigration counseling center in your area and then apply for residency.

Alinity

@Barbara Stasiak_Community Manager Thanks for your quick reply. Obviously it was the first thing i did. I've been emailing them every week last 1.5 months. As you may imagine, I have not received a single reply. I cannot call them because my German is not good enough for a phone conversation. It is also saddening to see a "foreigners" office refusing to speak in any other languages but German.

Barbara Stasiak_Community Manager

Updated:

@Alinity If you give me your zip code, I can try to find the right counseling center for you, they can help you with the whole process. On the other hand, if you know that you have all the required documents, you can apply for residency and if you are missing some documents, the immigration office will inform you about it.

Alinity

Thank you for your prompt response once again. My zip code is 65193. It is funny, but I have already submitted my residency application (through appointment request on Wiesbaden.de website) and am also awaiting a response from the Ausländerbehörde on that request. I appreciate your offer to find the right counseling center for me. It would be beneficial to have their guidance on this nightmare. The humorous twist to my situation is that I've reached out to a few local lawyers who handle immigration issues, and each one has told me my case is very straightforward—so much so that they don't believe I need legal help. They even suggested that showing up with a lawyer might raise eyebrows at the immigration office and potentially slow down my application. Can you believe they all declined to take on my case?

Barbara Stasiak_Community Manager

Hey, if you were in contact with the lawyers then maybe its better to make the whole process with the lawyer? If you would like, you could also get in touch with mbeon https://www.mbeon.de/en/home/ maybe they can help you somehow. We are an organization that gives the first essential information. The immigration offices are overwhelmed right now, thats why it might take so long.

A project by:

Funded by: