Introduction
For a German employment visa or residence permit, your employer may need to provide more than an offer letter. The central form is usually the Erklärung zum Beschäftigungsverhältnis, alongside any contract or supporting evidence requested for your route.
Start by finding one contact at the company who can coordinate HR, payroll, and the hiring manager. This guide sets out the documents and details to prepare together before you submit the application.
This guide explains the main employer-side file for a German employment visa or residence permit. The exact request depends on the route and the responsible mission or foreigners authority.
Who at the company should handle the paperwork?
Send HR the official checklist for your intended application. Include the proposed residence route, the authority handling it, your work location, and the target start date.
Then agree who will prepare the employment declaration, who can confirm pay and social insurance details, and who will respond if an authority asks follow-up questions. A hiring manager may understand the role well while payroll holds information needed for the form.
The employer's role is to document the offered job and cooperate with any approval process required for your route. A small company can do this too, even if it has not hired an applicant through that route before.
Have a job offer but no college degree? Read about the German employment route for U.S. citizens without a degree.
Use our Germany relocation document checklist to organize the records needed alongside this step.
What is the Erklärung zum Beschäftigungsverhältnis?
The Federal Employment Agency publishes the Erklärung zum Beschäftigungsverhältnis, often shortened to EzB. The employer completes and signs it to describe the intended employment.
The current form asks about the employer, role, work location, dates, qualifications, hours, pay, and social insurance. Information should match the actual offer. The Betriebsnummer is a specific employer identification detail; it should not be replaced casually with a tax number or commercial register reference.
Provide your name exactly as it appears in your passport and review your personal details. HR or payroll should complete the employer and employment fields, including any unfamiliar social insurance information.
Use the version linked by the Federal Employment Agency or requested by the authority. A form saved from a previous employee's case may no longer be the right starting point.
Does the employer also need to provide a contract?
Often, yes—but follow the application checklist rather than treating every route as identical. The EzB explains that an employment contract may be requested separately. A concrete offer and a contract serve related purposes, but the declaration is not a universal substitute for every other employment document.
For example, Berlin's service for employment by certain nationalities asks for an employment contract and allows a draft contract for U.S. citizens. That is a local example of why “the form was signed” does not necessarily mean the employer's file is complete.
Agree one intended start date and explain any dependency on immigration permission. When the company changes that date, keep the contract, declaration, and application information consistent.
If the company changes your hours, salary, location, or duties during processing, send the changes to the person handling the application and establish which documents must be updated.
Does the job need to match your degree?
For some employment routes, the relationship between the qualification and the job is central. A title such as “consultant” or “specialist” may say very little about the work. A concise role description should explain what the person will actually do, the skills involved, and where the work takes place.
Imagine an employee with an engineering degree hired into a role called “operations associate.” If seeking an EU Blue Card, explain the actual duties and their connection to the qualification. Under the separate section 18b skilled-worker route, the job must be qualified employment but does not generally have to match the degree's subject. Unqualified administrative support is not made qualified employment merely by renaming the position.
Regulated occupations also require attention to professional authorization. The employer and applicant should establish what permission is needed for the duties offered, rather than assuming the residence application will solve professional licensing automatically.
For qualification evidence, see our Anabin and ZAB guide for U.S. degrees.
Which salary and working hours should the documents show?
The file should distinguish guaranteed gross pay from variable compensation and identify the working time attached to it. A recruiter describing a generous total package and a contract listing a lower guaranteed salary can create a material question for a salary-based route.
For an EU Blue Card, check the current threshold, the applicable category, and the employment conditions against the Federal Employment Agency's 2026 guidance. Do not count a discretionary or target-dependent bonus as though it were guaranteed salary. Lower-threshold cases have their own conditions and approval requirements.
Ask HR to separate guaranteed pay from discretionary bonuses and future salary reviews in writing. Use the binding contractual terms when assessing a salary-based route.
What about Federal Employment Agency approval?
Where employment approval is required, the immigration authority commonly obtains the Federal Employment Agency's involvement as part of the process. The employer may be asked for information or corrections.
There is also an employer-led advance approval procedure. The current instructions describe requesting it before the visa or residence-title application. It may be useful in an appropriate case, but it is not mandatory for every route and is not a visa in itself.
Before setting a first working day, confirm that the employment approval required for your route is in place and that your issued visa or residence document authorizes the work.
What should you and HR check before submitting?
Ask HR to review the final employment file with you. Check:
Your full name and the employing legal entity.
The job's duties, work location, hours, and intended duration.
Guaranteed pay, payment period, and any separately described benefits or variable pay.
The start date and how authorization affects it.
Signatures and a working contact for follow-up questions.
If the employer is outside Germany or the arrangement involves posting, remote work, or an unusual payroll structure, do not force it into a standard German local-hire explanation. Those facts can affect the analysis and may require specialist advice or additional documents.
Complete the supplementary forms required for your actual route. Ask the responsible authority or HR contact which annexes apply before signing additional declarations.
What must the employer check before you start work?
The employer must verify the applicable work authorization before employment starts and keep the required copy for the duration of employment. Section 4a(5) also requires notification to the foreigners authority within four weeks of learning that employment covered by a Chapter 2, Section 4 residence title has ended early. A signed contract, application acknowledgment, or employment-agency approval is not itself a universal permission to work.
Keep the final authorization accessible and check any employer or role restriction. If the job changes later, revisit the permission before assuming the original decision covers the new arrangement.
Keep employer paperwork connected to your moving plans
A missing employer declaration can leave your relocation preparation waiting on someone outside the household. Meanwhile, you may be coordinating your partner's documents, housing, and travel around the same moving date.
EuroHaven helps keep the relevant employment and document-preparation tasks visible alongside the rest of your personalized move. Track readiness, dates, and prerequisites, then use the dashboard to pick up the next task. Your household shares one plan, with person-specific requirements where relevant.
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Sources and image credits
Official employer forms, employment-agency instructions, legislation, and local authority guidance checked November 6, 2026. The responsible authority's current checklist and the selected residence route determine the actual employer submission.
Body photograph: calendar and notebooks, reused from EuroHaven’s existing media collection.