Your chances:
Congratulations! With a university degree and a binding job offer, you have a good chance of working and living in Germany.
As a citizen of Australia, Israel, Japan, Canada, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland or the USA, you do not require an entry visa to enter Germany. As soon as you are in Germany, within 90 days you must apply for a residence permit for the purpose of qualified employment, before taking up employment in Germany. Apart from the binding job offer, the main prerequisite for this is the recognition or comparability of your university degree. You may want to inform yourself about the procedure and the possibilities before applying for your visa or before entering Germany. Learn more about this in the Recogniton section.
Your foreign university degree has not yet been recognised or acknowledged as comparable?
In such case you must have your qualification recognised by the competent authority in Germany or provide proof of its comparability with a German university degree. To do so, you may enter Germany for three months without a visa. After the recognition or after you have proven the comparability of your degree, you can apply for the corresponding residence permit. Only then are you able to take up employment in Germany.
Has your university degree yet been recognised or is considered comparable to a German one?
In such case you may enter Germany for three months without a visa and apply for a residence permit for qualified employment. After that you may take up employment. However, if you want to start your job shortly after arriving, you may want to apply for a work visa for qualified professionals or under certain conditions, for the EU Blue Card at the responsible German embassy in your country before entering Germany.
The following information might help you with your visa application:
- At a glance: Work visa for qualified professionals (PDF)
- Checklist for qualified professionals (PDF)
Tip: In order to shorten your immigration process, your future employer may pay to launch an fast-track procedure for skilled workers. You may want to inform him or her about the possibility.
