Bringing your family on a Western Balkans permit

Can your family join you at all on a Western Balkans permit?

Yes, in most cases — the Western Balkans regulation is not a route that excludes family. Your permit is a residence permit under § 19c (1) AufenthG, granted because § 26 (2) BeschV allows the Federal Employment Agency to consent to your employment. Family reunification to any holder of a residence permit is possible under § 29 (1) no. 1 AufenthG.

The point that decides your case is where § 19c sits in the statute. It stands in Chapter 2, Section 4 of the Residence Act — the employment chapter, §§ 18 to 21. That matters because § 30 (1) sentence 1 no. 3 letter e AufenthG grants the spouse's entitlement to holders of permits from Sections 3 to 6, and then attaches two conditions that the privileged routes do not carry.

The first condition is a date: the marriage must already have existed when your residence permit was granted. The second is that your stay in Germany is expected to last more than one year, which a Western Balkans contract normally satisfies.

So the couple who married in Pristina or Sarajevo before he flew out is on the entitlement track. The couple who married on his first holiday home, after the permit was in his passport, is not — at least not under letter e.

There is a second door. § 30 (1) sentence 1 no. 3 letter d AufenthG works where you have held a residence permit for two years and it carries no ancillary condition under § 8 (2) AufenthG that would block a later settlement permit. That is the ordinary path for a marriage concluded after arrival.

And there is a discretionary one. § 30 (2) sentence 2 AufenthG says the authority may waive the other requirements of letter e where you hold a residence permit. The wording is "kann" — a decision the office is allowed to make, not one you can demand. Ask; do not plan around it.

Does your spouse need a German certificate, or is the skilled-worker exemption enough?

Your spouse needs A1 German before entering, and the exemption you may have read about does not apply to you. § 30 (1) sentence 1 no. 2 AufenthG requires the joining spouse to be able to communicate in German at least in a simple way, and § 2 (9) AufenthG defines simple German as level A1 of the Common European Framework.

The exemption in § 30 (1) sentence 3 no. 5 AufenthG is written as a closed list. It covers the EU Blue Card, the ICT Card and the Mobile ICT Card, permits under §§ 18a, 18b, 18c (3), 18d, 18f, § 19c (2) and (4) sentence 1 and § 21 — and § 19c (1) only for work as an executive, a manager, a company specialist, a scientist, a guest scientist, an engineer or technician in a guest scientist's research team, or a teacher.

A Western Balkans permit is § 19c (1). If your job is on a building site, in a kitchen, in a care home or in a warehouse, it is not one of those seven occupations, and the language requirement stands.

This is worth stating plainly because the shorthand in circulation — that spouses of skilled workers are exempt — is wrong for this route. The statute does not attach the exemption to the word "skilled worker"; it attaches it to named permits and named jobs. The German embassy in Pristina lists the A1 certificate in its own document checklist for family reunification, which is the same answer arrived at from the other end.

§ 30 (1) sentence 1 no. 1 AufenthG adds that both spouses must have reached 18.

What counts as sufficient living space, and can you get out of proving it?

You cannot get out of it. § 29 (1) no. 2 AufenthG makes sufficient living space a condition of family reunification to a foreigner, and § 29 (5) AufenthG waives it only for the same narrow list of permits and occupations as the language exemption — the Blue Card, the ICT cards, §§ 18a, 18b, 18c (3), 18d, 18f, § 19c (2) or (4) sentence 1, § 21, and § 19c (1) for the seven managerial, scientific and teaching roles. An ordinary Western Balkans job is not among them.

The standard is set by § 2 (4) AufenthG, and it is more forgiving than most people fear: no more is required than would suffice to house someone seeking accommodation in a publicly subsidised social rental flat. The flat is not sufficient if it fails the rules on condition and occupancy that apply to Germans as well.

One sentence of § 2 (4) is easy to miss and often decides a cramped case: children up to the completed second year of life are not counted when the space is calculated.

In practice this is the requirement that arrives last and hurts most. A single man in employer-provided shared accommodation meets every other condition and fails this one, and moving to a family flat before the visa is granted means paying for it while the family is still abroad. Plan the move around the tenancy, not the other way round.

How much do you have to earn before they will let your family come?

There is no published figure. § 5 (1) no. 1 AufenthG requires that means of support be secure, and § 2 (3) AufenthG defines that as being able to cover them, including adequate health insurance, without recourse to public funds. The authority calculates against the household's needs, so the number depends on the size of your family, your rent and the city.

Three provisions work in your favour and are regularly overlooked.

§ 2 (3) sentence 4 AufenthG states that when a residence permit for family reunification is granted or extended, the family members' own contributions to household income are taken into account. If your spouse has a job offer, it counts — which is a reason to bring evidence of it rather than leaving it out.

§ 2 (3) sentence 2 no. 1 AufenthG excludes Kindergeld, Kinderzuschlag, Elterngeld and Erziehungsgeld from what counts as recourse to public funds. Drawing child benefit does not undermine your application.

