Getting an Ausländerbehörde appointment

Which authority is your Ausländerbehörde, and what does it decide?

The Ausländerbehörde of the district where you live decides every residence question you have once you are inside Germany. § 71 (1) sentence 1 AufenthG assigns residence and passport measures under the Residence Act to the Ausländerbehörden, and sentence 2 lets each state concentrate individual tasks in particular offices — which is why Berlin has one central Landesamt für Einwanderung while Bavaria decides in the city or district office where you are registered.

That single sentence explains most of the confusion people arrive with. The embassy that gave you your visa is out of the picture the moment you land. The Bundesagentur für Arbeit may have consented to your job, but it does not issue your card. The Bürgeramt registers your address and does nothing else for your status.

It also explains why advice from a friend in another city is often wrong for you. The statute is federal; the queue, the online form, the document list and the tone of the letter you get are local.

Your office follows your registered address. If you move to another district while your application is pending, competence moves with you — and § 49 (4) AufenthV settles the money question that follows: the processing fee stays with the office that charged it, and the newly competent office does not charge a second one.

Do you need an appointment before you can apply?

No. § 81 (1) AufenthG says a residence title is granted on application, and it says nothing about an appointment. § 10 VwVfG adds that administrative procedure is not bound to particular forms unless a specific rule requires one, and is to be conducted simply, appropriately and promptly. An application that reaches the authority in writing, by its online form or through its contact form is an application.

The city of Munich states the order of events in its own words on its immigration service page: you submit your application and documents online, and "Nach der Prüfung Ihres Antrags bekommen Sie einen Termin" — you receive an appointment after your application has been checked. The appointment is the end of the process, not the entrance to it.

Berlin has been moving the same way. The Landesamt für Einwanderung now takes online applications for residence titles for employment purposes, for family reasons as of March 23, 2026, and for extensions on humanitarian grounds since August 26, 2025, according to its own English-language homepage.

This is the single most useful thing to know about the Ausländerbehörde, and it is the thing almost nobody is told: people watch a booking calendar for weeks, find nothing, and let their permit run out while holding a valid claim they never filed.

So file first. Send the form, the passport copy, the contract, the proof of health insurance and the proof of address, and keep the confirmation of receipt. If your office has no online route, a signed letter naming the permit you hold and the permit you want, sent by registered post, does the job.

What happens if your permit expires before the appointment?

Nothing, provided your application arrived first. § 81 (4) sentence 1 AufenthG is the sentence to memorise: if you apply before your permit expires, for an extension or for a different permit, the old permit is deemed to continue from the day it expires until the authority decides. There is no gap and no illegal stay, however long the office takes.

The official leaflet of the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Justice of 23 July 2025 puts the practical weight on it: this continuation gives you "auch eine materielle Rechtsposition" — you are to be treated as though you still held the earlier residence permit.

There are two limits worth knowing before you rely on it.

The first is in § 81 (4) sentence 2 AufenthG: it does not apply to a Schengen visa under § 6 (1). A short-stay visa cannot be stretched by applying for something else. The Baden-Württemberg leaflet adds the matching detail for national visas — only a national visa issued by a German mission abroad carries the continuation.

The second is what happens when you are late. A late application does not simply fail: § 81 (4) sentence 3 AufenthG lets the authority order the continuation to avoid undue hardship. But the wording is "kann" and the standard is "unbillige Härte". That is a discretionary decision by an office that has no obligation to make it, and it is not something to plan a life around.

If you never held a permit but are lawfully in Germany without needing one — a visa-free national applying from inside under § 39 AufenthV — you are in a different and weaker position: § 81 (3) sentence 1 AufenthG deems your stay permitted until the decision, which the Baden-Württemberg leaflet describes as not putting you in the position of someone holding a permit.

Can you keep working while you wait for the decision?

If your old permit allowed you to work, yes. The Baden-Württemberg leaflet states that under the continuation in § 81 (4) AufenthG the work can go on where the earlier permit already carried that entitlement, and that this permission does not expire with the Fiktionsbescheinigung — only the authority's decision ends it.

