Job-seeker permit or Chancenkarte? Which one fits you

Two different doors, and one question decides which is yours

Both routes exist for the same purpose: coming to Germany in order to look for work, without an employment contract in hand. They are not variants of the same permit, and they suit very different people.

The question that separates them is whether your foreign qualification has already been assessed as equivalent in Germany. That single fact usually decides the answer before any other consideration.

§ 20 AufenthG — the route for already-recognised professionals

The job-seeker permit under § 20 AufenthG is open to skilled workers with either vocational or academic training, and it grants up to six months to find qualified work.

Its requirements are the tighter set: secure means of support, German language skills appropriate to the occupation you are aiming at, and a qualified training background — where, for a foreign qualification, equivalence must as a rule already have been established.

During the search you may only take trial employment of up to ten hours per week, and only in work your qualification actually equips you for. This is a permit for looking, not for earning.

The Chancenkarte — points instead of recognition

The Chancenkarte under § 20a takes the opposite approach: it does not require your qualification to be recognised first. Instead you need at least six points, awarded across five categories.

• Qualification — up to 4 points
• Language skills — up to 3 points
• Work experience — up to 3 points
• Age — up to 2 points
• Connection to Germany — up to 1 point

What the Chancenkarte asks in return

Alongside the points you need German at A1 or English at B2, and either a vocational qualification of at least two years or a university degree recognised in the country where you obtained it. You must show means of support of 1,091 euros net per month (2026 figure). The visa fee is 75 euros, applied for at the German mission in your home country.

In exchange you get materially more room than § 20 offers: twelve months instead of six, and side work of up to twenty hours per week plus trial employment. That difference is not cosmetic — it is often what makes the search financially survivable.

Choosing, in practice

If your qualification is already recognised, § 20 is the straightforward path and the shorter window is usually enough, because recognised professionals are what employers are actively looking for.

If recognition has not happened yet, the Chancenkarte is normally the right answer — and it can be the smarter sequence in any case: come on the Chancenkarte, run the recognition procedure here, and use the twenty permitted hours to build German work experience while you do it.

Neither permit guarantees a job or a later work visa, and neither should be sold to you as if it did. What we do is the part in between — finding the employer and getting the paperwork to line up. That work is free for you; the employer pays our fee.