The India-to-Germany corridor is the most common non-EU relocation route for European tech and engineering companies. It's also the most delay-prone. The combination of German bureaucratic precision and embassy appointment availability in India creates a timeline that frequently surprises HR teams who've only done EU-to-EU moves before.
This guide gives you a realistic 6-month timeline, flags the two most common failure points before you hit them, and tells you exactly what to prepare at each stage.
This guide covers Indian nationals relocating to Germany on either:
It does not cover intra-company transfers (ICT permits have a separate process) or freelancer/contractor arrangements.
This is where most companies lose time — not because the process is slow, but because they don't start it early enough.
Week 1–2: Check the ANABIN database
Germany requires that foreign qualifications be recognised before a Skilled Worker Permit can be issued for most technical roles. The ANABIN database tells you whether the employee's specific university and degree are automatically recognised in Germany.
Do this before extending the offer. If the employee's degree requires a full recognition procedure, your timeline shifts from 4 months to 6–8 months.
Week 2–4: Gather employment documentation
Week 3–4: Book the German embassy appointment in India
This is the most commonly missed step — and the one that causes the most delays.
German embassies in India (Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata) operate appointment systems with wait times that currently run 10–16 weeks for work visa appointments. You cannot submit a work visa application without an appointment.
Book the embassy appointment at the same time you prepare the Foreign Authority filing — not after the permit is approved.
The permit approval and the embassy appointment run in parallel. If you wait for permit approval before booking the embassy appointment, you add 10–16 weeks to your timeline that didn't need to be there.
Once the employer has the documentation package ready, file with the Foreign Authority in the German city where the employee will work.
Accelerated procedure (§81a AufenthG): If your company is registered as a "trusted employer" with the Foreign Authority, you can use the accelerated procedure, which reduces Foreign Authority processing to approximately 3 weeks. Standard processing runs 6–10 weeks.
To use the accelerated procedure:
For companies hiring more than 2–3 people from India per year, registering for the accelerated procedure is the single highest-ROI administrative investment available.
BA approval (Federal Employment Agency): For most roles, the Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit) must confirm that hiring conditions match those for comparable German workers. This takes 2–4 weeks and runs in parallel with the Foreign Authority review, not sequentially.
For shortage occupations (STEM roles are broadly listed), BA approval is waived.
Once the Foreign Authority approves the permit, they issue a visa authorisation (Vorabzustimmung) which the employee presents at the embassy.
What the employee brings to the embassy appointment:
Embassy appointment to visa issuance: 1–3 weeks once the appointment takes place.
While the visa is being processed, run these in parallel:
Social security and A1: If the employee will be on German payroll from day one (most cases), register with the German statutory pension and health insurance system. If the employee will remain on Indian payroll during an initial period, obtain an A1 certificate from EPFO (Employees' Provident Fund Organisation) under the India-Germany social security agreement.
Payroll setup: German payroll requires a German tax ID (Steueridentifikationsnummer), which is issued after municipality registration. Set up payroll infrastructure in advance; the tax ID will be added to the first pay run after arrival.
Accommodation: Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt, and Hamburg have significant housing shortages. Employer-assisted temporary accommodation for the first 4–8 weeks is strongly recommended — trying to find permanent accommodation from India is extremely difficult.
Within 14 days of arrival: Anmeldung (municipality registration)
The employee must register at the local Bürgeramt. This generates the Meldebescheinigung (registration certificate), which is required for almost everything else — bank account, tax ID, residence permit, health insurance.
Bürgeramt appointment availability varies significantly by city. Book the appointment before the employee arrives.
Residence permit: After arrival on the work visa, the employee must apply for the actual residence permit at the Foreign Authority. This is a separate step from the visa. Bring the Meldebescheinigung, passport, visa, employment contract, and passport photos.
Bank account: Required for payroll. Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, and N26 are the most commonly used by international hires. N26 can be opened without a Meldebescheinigung; traditional banks require it.
After working through dozens of India-Germany cases, these are the two points where relocations most frequently go wrong:
Companies discover this 6 weeks into the process, after the employment offer has been extended, the Foreign Authority filing is underway, and the employee has started their notice period. At this point, a recognition procedure adds 3–6 months to the timeline.
The fix: Check ANABIN before extending the offer. It takes 20 minutes and is a non-reversible decision point.
The embassy appointment queue in India is 10–16 weeks. If you book after receiving the Vorabzustimmung from the Foreign Authority, you've added that wait time sequentially. If you book at the same time you file with the Foreign Authority, they run in parallel.
The fix: Book the embassy appointment the same week you file with the Foreign Authority. The appointment can be rescheduled if the permit takes longer than expected; a 10-week queue cannot be compressed.
| Phase | Duration | Runs in parallel with |
|---|---|---|
| Qualification check (ANABIN) | 1–2 weeks | — |
| Document preparation | 2–3 weeks | Embassy appointment booking |
| Embassy appointment wait | 10–16 weeks | Foreign Authority processing |
| Foreign Authority processing | 3–10 weeks | Embassy appointment wait |
| Visa issuance after appointment | 1–3 weeks | Pre-departure preparation |
| Arrival + registration | 2–3 weeks | — |
| Total | 16–24 weeks |
The 16-week end of that range is achievable. The 24-week end is what happens when the two failure points above aren't caught.
Before you start any of the above, confirm which permit category applies to your employee's specific situation — their degree, their role, your company's employer registration status, and the salary on offer all affect the correct track.
Check eligibility for this relocation — free, no login →
ReloPass maps the India-Germany corridor against current requirements and tells you the right permit category, the documents you'll need, and the specific risks for your case.
Last updated: May 2026. Immigration requirements change regularly. Verify current thresholds and procedures with a qualified German immigration lawyer or the relevant Foreign Authority before filing.