If you are on the permitted-stay fiction of § 81 (3) AufenthG, no. The same leaflet is blunt: "Die Ausübung einer Erwerbstätigkeit ist in diesen Fällen nicht erlaubt." You may stay while they decide; you may not take up work.

There is a third case that catches people mid-career: you are changing employer or changing purpose. § 81 (5a) AufenthG deems the employment described in the future permit to be allowed only from the moment the authority initiates the issuing of the electronic residence card, not from the day you signed the new contract — and it requires that permission to be written into the Fiktionsbescheinigung.

Ask for that entry explicitly and show it to your new employer's HR. A German payroll department that cannot see a written work permission will usually postpone your start date rather than take the risk, and it is right to.

Can you travel home and come back on a Fiktionsbescheinigung?

With the § 81 (4) certificate, yes; with the § 81 (3) certificate, no. The Baden-Württemberg leaflet of 23 July 2025 sets both out in consecutive sentences: on a continuation certificate under § 81 (4) AufenthG you may leave and re-enter Germany, but only while the certificate is still valid — and on a permitted-stay certificate under § 81 (3) AufenthG, once you have left, re-entry to Germany is not possible.

Look at your certificate before you book anything. It is a printed form on which the office ticks which paragraph applies to you. That tick is the difference between a family visit and being stranded.

The leaflet also flags the part German authorities cannot help with: other states may have their own rules on a German Fiktionsbescheinigung, and Germany has no information about them. A carrier at your departure airport or a transit country's border officer may not recognise the document even where German law would let you back in. Ask the airline in writing before you fly.

What if the Fiktionsbescheinigung runs out before they decide?

Your legal position survives the paper. § 81 (5) AufenthG requires the authority to issue a certificate of the effect of your application, and the Baden-Württemberg leaflet explains what that certificate is: it serves purely as evidence and has no constitutive effect of its own. The continuation flows from the application, not from the document.

The leaflet says the certificate is normally issued for three to six months and extended if the case is not finished by then. It then adds the sentence that saves people who cannot get a renewal appointment in time: where the office cannot extend it before it expires, the effect can be proven by other means, for example an appointment booking receipt or an electronic confirmation that the extension application was received.

Keep those two things. The confirmation email of your application and the booking receipt are not administrative clutter; the state's own leaflet names them as evidence of your right to be here.

How much does all of this cost?

The fees are set nationally in the Aufenthaltsverordnung, so they do not change between cities. Under § 45 AufenthV, issuing a residence permit, an EU Blue Card or an ICT Card costs 100 euros whatever its validity; extending it costs 96 euros for a further stay of up to three months and 93 euros beyond that; and a change forced by a change of purpose, including the extension it carries, costs 98 euros.

A settlement permit is dearer. § 44 AufenthV sets 113 euros in the ordinary case, 124 euros for the self-employment permit under § 21 (4) AufenthG and 147 euros for highly qualified people under § 18c (3) AufenthG.

The Fiktionsbescheinigung itself costs 13 euros under § 47 (1) no. 8 AufenthV. Lifting or changing a condition attached to your permit on request costs 50 euros under no. 3 of the same provision — but § 47 (2) AufenthV charges nothing where the change concerns an ancillary provision on taking up employment, which is exactly the amendment a job change often needs.

Everything above is halved for anyone under 18. § 50 (1) AufenthV sets fees for services to and applications by minors at half the amounts in §§ 44, 45 and 47 (1), and fixes the settlement permit under § 35 (1) sentence 1 AufenthG at 55 euros.

Now the part that surprises people. A refused application is not a free one. § 49 (2) AufenthV sets the processing fee for applying for these acts at the same amount as the fee for the act itself, and § 49 (3) AufenthV waives it in only two situations: where the application is rejected solely because the authority was not competent or the applicant lacked capacity to act, and where it is withdrawn before substantive processing has begun. For a settlement permit the arithmetic is gentler — § 49 (1) AufenthV sets that processing fee at half the § 44 figure.

