formalities
In the first few days of your stay you won't have much time to spend at your desk or in the lab. Instead you will have a long list of necessary formalities to work through. You will meet a number of civil servants and administrators, complete a multitude of long and complicated forms and be confronted with a wide variety of office opening times. You will often ask yourself, as do many Germans, why German bureaucracy needs to be so infernally complicated and so damnably thorough. If you are not confident about your German, you should ask someone from your host department to accompany you to the relevant authorities, since not all the staff in the various offices will be able speak English well enough to assist you. Before you set off to visit any office, you should find out when they are open to the public. You must make sure you visit the relevant offices within the first week after your arrival.
The following formalities must be completed within the first few days:
- Registration of new place of residence at the Einwohnermeldeamt. Please remember that the regulations concerning registration demand not only that you register in your new place of residence but also that you give notice of your change of address to the authorities at your old place of residence (this is important if you are moving house within Germany). You will find the Einwohnermeldeamt in the Town Hall (Rathaus).
- Registration with the relevant Foreign Nationals Bureau (Ausländerbehörden). After arrival, every guest academic must immediately register with the Foreign Nationals Bureau which is responsible for the new place of residence in Germany. This is valid also for academics who are permitted to enter Germany, in the first instance, without a visa. The Foreign Nationals Bureau issues the required residence permit (Aufenthaltserlaubnis). When you visit the Foreign Nationals Bureau, be prepared to encounter long queues and over worked employees. It may also be the case that you will be asked to provide a health certificate issued by a doctor in Germany. A health certificate issued by a foreign doctor may be accepted in some cases, so, before you make an appointment to be examined by a German doctor, wait until you have been expressly asked to provide a German health certificate. In many places there are health authorities which will conduct the necessary examination relatively cheaply.
- Opening a current account (Girokonto) at a high street bank or a communal
bank (Sparkasse), or at a Post Office savings bank (Postbank). We recommend
that you authorize a direct debit for your monthly payments to your health
insurance company for the duration of your stay.
High-street banks, Sparkassen and the Postbank all offer services of a similar quality, but the prices for these services do differ greatly. Make sure you get someone at the bank to advise you personally, and also feel free to ask your host, your new colleagues or the International Office for advice.
Further useful information about bank accounts:
- In order to open a current account, you will need your passport or an equivalent proof of identity.
- Many financial institutions will, for a fee, issue you with a cheque card for use in cash machines. You will receive this cheque card approximately 3 weeks after you have opened an account. Such cards enable you to withdraw cash from cash machines using a secret personal identification number (PIN), which will also be sent to you. If you use cash machines which belong to your own bank then this procedure is usually free of charge. If you use cash machines which belong to other banks then you may be charged a fee of approximately 2–4 Euros;
- It is possible, using a bank transfer form (Überweisungsformular ), to transfer money to other bank accounts in order to pay outstanding bills;
- It is possible to arrange for long-term regularly recurring payments of a fixed sum, direct debits, (for example, for rent) to be made automatically;
- It is possible to arrange for the payee to debit your account automatically for regularly recurring payments (for example, for telephone bills or health insurance payments, and for other payments of variable sums). In order to do this, you must sign a direct debit authorisation. The relevant form for this (Lastschrifteinzugsformular ) is usually included with the first bill;
- It should be noted that, as well as the cheque card, which is necessary for making payments using your PIN number, there is also such a thing as a Eurocard/Master Card : this is a credit card which is integrated into the Master Card System and is valid for use world-wide. You can, of course, also withdraw money from cash machines using this credit card, but a substantial fee is usually charged if you use the card for this purpose.
