How to settle in Germany

Moving out of the home country is accompanied by a lot of everyday struggles that an immigrant has to deal with. No doubt it was not the first time when we were moving out of India. We were already in USA for almost 2 years. But to settle in Germany was a completely different experience from the States.

There are some basic things like identification, electricity ,address proof, sim etc. that are essential for settling in a country. In USA, you can manage these things either online or through third-party and their customer service is excellent. But when it comes to Germany, here still paperwork is managing a lot of things. If I talk about the customer service, I am sure that if anybody speak in German then the experience will be pretty good. If a person speak English ,then it is difficult to communicate. Moreover we did not know a single person here , having some known people can really help. I am hereby elaborating our experiences regarding these essential things that we had in the last 2 months .Let us explore then some of the steps to settle in Germany.

Address Registration -First step to settle in Germany

First step when entering Germany is the address registration. It is a must to register your address as soon as possible depending on the area where you are relocating. In general it is 15 days except for Berlin. It is not easy to find an apartment here so the deadline does not apply. So the first step is to find a house to register for.

In our first week, we tried to find an apartment but could not make it so we searched for an appointment to BurgerAmt(government office). Because at that time, we were not aware that the “15-days rule” does not apply to Berlin, we thought of having an appointment so that we can take some time for finding home. But it is not only difficult to find home but it is equally difficult to take an appointment. We tried making an appointment multiple times but could not do, so we went straight to the building nearby named BurgerAmt where addresses are registered.

We did not know German and when we asked the person at the entry that we were not able to find an appointment. He could not understand our English ,he got “no appointment” only from our long sentences and asked us to come only with the appointment. Somehow we tried to explain him with google translator and he understood that we are here for the information. So he send us to the person inside the office.She was a nice lady and she tried to understand us and booked an appointment for us one month later. We were at-least relaxed that atleast we have informed the government here that we are in Berlin .

Then started our apartment hunting, if you want a guide to find apartments ,then checkout my other blog https://www.theexplorerdiary.com/complete-guide-to-build-a-initial-home-in-germany/

So intermediately when we were looking for apartments, we went to our brother in Frankfurt for address registration there on his address. There is another surprise waiting here. The officials at the office here told us that our marriage certificate cannot be accepted as verified because of its appearance like a photocopy. It made us confused that how come a government document is black and white including the photographs. In reality, there is a line written at the bottom of the document that says it is verified by the document id online. India is ahead of a lot of countries in digitalization. As a result, they registered us as separate individuals instead of married. Then we thought of modifying it in Berlin only once we get a house.

So after shifting in our new home, we booked an appointment online. After a lot of online research,I found that you can book appointment only between 6am -8am. You can book the appointment for the same day just by checking it online during this time period.

Documents Required for Address Registration:-

• Passport
• Address document provided by landlord
• Marriage certificate if applying as a couple

This is the website – https://service.berlin.de/dienstleistung/120686/

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Mobile sim

We were given two prepaid Lebara sims by the VFS office on our day of visa appointment in India. But this happened for some people ,they stopped providing sim afterwards. We recharged them with minimal data pack as we were staying in the hotel.

After shifting to our apartment, depending on that sim for internet can prove costly as he was working from home. We went to T-Mobile center but our experience was not great here if I compare it to USA. After online searching ,we found that a company called O2 is providing a sim that was providing 999GB at 69 euros for one month. That gave us a relief since for a wifi you need a bank account. So I switched my sim from Lebara to O2 for one month that can give us sufficient time to setup a bank account and have wifi.

To get an O2 sim, there was a need of a passport.

As soon was wifi setup at home, I switched back from O2 to Lebara again.

Bank Account

To settle in Germany without a bank is difficult. Here comes the bank dependencies. European banks usually charge money monthly for keeping your account. I know that this thing can come as a great shock .We were searching for a bank where is no monthly charge. We found good reviews of N26 everywhere but on checking the website we found that it requires resident permit. Resident permit is a type of identity card or permit to live in Germany. But to get an appointment for resident permit is a nightmare.I am still trying to get one.

So we put N26 out of the picture and try searching for other banks. There are two other banks named Commerzbank and Deutsche which provide English support. For us English support was something essential. The other reason we preferred Deutsche was due to the only need of an Anmeldung(address proof) as the document and we had that. We also tried the other competitor ,Commerzbank but getting its appointment is itself a challenge. With Deutsche Bank, there are unlimited free withdrawals provided if you use the bank’s ATM, a free Girocard(checking account) but not a free debit card/credit card. Monthly charge is 6 Euros.

Although I would suggest checking an online service named Wise for international transfer. The important thing here is they provide IBAN (bank account number) without a monthly charge.. They also provide debit card when requested and you can transfer money internationally with good exchange rates. We are also thinking of switching to Wise.

Documents Required:-

• Passport
• Address Registration proof provided in Step1

Wifi connection

Getting a wifi needs a bank account (IBAN). There are a lot of companies to choose from 1&1, O2, Deutsche Telecom but we got an offer from Saturn(an electronics store) for Vodafone. So we thought of going with Vodafone. Our current plan is 1Gbit/sec for 6 months free and then you can switch to lower plan of 100Mbits/sec for 34.99 Euros. It was cheaper than the other options when we searched.

We are still on the 6 month free plan. I would say that the speed we are getting is not the number mentioned above but still better than spending a lot of Euros .

Documents Required:-

• Passport
• Bank account No (IBAN)

Electricity

Actually we were not looking for electricity provider immediately. When you are renting an apartment, you need to record the meter readings . With those meter readings, you can just start the electricity contract with any company. We found one company when we visited Saturn for vodafone wifi. Our electricity provider is “e-primo” for 75 Euros per month with a yearly consumption of 2500 KW.

Having these basic things set ,Berlin has become a home now. Also it is not necessary that you agree to every recommendation provided above. I just wanted to share my experience and learning with you guys. You can post in the comments your experience with these things also and I am looking forward to it.

Documents Required:-

• Passport
• Address Registration proof provided in Step1
• Bank Account no (IBAN)

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