§ 2 (3) sentence 3 AufenthG settles the insurance side: if you are covered by a statutory health insurance fund, you have adequate cover. Employed Western Balkans workers normally are.

The provision that works against you is § 27 (3) sentence 1 AufenthG: reunification may be refused where the person in Germany depends on benefits under Book II or Book XII of the Social Code to support other family or household members.

Finding an employer whose contract actually clears this bar, rather than one that merely clears the work visa, is the part of the problem we take on — free for you, because the employer pays.

What applies to your children, and what changes at sixteen?

A minor unmarried child is entitled to a residence permit under § 32 (1) no. 1 AufenthG where both parents, or the parent with sole custody, hold a permit under Section 3 or 4 of Chapter 2 — and § 19c is in Section 4. There is no language requirement for children.

§ 32 (2) AufenthG adds a condition, but only in one situation: a child who has already turned 16 and who does not move to Germany together with the parents or the sole-custody parent must either master German or make it appear assured that they can integrate on the basis of their previous education and circumstances. § 2 (12) AufenthG defines mastering German as level C1 — a level almost no 16-year-old abroad holds.

Read the condition precisely, because its own wording contains the way out: it applies only where the child moves separately. If the family relocates together, § 32 (2) does not bite, and the entitlement under paragraph 1 stands. For a family with a teenager, the difference between travelling together and leaving the eldest to follow later is the difference between a formality and a C1 certificate.

Where custody is shared, § 32 (3) AufenthG provides that the permit should also be granted for a move to only one custodial parent if the other has declared consent or a legally binding decision to that effect exists. Get that declaration notarised early; it is a common reason for an otherwise complete file to sit.

Will your spouse be allowed to work here?

Yes, and not only for your employer. § 4a (1) sentence 1 AufenthG provides that foreigners holding a residence permit may pursue employment unless a law prohibits it, and no such prohibition attaches to a permit granted for family reunification. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees puts it in one line on its page on reunification with third-country nationals: as the joining person, you are entitled to work.

Your own permit is tied to the job the consent was given for. Your spouse's is not — it is granted under § 30, not under § 19c, and carries no such link.

§ 4a (3) sentence 1 AufenthG requires every residence title to show whether employment is permitted and whether it is restricted, so the entry on the card is where to check rather than a separate letter.

One limit is worth knowing before you plan around it. Under § 27 (4) sentence 1 AufenthG the family permit may be issued only for the validity period of your own permit; sentence 3 provides that it is otherwise granted for at least one year at first. Your family's residence runs on your renewal calendar, so a lapse in yours is a lapse in theirs.

How long does the visa take, and what actually shortens it?

One step shortens it, and it happens in Germany rather than at the embassy: a Vorabzustimmung, the advance approval of the immigration office responsible for where you live. The German embassy in Pristina states that where an advance approval from the competent German immigration office is submitted with the application, processing is usually reduced to a few weeks.

Without it, the same embassy tells applicants to expect up to three months, in some cases considerably longer, because German authorities have to be involved before the mission can decide. Pristina asks applicants not to enquire about progress within those first three months. The embassy in Sarajevo gives no forecast at all for family reunification and likewise does not answer status enquiries in the first three months.

So the honest recommendation of this guide is a single one: go to your local Ausländerbehörde and obtain the Vorabzustimmung before your family books the embassy appointment. It is the only part of this timeline you control, and it is the difference between weeks and an open-ended wait.

Appointments are booked through each mission's own online system. Pristina advises assembling the complete file first and registering only afterwards — sound advice anywhere, since an appointment reached with an incomplete file is an appointment spent.

The fee for a national visa is 75 euro under § 46 (2) no. 1 AufenthV. Pristina states 75 EUR for adults and 37.50 EUR for minor children, in cash and in the exact amount, and notes that only applications by spouses and minor children of German nationals — and parents of minor German children — are free of charge. Your family is joining a foreign national, so the fee is payable.

Pristina's formal requirements are strict enough to cost a trip: documents translated into German, submitted as originals with one copy that must not be a colour copy, and not stapled. Kosovan birth certificates, marriage certificates and residence certificates need no translation, though the embassy reserves the right to ask for one. It also asks for your current employment contract and your payslips for the last three months, a copy of your valid residence permit, and — where the sponsor is not German — travel health insurance for the joining family member.

Does the 50,000 quota limit how many families can come?

No. § 26 (2) sentence 3 BeschV caps the number of consents to employment at up to 50,000 per calendar year. That cap governs the work route into Germany for nationals of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia. It says nothing about family reunification, which runs on §§ 27 to 32 of the Residence Act and has no numerical limit.

The same separation applies to the filing rule. § 26 (2) sentence 2 BeschV requires the first consent to be applied for at the competent German mission in one of those six states — again a rule about your work permit, not about your family's visa.

The practical consequence is that the two queues are independent. A quota that is exhausted in October delays the next worker, not the spouse of a worker who is already here.