Employment of foreign workers; application for prior approval
If you as an employer would like to employ foreign skilled workers who come from third countries, the Federal Employment Agency must generally agree to this. You can have it checked in advance whether the requirements for approval are met.
Description
The nationality of a skilled worker determines whether he or she requires a permit to take up employment in Germany. Nationals of EU member states, the European Economic Area and Switzerland do not need a work permit; nationals of other states (third countries) can obtain one under certain conditions.
In order for you as an employer to be able to employ foreign workers from third countries, your future employees need a visa from the foreign representation (embassy or consulate) in their country of origin or a residence permit from the municipal foreigners authority in Germany. Both must allow them to work or train in Germany. In many cases, the Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit, BA) must approve the employment so that a corresponding visa or residence title can be issued.
This is possible in various ways:
- The foreigners authority, the embassy or the consulate involve the BA in an internal administrative procedure within the authority.
- Alternatively, you as an employer can speed up this process: You can ask the BA directly whether the employment of a foreign worker in your company is approved (so-called advance approval).
The advance approval is valid for 6 months from the date of issue. The visa or residence title must be issued within this period so that no renewed examination by the BA is necessary.
Prerequisites
In order for you to receive pre-approval,
- you must present a concrete job offer and
- the application has not yet been submitted to the diplomatic mission or the aliens' registration office.
Further requirements may arise depending on the specific employment and the intended visa or residence title.
Procedure
To initiate the pre-approval process, you must submit a written request:
- Download the form "Declaration of employment relationship" from the website of the Federal Employment Agency and fill it in.
- For certain occupations, it may also be necessary to provide additional information. In this case, fill in either supplementary sheet A (residence title for the purpose of carrying out the recognition procedure) or supplementary sheet B (residence title in the context of a posting).
- Send the documents to the employment agency responsible for you.
- The Employment Agency will check your documents. If necessary, you will be asked to submit further documents, for example an employment contract.
- If the result of the check is positive, you will receive a letter of approval for employment, which you will pass on to the foreign worker or the competent agency.
- As a rule, the employee submits this letter to the competent foreigners authority, embassy or consulate when applying for a visa or residence title.
Deadlines
The application for a preliminary examination should be received by the Federal Employment Agency (BA) 6 weeks before applying for the visa or residence title.
You must submit additional information on pay, working hours and other working conditions for your seasonal workers within one month of being requested to do so by the BA.
Processing time
up to 14 days
Required documents
-
Required Documents
- Declaration on the employment relationship
- Supplementary documents (e.g. references from previous employers, if required)
Remedy
The decision taken by the Federal Employment Agency within a procedure for granting a visa or residence title is not an independent administrative act. It is an internal act of cooperation vis-à-vis the foreign mission or foreigners authority that decides on the residence title. An appeal may therefore only be lodged against the decision of the diplomatic mission or the aliens' registration office.
Links to more information
Status: 27.10.2022
Responsible for editing: Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales
- Online transactions, Bavaria-wide
- Online transactions, locally limited
- Prefillable Form, Bavaria-wide
- Legal bases, Bavaria-wide
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- Fees, Bavaria-wide
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