What To Do And NOT To Do, When You Move to Germany
How to survive Germany: You need to be carefull when you navigate the German bureaucracy and its thirst for formalities, when you move here. But sometimes they still can blindside you.
The date was April 28th, 2014.
At half past eight in the morning, I checked my plastic folder:
Passport?
Got it.
Rental agreement for my new apartment?
Yup.
Official confirmation that I actual live here in this apartment?
Check.
Passport photos?
Yessir.
Statement from my accountant that I have an income?
Ok.
And finally, confirmation from the local tax office.
Yes, it’s all there. I am ready to apply for residency here in the German city of Flensburg, right across the border to Denmark. I put on a nice shirt, some serious dark pants, and my tweed jacket. And yes, I have also shaved. All set to meet the dreaded German bureaucracy and its thirst for forms and formalities. They can’t blindside me now. Hah!
About an hour later, at 09:32 AM, I approach the counter, where a friendly looking lady looks up at me over the thick rim of her glasses.
- Ja?
I present my case: That I would like register as a foreign citizen here in Germany. I have all the necessary documentation right here.
A slight but tired smile lurks at the corner of her mouth:
- Here in Germany, you don't need a residence permit if you're an EU citizen. You can live and work for as long as you want.
Silence then me with a slight broken voice: But what about all my papers?
- You can keep those.
About seven minutes later, I stand outside Flensburg’s Rathaus, city hall, suddenly tired, feeling more than a bit silly, and in need of a bathtub of coffee. I will get back to the WTF in two paragraphs.
I officially moved over the border from Denmark to Germany in April 2014. I like it here, although my address has changed more than a few times since then, I have except for a 10 month detour through Italy been here ever since, now living in Münster Nordrhein-Westfalen with my lovely wife and drooling Mastiff.
This place is where I share my insights on how to navigate here, basically it’s a survival guide for foreigners. I will share what to do and what not to do (ever) here. And just to lighten your load, every week I will also share some great tips on great places to visit or try out (Geheimtipp). The first one is place, where you get the best beer that I have tasted so far here.
What to do
Now back to my dejected disposition after all my papers were rejected at the counter. As an EU-citizen you can move across the border of any other EU-member state. And that goes for Germany as well.
Now, while you don’t need to have a permit for living there, you do need to register that you live at this and this address. It’s quite easy. You just need to turn up with proof that you live there. A rental agreement is fine. In a huge city like Hamburg, you can even do it online, which is not always the case. In Münster it’s a little differentand you do have to show up at a counter. My point is that Germany is a very big country and every city, and every Bundesland (Germany is divided up into 16 different states, Bundesländer, of which the cities Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen are city-states, so-called Stadtstaaten) have their own way of doing things.
In short, your best bet is to google words like Bürgerservice or Einwohnermeldeamt plus the name of city, where you intend to settle.
The last part is register at the local tax office, Finanzamt, if you intend to work here or will have income originating from customers or clients in or outside Germany. The German tax system is rather complicated, and I will get into that in a later article but suffice to say that you need to get an accountant, Steuerberater, to make sure that you don’t mess up. And if your German was as poor as mine, when I moved across the border, make damn sure that you get one that actually speaks your language or at least a passable English (not always a given).
An apologetic (and practical) side note
Now why am I writing this in English and not in Danish or German, you might wonder. The answer is quite simply to share with a wider or maybe no audience, how to get by here in Germany. And my poor English seem an appropriate choice. I will probably make some grammatical errors, but I hope that ChatGPT 3.5 and Microsoft Word will prevent the most of them. Al pictures except photos have been generated by the AI tool DALL·E 2.