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Opportunities to change the residence title and the purpose of stay in Germany ,
Source: BAMF
Every year thousands of immigrants change their residence title and purpose of stay, be it as they change from vocational training into employment, because they get married or due to an application for asylum. The new EMN study documents the various requirements, consequences and exclusion criteria for a status change.
The study questions which change of residence title and purpose of stay is possible under which conditions and which social and legal changes come along with each change.
Main findings
German law distinguishes between five different residence titles for different purposes of stay: a visa, a residence permit, a settlement permit, an EU long-term residence permit and an EU Blue Card.
The purposes of stay, which determine which type of residence title is granted, usually fall into one of the following four categories: family reasons (e.g. marriage, children joining their parents or parents joining their minor children, family members joining other family members), education or study (e.g. school attendance, professional qualification or university studies), remunerated activities (e.g. highly qualified, temporary or other employment, self-employment, research activities or intra-company transfers) or reasons of international law or humanitarian and/or political reasons (e.g. asylum, subsidiary protection, protection against removal or temporary suspension of deportation).
Requirements of a change of status
The legal conditions for granting a specific residence title depend on the title which is to be granted, not so much on the title which is to be exchanged for another one. If the conditions for the issuance of a specific residence title are met, a change of status is usually possible, even from within Germany (i.e. without leaving the country). However, there are some general restrictions on changes of status. For example, third-country nationals who are doing a course of study or professional training, asylum applicants currently undergoing an asylum procedure, rejected asylum seekers and Schengen visa holders can change their residence status only in exceptional cases.
Facilitations of changes of status
There have been several facilitations in the field of status change for different status groups over the last couple of years, e.g. for highly qualified, for persons whose deportation has been suspended in general, well integrated adolescents in particular as well as victims of human trafficking.
From a quantitative perspective, most applicants switched from a residence title issued for study purposes to a residence or settlement permit for remunerated activities, an EU Blue Card or a residence permit for family reasons. This also holds true for changes from a residence title granted for work purposes to an EU Blue Card or to a settlement permit for graduates of German universities.
Working paper 67 was drawn up by the National Contact Point of the European Migration Network (EMN) located in the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) as Germany’s contribution to a Europe-wide comparative investigation. It was co-financed by EU funds.
Study compiled by: Janne Grote and Dr. Michael Vollmer