Hello All,

A question for all of you.

I came to Germany last year on a GC that was valid for one year. My GC needs to be renewed now. I went to the Department of Foreign Affairs in the Rathaus and was told they can only extend my residence permit by 3 months, as the department of Employment needs to approve extension of my GC first and only then they can extend my residence permit to the remaining 4 year term. So I got the 3 month extension from the Department of Foreign Affairs and my employer applied for GC extension. Now I got a response from the department of Labour that they will extend my GC for 3 months since my Residence permit is only valid for 3 months.

So I am in this chicken n egg situation. Both the departments are saying that the other one has to do it. Has anybody had any experience with this or what is the official procedure to get the GC and residence permit extended to the full term?

Thanks,
Ashwini

Hi,

you must be in some smaller city with not so many GCs... From my experience, officials are behaving like you explained (not knowing what to do, washing their hands and playing ping-pong with you) when they do not have a lot of same cases, so they do not have standard procedure described by their boss they could just repeat each day without thinking.
It doesn't help if procedure is in law - if they have to think and decide by them self - it is bad for them because they might be responsible for something and that is the point some of beamte cannot handle... I had similar experience several times.
Look, if you got unlimited contract, you should have got 5-years GC (both work and residence permit) at the first place. Some of GC-s got first 3 years and then prolonged for next 2, sometimes people got GC with validity that must not exceed passport validity, or passport validity - 3 month, but that was in the beginning of GC program.
I am not sure how it goes now with new law since they changed some procedures, but your residence permit for IT-employment can be issued/prolonged only if labor office says that you are allowed to work here, having that employment, etc...
As far as I know, your case is not so typical one, and if I would be in your place, I would contact one of the vpmk lawyers on Monday, let them do the job, pay the fee (or let Rechtschutzversicherung pay it) and have no headache. I mean, if you had such a strange situation only with issuing GC (what was "clearest" and easiest part of GC program), I think you can expect also strange situations in future. Better get lawyer now doing prolongation for you than later, because you could run in time pressure.

Greetings

Or you can extend visa for 3 months every 3 months.
So you will pay extension much more and you will lose day of work, but that way you can make better friendship with Beamterin. ;)