Withdrawing early therefore has a real value. If you realise within days that you have applied for the wrong permit, say so at once, in writing, before anyone starts work on the file.

How long may they take, and what can you do when nothing happens?

German law sets no general deadline for deciding a residence application, and the honest consequence is that no one can promise you a date. The most concrete official figure comes from the city of Munich, which tells applicants processing takes "Bis zu 4 Monate" and that questions about the state of the file will not be answered during that time.

That silence is not an accident and it is not personal. It is how a large office protects its throughput, and chasing it by phone does not move your file up.

What the law does give you is a floor under the waiting. § 75 VwGO allows an action to be brought where no decision has been taken on the merits without sufficient reason within a reasonable period, and its second sentence sets the earliest moment: not before three months have passed since the application, unless special circumstances demand a shorter period.

Read that carefully, because it is routinely misquoted. Three months is not a deadline by which the authority must decide. It is the earliest date on which you may go to court — and the third sentence lets the court suspend the case for a period of its own choosing where there is a sufficient reason for the delay.

Whether your case has passed that line is a legal judgement about your file, and it is not one this guide can make for you. If your permit has been pending for months and something concrete depends on it, that is the point to pay a lawyer who practises Aufenthaltsrecht for an hour of their time.

What actually moves a decision forward?

Completeness, and almost nothing else. § 82 (1) sentence 1 AufenthG puts the burden on you to bring forward the circumstances in your favour and produce the necessary evidence without delay. Sentence 3 obliges the authority, where it suspends processing because your details are missing or incomplete, to set you a deadline and name what it wants.

Sentence 4 is the one that costs people months: circumstances and evidence produced after that deadline may be left out of account. § 82 (3) sentence 2 AufenthG requires the office to warn you of the consequences of missing the deadline — so if a letter gives you a date, treat that date the way you would a court date.

The city of Munich says the same thing from the practical side: only a complete submission can be finished, and having to request documents delays the process. A file that goes back and forth twice has lost more time than any appointment queue.

There is one route that genuinely changes the speed, and it belongs to your employer rather than to you. § 81a AufenthG lets an employer, acting under your power of attorney, apply to the Ausländerbehörde for an accelerated skilled worker procedure for entry under §§ 16a, 16d, 18a, 18b, 18c (3) or 18g AufenthG. The office then advises the employer, starts the recognition of your qualification, obtains the consent of the Bundesagentur für Arbeit, informs the German mission and gives its advance approval for the visa. It costs 411 euros under § 47 (1) no. 15 AufenthV, and § 81a (4) AufenthG pulls in the spouse and minor unmarried children whose visa applications are made at the same time.

This is a pre-arrival instrument, so it will not rescue an extension you are already waiting on. But it is worth naming to an employer who is impatient about your start date, and it is one of the things we set up for candidates in our placement service, which is free for you because the employer pays.

When does the card itself actually arrive?

Add roughly a month after the decision. The Berlin service portal states that an electronic residence title can normally be handed over about four to five weeks after production and delivery by the Bundesdruckerei and an internal check. The Landkreis München advises booking a collection appointment at the earliest five weeks after the application and warns that the Bundesdruckerei takes longer in individual cases.

So the permit being granted and the permit being in your hand are separate events, several weeks apart. Plan a trip, a job start or a rental contract around the card, not around the decision.

Your Fiktionsbescheinigung covers that gap, which is the last reason to make sure yours is valid, carries the work entry required by § 81 (5a) AufenthG, and shows the right paragraph on its face.

The honest answer, in one paragraph

Stop hunting for an appointment and file the application. Everything that protects you — the continuation of your permit under § 81 (4) AufenthG, your right to keep working, your ability to leave and come back — hangs on the date your application reached the authority, and on nothing else. Send it in writing the day your documents are complete, keep the confirmation, and treat the appointment as an administrative formality that the office will schedule when it is ready.