"EU Blue Card" as the fastest way to immigrate to Germany

Germany is not a traditional immigrant country. If you want to immigrate to Germany, you need to obtain a long-term visa, live in Germany for a certain period of time and pay social security for a certain period of time before you can apply for permanent residence status in Germany, so as to achieve the purpose of immigrating to Germany. This is the only way for most immigrants to Germany at present!

Long-term visas mainly include three common forms: corporate visa, employee visa and blue card visa, all of which are work visas of 1 year or above. Since Germany revised and promulgated the blue card immigration act in 20 12, the blue card has become one of the three major immigration methods in Germany, which is popular and the fastest way to obtain permanent residence status. Because the blue card is a senior work visa, it has advantages in terms of annual salary requirements, academic qualifications and permanent residence requirements. Let's get down to business.

1. What is the EU Blue Card?

2065438+In February 2002, the German Federal Cabinet passed a bill to officially issue "EU Blue Cards" to professionals from non-EU countries. The EU Blue Card is a system introduced by the EU to attract technical talents to work in Europe, so it is both a residence permit and a work permit. The EU Blue Card was officially launched on August 1 2065438, with the aim of encouraging foreign residents with high education and high quality to live and work in the EU (it is conceivable that the relatives of the blue card who immigrated to Germany are all high-quality talents). So far, except Denmark, Ireland and Britain, other EU member states have implemented the EU Blue Card Act.

Suitable for people: people who want to settle in Germany (medical care, life, investment, etc.). ), people with basic knowledge of German, and children they are studying.

Second, the EU blue card application conditions

1 wage income

Official website, the German Immigration Bureau, published the latest German blue card implementation standard on 20 18, which raised the salary requirements for applicants: the annual income before tax should not be less than 52,000 euros. For some majors in short supply, such as mathematics, information science, natural science and technology, it can be reduced to 40,560 euros.

If the fixed salary stipulated in the labor contract does not meet the salary standard for applying for blue card, but some fixed bonus subsidies are stipulated in the contract, then these fixed bonus subsidies can be included in the fixed salary. As long as these amounts meet the criteria for applying for a blue card, employees also have the right to apply for a blue card.

According to the first paragraph of Article 19 of the German Residence Law and the second paragraph 1, 2 and 3 of the Regulations on Employment and Labor of Foreigners, the blue card application that meets these requirements does not need the approval of the Labor Bureau. From this point of view, the application for blue card is much simpler than the application for ordinary work and residence. Because if the labor bureau participates in the examination and approval, they need to carry out specific labor market examination and approval, that is, they need to check whether Germans with the same education and skills, or citizens of other EU member States can engage in this work.

2 Language requirements

Blue card applicants do not need to show their German proficiency when applying, and German Immigration Bureau will not consider the applicant's German proficiency when examining blue card applications.

3 Applicant

The blue card applicant must be a national of a third country outside the EU, but the applicant can apply for a blue card of a country in the EU in a third country outside the EU; It is also possible that the applicant has lived in an EU country and applied for a blue card from another EU country.

However, the blue card rule does not apply to foreigners who have refugee status in Germany, are applying for refugee status or hold tolerant residence status. At the same time, the blue card rule does not apply to dispatch or personnel exchange.

4 Work contract

The blue card applicant must be able to present the work contract when applying, and the salary stipulated in the contract must reach a certain amount (refer to the latest pre-tax annual salary standard) before applying for the EU blue card.

More importantly, the work content stipulated in the contract must match the major studied by the blue card applicant and the subsequent work experience, that is to say, there are some places in the work content stipulated in the blue card work contract that require the applicant to use his own professional knowledge.

5 academic requirements

Blue card applicants must have a German university diploma, or a foreign university recognized by Germany, or a foreign university diploma equivalent to a German university degree. For domestic partners, most of them can apply for full-time bachelor degree or above.

Third, the advantages of the EU blue card.

0 1

Stay abroad longer.

According to Article 5 1 of German Residence Law, blue card holders and their spouses can leave the EU for at most 12 months within the validity period of the blue card, and the blue card will be invalid if it exceeds 12 months. If you leave Germany for more than 6 months within the validity period of the blue card, your stay in Germany will not be counted when you apply for permanent residence. The same rules apply to spouses.

02

Family reunification of spouses and children

Blue card holders can apply for spouses and children to come to Germany for family reunion. At the same time, when applying for spouse's family reunion, the spouse does not need to show the language certificate of A 1 to the embassy or consulate.

The spouse of the blue card holder can immediately get an unrestricted job or a license to engage in freelance work after coming to Germany.

