Immigration & Residency
How long does a German work permit take?
Estimated wait
~10 days
Based on published sources
Timeline guide
- Faster cases~9 days
- Average cases~10 days
- Slower casesUp to 14 days
This is the Federal Employment Agency's internal consent window (silence = consent) — NOT the total time to hold a work permit. The permit itself is issued with the visa/residence title and depends on the consulate and immigration office.
In Germany the work permit is not a separate document — it comes with your visa or residence permit. The one hard official figure is the Federal Employment Agency's (Bundesagentur für Arbeit) consent step: it must reply within 2 weeks, or 1 week under the accelerated skilled-worker procedure, and if it stays silent the consent counts as granted automatically (§ 36 BeschV).
More details
So the "felt" wait for the right to work is usually longer than two weeks, because that consent sits inside the visa or residence-permit procedure handled by the consulate and the Ausländerbehörde — realistically several weeks to a few months in total.
How the process works
- 1Employer/authority requests Federal Employment Agency consent
- 2Agency replies within 2 weeks (1 week accelerated) — silence counts as consent ↑ the time on this page
- 3Consent feeds into the visa / residence-permit procedure
- 4Work authorisation issued with the residence title
Last updated: 9 Jul 2026
Information is for general knowledge only.