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The part most sites leave out
🇩🇪After you arrive in Germany
Getting the visa is the half everyone writes about. The weeks after you land are where people lose money, and almost none of it is explained anywhere before you are standing in the queue.
Last checked 2026-11-03
Your first weeks, in the order they have to happen
This order is not a suggestion. Each step unlocks the next, and getting stuck on the first one stops everything behind it.
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Register your address · Anmeldung
You register where you live at the local citizens' office. Your landlord must give you a written confirmation that you live there (Wohnungsgeberbestätigung). A tenancy agreement is not a substitute for it.
Until this is done: Almost everything. Bank account, residence permit, tax ID and benefits all sit behind this one step.
Source: § 17 Bundesmeldegesetz — registration duty (Federal Office of Justice) (checked 2026-11-03) · § 54 Bundesmeldegesetz — penalties (checked 2026-11-03) · Berlin Welcome Centre — order of first steps after arrival (checked 2026-11-03)
Apply for your residence permit · Aufenthaltstitel
At the foreigners' authority (Ausländerbehörde), you convert the visa you entered on into a residence permit.
Until this is done: Your legal right to stay once the entry visa runs out.
Source: Berlin Welcome Centre — order of first steps after arrival (checked 2026-11-03)
Open a bank account
Needed for your salary, your rent and almost everything else.
Until this is done: Being paid. Most banks require your registration certificate first.
Source: Berlin Welcome Centre — order of first steps after arrival (checked 2026-11-03)
Enrol in health insurance
Health insurance is compulsory for your whole stay. In 2026 the statutory rate is 14.6 per cent plus an average additional contribution of 2.9 per cent, split evenly between you and your employer.
Source: Federal Ministry of Health — statutory health insurance contribution rates (checked 2026-11-03)
Wait for your tax ID · Steuer-Identifikationsnummer
It is issued automatically once you register, and arrives by post from the Federal Central Tax Office. You do not apply for it.
Until this is done: Being taxed correctly. Until your employer has it, the law requires them to tax you in the harshest class.
Source: § 39c Einkommensteuergesetz — withholding without a tax ID (checked 2026-11-03)
What nobody warns you about
None of these are secrets. They are simply never explained to someone arriving for the first time, and each one costs money or weeks.
No tax ID means you are taxed as if this were your second job
Until your employer has your tax identification number, § 39c of the income tax act obliges them to withhold under tax class VI — the class designed for a second job, with none of your personal allowances.
What it costs you: A large bite out of your first pay packets, in exactly the weeks you are paying a rental deposit. It is recoverable later, but recoverable later is not money you have now.
You cannot register without your landlord's signature
Registration requires a written confirmation from whoever provides your accommodation. In temporary or informal housing, often nobody will sign it.
What it costs you: No registration means no bank account, no residence permit progress and no tax ID. People get stuck here for weeks.
The broadcasting fee you cannot refuse
Every dwelling pays the Rundfunkbeitrag, currently EUR 18.36 a month. It is per home, not per person, and it applies whether or not you own a television or radio.
What it costs you: About EUR 220 a year, and it is triggered by your registration itself.
A box on the registration form can add a tax
If you declare a Christian denomination when you register, you are automatically enrolled in church tax, collected with your income tax.
What it costs you: Typically 8 to 9 per cent of your income tax, charged for as long as the declaration stands.
You have no credit file, which is not the same as a bad one
Landlords commonly ask for a SCHUFA report. A new arrival has no file at all, because there is nothing yet to record.
What it costs you: It makes an ordinary flat very hard to get in your first weeks, which is precisely when you need an address in order to register.
The free appeal against a visa refusal no longer exists
Remonstration — writing to the mission to have a refusal reconsidered, at no cost — was abolished worldwide on 1 July 2025, and in India from January 2024. A remonstration now has no legal effect and will not even be acknowledged.
What it costs you: If you are refused, your only routes are to apply again and pay the fee again, or to sue at the Berlin administrative court within one month. Court fees for a typical single applicant run to several hundred euros, before any lawyer.
The deposit is capped, and you may pay it in instalments
A rental deposit may not exceed three months' rent excluding service charges, and § 551 BGB gives you the right to pay it in three monthly instalments.
What it costs you: Many new arrivals pay it all at once because nobody told them they did not have to.
Can you drive on your own licence?
Select where your licence was issued.
Cannot be exchanged
A licence from India: Your licence is not on Germany's conversion list (Anlage 11 FeV), so it cannot be exchanged. After six months you must pass the full German theory and practical driving test. Start lessons early — this catches people out badly, and for a professional driver it is the difference between working and not.
You may drive on it for: Six months from the date you register your address.
Source: § 29 Fahrerlaubnis-Verordnung — foreign driving licences (checked 2026-11-03)
Staying for good
Citizenship by naturalisation
Five years of lawful residence
- There is no three-year fast track. The accelerated route introduced in 2024 has been repealed, and any guidance still citing three years is out of date.
- German law no longer requires you to give up your previous nationality. Your own country's law may still take it away, which is the decisive question for Indian nationals in particular.
Source: § 10 Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz — naturalisation (checked 2026-11-03)
What we do not know
We publish what we can source and nothing else. These are the gaps we have not closed for Germany:
- We could not verify the qualifying period for permanent residence on the skilled worker route. We would rather leave it blank than publish a number we cannot source.
- The integration course fee comes from a page that declares itself out of date, so we do not publish a figure.
- Schooling and childcare are run by the federal states, not nationally. Figures differ by state and we do not yet publish them.
- We have no sourced per-occupation pay figures for Germany. The official salary atlas does not publish them in a form we can read, and we will not use crowd-sourced salary sites.