If the blue card holder participates in public social insurance and medical insurance, his family members can participate in the insurance together, and the premium will not increase. Simply put, the family members of blue card holders only need to pay one person's premium and enjoy the medical insurance of the whole family.

Children of blue card holders have the right to apply for German child allowance. In 20 17, the child allowance for the first and second children is 192 euros per month, and the third child is 198 euros. After that, each child can get 223 euros. In addition, school-age children of blue card holders enjoy the same free compulsory education in Germany as local school-age children.

03

Change of employers and unemployment

In the first two years of holding a blue card, the cardholder's change of employer must be approved by SAFE. The examination and approval conditions are the same as the initial application for blue card. If the minimum annual salary for applying for a blue card is increased in the past two years, the cardholder's new job will only be approved if it meets the new salary standard. If the cardholder is dismissed by the employer within the validity period of the blue card, he must also notify the safe immediately. After two years, blue card holders are free to change employers, but they cannot start their own companies.

If the holder of the EU blue card is unemployed within the validity period of the blue card, he shall immediately notify the local foreign exchange bureau for the record. In the short term, the blue card holder's residence in Germany is valid, but at the same time, SAFE will set a time limit for finding a job according to the industry and its own situation, and the blue card holder must find a job that meets the requirements of the blue card within this time limit, otherwise the residence will be invalid.

04

The right to move freely within the EU.

According to the regulations of the EU Blue Card, holders of the EU Blue Card can move freely within the EU. For example, if you travel to other Schengen countries, you can enter the country without a visa, and you can stay in other Schengen countries for up to 90 days every 180 days. In addition, blue card holders in other EU countries can move to other EU countries with their families after owning the blue card 18 months.

Blue card holders can also move to other EU countries first and apply for renewal within one month after moving. In other words, blue card holders from other EU countries can directly enter Germany from other EU countries, and then apply for a new blue card directly at the immigration office of the city where Germany wants to settle. There is no need to go through other formalities.

Of course, the prerequisite for the right of free migration mentioned above is that the applicant must have a blue card from other EU countries. In other words, the residence card he holds in other EU countries must indicate the type of residence and the EU blue card.

05

Apply for permanent residence

The first time you get a blue card, it is valid for up to 4 years. If the work contract period is less than 4 years, the validity period of the blue card shall be set according to the work contract period plus 3 months.

According to the sixth paragraph of Article 19 of the German Residence Law, blue card holders can obtain long-term residence after they have obtained the blue card for 33 months, paid the pension insurance for such a long time, and have the level of A 1 in Germany. As long as the conditions are met, the blue card holder has the right to ask the immigration bureau to issue a long-term residence certificate. In this case, the Immigration Bureau has no discretion.

German A 1 level certificate is equivalent to IELTS 2.0 to 3.0, which means you can't speak complete sentences or express meaning. Usually 80 to 150 class hours can meet the requirements.

However, if the blue card holder passes the intermediate German language test and obtains the certificate of B 1, the time for taking a long-term residence will be shortened to 2 1 month.

Paragraph 6 of Article 19 of the German Residence Law stipulates that you must work in the first paragraph of Article 19 within the above 33 months or 2 1 month.

At the same time, according to the guidance of article 19 of the Residence Law issued by the German Ministry of the Interior on 20 15 on the use of blue cards, the time when German blue card holders had their blue cards before this blue card application is also counted as the time to apply for permanent residence.

In addition, if the blue card holder previously held an ordinary work visa issued in accordance with the fourth paragraph of Article 18 of the German Residence Law, the time of holding an ordinary work visa can also be counted as the time when the blue card can apply for permanent residence after meeting the following conditions.

Four. Comparison of Enterprise Visa, Employee Visa and EU Blue Card

Learn more about the similarities and differences among corporate visas, employee visas and blue card visas through the following table.

Verb (abbreviation of verb) the cost and period of applying for a blue card

Regarding cost and cycle, it is undoubtedly the focus of attention. Different intermediaries charge different fees, including customer service, copywriting, finance, legal affairs and translation. It will probably be between tens of thousands of euros and hundreds of thousands of euros.

In fact, as the main applicant, as long as he meets the requirements of the blue card in terms of age, annual salary and education, in the process of applying for the blue card, he only needs to implement the application step by step, which is not as difficult as expected. When the applicant's materials are fully prepared, he can get a blue card visa in about 3 months at the earliest, and then apply for a family reunion visa. The family will enter Germany and enjoy all social welfare benefits such as local education, medical care and work.