Source: BUS Sachsen-Anhalt (Linie6PLus)

Applying for an employment permit for persons with a residence permit

Description

If you are in an ongoing asylum procedure, employment is only permitted if this is expressly stated in your residence permit. If you wish to work, you must therefore apply for an employment permit from the Foreigners' Registration Office. This also applies to vocational training or an internship.

If you have been permitted to stay in Germany for three months, are no longer obliged to live in an initial reception center for asylum seekers (also known as a reception center, arrival center or anchor center) and have already found an employer who would like to employ you, you may be permitted to work.

To process your application, the foreigners authority usually involves the Federal Employment Agency, which will check the working conditions. After more than four years of uninterrupted residence in Germany, the Federal Employment Agency no longer needs to be involved.

If you would like to complete company-based vocational training (dual training), the employment permit for the specific training position must be applied for individually. Vocational training at school does not require approval.

The employment permit is issued for the duration of the approval of the Federal Employment Agency, at the longest until the residence permit expires.

The following restrictions apply:

You are generally prohibited from taking up gainful employment as long as you are obliged to live in an initial reception center. Only if your asylum procedure has not been completed within nine months can you be permitted to work.

If you are an asylum seeker from a so-called "safe country of origin", i.e. from a member state of the European Union, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ghana, Kosovo, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (North Macedonia), Montenegro, Senegal or Serbia, and have submitted your asylum application after August 31, 2015, you cannot obtain a work permit during the asylum procedure.

Asylum seekers whose asylum procedure has been rejected as manifestly unfounded or inadmissible and whose appeal has not been granted suspensive effect also have no access to the German labor market.

Prerequisites

You are in possession of a valid residence permit.
You are not obliged to live in a reception center and have been permitted to stay in Germany for three months.
You are obliged to live in a reception center, but your asylum procedure has not been concluded incontestably within nine months and you do not come from a safe country of origin.
Although you come from a safe country of origin, you submitted your asylum application before August 31, 2015.
An employer has offered you a specific job and completed the "Declaration of employment" form.
The conditions under which you will work in the future are comparable to those of German employees.
Your salary corresponds to the salary of German employees.

Required documents

Valid residence permit
Identity document (e.g. passport or passport substitute), if available
"Declaration of employment" form (to be completed in full by the employer)
In individual cases, the foreigners authority may require less or further proof.

Appeal against the decision of the immigration authority
Legal action before the court named in the notice of objection if the objection is not upheld

Find out whether your foreigners authority allows you to apply online or has a special application form.
If the application can only be submitted in person, send the "Declaration of employment" form completed by your employer to the immigration office in advance and make an appointment at the immigration office. If you apply online, the Foreigners' Registration Office will contact you after receiving your application to arrange an appointment.
During the appointment, your identity and documents will be checked (please bring your documents to the appointment, in the original if possible).
As a rule, the foreigners authority will ask the Federal Employment Agency for approval.
If the employment permit is granted, a corresponding entry will usually be made on the residence permit (under "ancillary provisions") or in a supplementary sheet.