Hi,

I've accepted a job offer from an company based in Stuttgart, Germany. I have submitted my visa application along with my spouse visa application to German Consulate, Bangalore on 05-01-2015. My future employer, at the same time has applied for work permit in Bundesagentur fur Arbeit. I've not heared back from the visa office yet, although my future employer has been contacted by BA office and has been told that, Consent is not required by the Federal Employment Agency and approval-free Employment in accordance with § 2 para. 1, no. 2 BeschV (EU Blue Card). They have forwarded me this letter copy which they received from BA- ZAV and asked me to check with the consulate to accelerate the visa process. Will the Consulate office accept this letter copy as the pre-approval and speed up my visa processing? Should I have to contact them even? Kindly suggest!

Thank you in Advance!

Hi,
Blue Card has a certain minimum gross salary requirement.
If this requirement is  met, then the approval from ZAV( Bundesagentur fur Arbeit) is not required.

Usually the work permit applications submitted at the German missions abroad, is forwarded to the local aliens/immigration office(in your case one of the office in stuttgart). There will be many aliens offices in Stuttgart region. Based on the postal code you specify in the proposed place of stay column of your visa application, the aliens office is determined and the application is forwarded.

Usually the pre approval is  issued by these offices. This office first checks if your minimum salary requirement is met. If no, then they forward it to ZAV office for approval. In your case , this step is skipped. This office also checks if your degree and university is recognised in Germany(Just by querying the anabin database which contains all the recognised degrees and unviversity across the world ). Some times you will be asked to submit the screen shots from anabin website by the consulate.
If the university is not listed here, then they involve ZAB to check for recognition.
If everything is fine, then they instruct the consulate to issue the visa.


If you want your visa to processed faster, ask your future employer to check with the respective aliens office in the Stuttgart region. Let them check if the aliens office received the application which you submitted at the consulate and the status of the application.


Note : Few people get their visa approval immediately( with a day or
two). But for few applicants it takes weeks. The processing time depends on many
factors.

In few cases, the blue card applications are processed by the consulates itself and you may receive the visa in few days. Applicants who wanted to travel to germany for the first time may fall under this category

If the application is forwarded to aliens offices in germany , it may take few weeks.
Applicants who travelled to germany earlier may fall under this category.

Hi asp58,

Thank you so much for your reply. My employer mentioned that the alien office shall contact the Indian consulate in few weeks regarding the approval-free employment grant. I was just wondering will it help to expedite my visa process, if I contact the consulate directly and submit this letter copy from the BA office. I am not sure if they even accept it. I've emailed the Bangalore consulate though regarding this. Its been 3 weeks already. I understand the situation differs from case to case. Beside, I had been on deputation to Germany thrice before for about 3 years so I suppose the delay is inevitable.

Have a nice day!

Thank you in Advance!

Hi,

Usually the following consents are required for an employment visa
1.The consent from the competent Federal Employment agency (ZAV)
2. The consent from the competent immigration office(ABH).

In case of the Blue card visa, the consent 1 is not required in your case.
But still the consent 2 from immigration/aliens ABH office will be  required in your case

The consulate will still wait for the approval from the aliens office from Stuttgart. But try submitting the letter copy from the BA office.
Since its been 3 weeks, I guess the consulate is still waiting for the reply from aliens office.
Usually the bangalore consulate is faster.


The visa for the spouse will be processed little differently. If you and your spouse have been to Germany earlier(through your earlier deputation to Germany) as married couple, they will search for those earlier records and your spouse should get the visa along with you.
But if you are recently married and you and your spouse have not been to Germany earlier as married couples, then the spouse visa is processed differently.

Hi,

Thank you very much for the update. I have requested my employer to check with the alien(ABH) office to track my application. They agreed to speak to them tomorrow, as the ABH office in Stuttgart is closed today. I hope to receive some positive response from them. 

Regardsing Spouse visa, my husband has travelled with me before on an dependent visa. He was there for 6 months. I stayed in Stuttgart for 18 months and 12 months in Berlin before. During the visa interview, he mentioned he would be interested to look out for job and subsequently work in Germany. 

Any idea on why it might be taking too long for ABH guys to make a decision on my application?

Thank you in Advance!

Have a nice day!

In recent days it takes minimum 4 weeks for Blue card visa processing. I knew some friends of mine who recently applied  at the bangalore
consulate and it took around 6 weeks for them.

Sometimes the ABH request some additional information from the consulate. So there will be few communication happening forth and back between the consulate and the ABH on particular application.

Spouse visa :
In some cases the ABH asks the consulate to do marriage verification and submit the report.
But in your case, you and your husband had been to Germany as a couple, so there wont be any delay because of this verification. If you and your husband lived in sóme region of Germany(For e.g Berlin) earlier and now you wanted to live in some other region(For e.g stuttgart), the aliens office at the Stuttgart will contact the aliens office at berlin to know the marriage status. This also takes little time.

Spouse of a Blue Card visa holder are eligible to find a Job and work very immediately after arriving Germany.

Your application and the spouse application are linked. But both are processed seperately, which means  you might get your visa sooner than the spouse visa.

Hi,
I went to submit this letter from BA to Bangalore consulate. The receptionist asked me to submit the letter to Counter 1 Lady. I showed her the copies. She asked me to wait for a while and returned back. She asked me, Have you got your passport along? I said No. She asked me come back with passport exactly at 2. She insisted again Sharp 2. I was like still not sure, I asked her is it for Stamping and she said Yes I asked my poor husband to rush to get my passport to consulate office before 2. He rushed with the passport. I stood in the queue still not sure. I submitted my passort, without looking in to my face she said wait for 10 mins. I am still unsure, is it happening. Then she called my name and handed over me the passport and my Degree certificate and there it was the VISUM stamped on my passport. Thank you so much asp58. You been great help providing the details. It kind of built hopes that everything is going fine and takes times.

Now I asked her my husband visa. With a cold voice, she said call us and get the status this is only for passort collection. But I understand it was not right time for her to take the queries. So my husband called the consulate landline while we are in consulate office. They said its still under process and it is in Germany. I wrote mail to my future employer support team who was assisting me in my visa, that if it would be possible for her to track my husband appliation with ABH. 

Any idea asp58, on how we can track his application with ABH?

Thank you in Advance!

Hello,

I have similar situation like you and still waiting for response from Bangalore Consulate.
I stayed in germany for 2.5 years as Depuation with my previous employer and now received job offer my Germany which meets the minimum requirmemnt for National visa/Blue card.

1. I have submitted application along with ZAV pre approval on 1st week Feb-2015 (National visa Category)
2. While submitting application the visa office confirmed that "Since I hold pre-approval your visa will be processed in 8-10 days"
3. They kept my passport with them when application has been submitted (not usual case)
4. Now its been 4 weeks but no response from Visa office. When I contacted visa office, they are said waiting for approval from German office.
5. I already asked my employer if they can contact alien office in Germany to get the info.


Have you submitted the BA-ZAV  along with Visa application?

Any idea / help what can be done more

Thanks in advance!

Hi, just checking to see what finally happened and how long did it take?