From June 1st, 2024, the job seeker visa was replaced by the new 'Opportunity card' (or Chancenkarte in German).
So what does this mean for expats? Let's go through it below.
What is the opportunity card?
This opportunity card visa will allow non-EU citizens to come to Germany for a 1 year stay and search for work. If you are able to find suitable full time work in this time, you would then be eligible for a residence permit in Germany.
How is it different to the job seeker visa?
It is very similar, however two key differences are that:
The opportunity card visa is 1 year as opposed to 6 months on the job seeker visa.
You will be able to obtain a mini job or part time work up to 20 hours per week while on the opportunity card visa (until you find a suitable full time job), which was not possible on the job seeker visa.
What are the general requirements?
Some of the requirements include:
2 years of vocational training or a university degree
Basic knowledge of German (A1) or English (B2)
A blocked bank account
Health insurance
Application form
You can find the full list of requirements here.
What health insurance should I obtain?
In most cases, you will be coming to Germany to search for employment, but in some cases you may already have an employment offer, and your insurance recommendations will differ based on these factors.
No upcoming employment
We recommend our expat health insurance. You can sign up to this insurance without employment to get you started. Once you arrive in Germany and obtain employment, we can then help you switch to public or private health.
Please note: if you opt for this option, please reach out to us after signing up and we will provide you with an additional letter for your visa application.
Upcoming employment
In this case, we recommend first signing up to expat health to cover you for the dates before you start employment, and once you have done this, you can also sign up for public health insurance (or private if your salary would be above €69,300 per year). You can sign up for both straight away! Our switching service will ensure that your expat health insurance stops right before your public or private commences.
You can read a further detailed overview including all the steps to apply for your visa in our opportunity (chancenkarte) blog post here.
If you have any further questions, please contact us via our support page!