Residence Permit FAQ

No, this is not possible. If your parents are to support you, you should show a regular transfer of money from them to your bank account or a transfer of lump sum of money on your account.

The sum is not so important. It's important that you are able to show that you have a regular income and that you can manage your living expenses over a long period of time. If your parents are to support you, please check the question above.

The permit is usually issued within 3 weeks of application, however, the delivery can be delayed due to the postal service. Generally, it takes 4-6 weeks for the permit to arrive at the university.

If you would like to have it sent to us and for us to deliver it to you or pick it up from our offices, please submit in the application file also the Authorization (printed, filled-out, hand-signed, and scanned) in your extension/application file. The form can be downloaded from the respective extension procedure.

The permit can be shipped to you. It can be done by snail mail through Jacobs University (free of charge, no tracking) or you can arrange and pay for registered shipping (f.e. through DHL).

You will receive an e-mail with us informing you that the permit has been received.

Yes, this is possible. Once you receive the e-mail that the permit is ready to collect, please respond to this e-mail that the permit will be collected by a friend. Make sure to disclose the full name of the person in the e-mail and inform the person that they have to bring their campus card or governmentally issued ID. In addition, they have to sign i.V. a letter that they have collected the permit on your behalf.

The validity of your old permit is stated on it, however not later than the semester in which graduate (e.g. August 31st, for students who graduate in Spring). Please note that the old permit is invalidated as soon as the new one is collected. Your new permit is automatically registered as collected if it is sent to us. As a result, your old permit is invalidated and you will need to have your new one sent to you in order to re-enter Germany.

The extension is done in the city of your registration (Meldebestätigung)

No, you can apply only in the city of registration!

No, you can apply only in the city of registration!

No, you cannot. An address registration in Germany is a prerequisite for the application for a residence permit! Please note that Jacobs University actively deregisters students who no longer have university housing, latest with the end of the semester in which the student has left their university housing.

In addition to receiving an updated "Meldebestätigung", you should also change the address on your residence permit or Personalausweis. To do so, you need to book an appointment in your nearest Bürger Service Center. You can do so here: https://www.service.bremen.de/sixcms/detail.php?gsid=bremen128.c.1246281.de

Your registration with the university address (Meldebestätigung / Anmeldung) is valid until the end of the semester rin which you are enrolled unless you have moved off campus earlier or you have actively changed your registration.

No, you need to have an admission letter for graduate school in order to be able to extend the permit. You may also be required to submit your Bachelor diploma from Jacobs University, if your admission to graduate school is conditional on you graduating from Bachelor.

If you have your unconditional admission letter, you can extend it already, following the extension procedure.

If you have a conditional admission letter, you can extend it only after you have your diploma from Jacobs University, following the extension procedure.

If you don't have an admission letter, you need to wait until you have an admission letter. You have two options: to extend your permit in Germany, before your current one expires or if it has already expired and you are no longer in Germany, to apply for a national visa in your home country.

If you have been issued a permit for further studies and you change your mind about the university (decide to enroll at another university), you need to change the green paper for the new university.

If you have extended your permit for further studies for a particular university, but then change your mind about the university, you need to exchange the green paper of the permit for the new university. If you are still registered in Bremen, you can do it through us by sending the new offer to Jacobs University, along with the green paper and your passport as a single pdf file to visa@jacobs-university.de. The Migration Office may charge you 15 €.

A German permit is given for a reason to stay in Germany. If you are going to do a job or further studies outside of Germany, it makes no sense to extend your permit in Germany. Any permit will be invalidated if you stay longer than 6 months outside of Germany or immediately if you left the country for a reason not deemed temporary. Both further studies and a job is considered not a temporary reason, so the permit is invalidated without notice.

If you intend to continue with graduate studies, you should wait until you have your admission letter to graduate school before you apply for an extension of the residence permit. We are aware of at least one case, where a change between job-search residence permit and a permit for graduate studies has been problematic. Our advice is to wait until you have the admission letter and then extend, instead of applying for a job search, just to be applying for a change couple of months later.

You can apply for both the job search permit, as well as the permit for that particular job. We recommend applying for the residence permit to look for a job because it is not limited to just one job, hence it gives you more flexibility (f.e. to change or switch jobs).

You can request a letter from Student Registrar Services to extend your permit temporarily for three months (i.e. until November 30th or April 30th respectively). By this time all grades from outstanding make-ups, modules or the thesis will be in and the diploma will be issued and available so that you can proceed with the extension of your residence permit. You can request the letter using this online form: https://www.jacobs-university.de/extension-studies-residence-permit-purp...

Until the end of the semester in which you have graduated. The Spring semester ends on August 31st, the Fall semester ends on January 31st.

You can return to Germany and extend it before it expires, i.e. before August 31st. Please mind the working hours (weekends are not working days) of the office and plan your return accordingly.

The two most common reasons for invalidation of the German residence permit are the following: 1) if you stay outside of Germany for longer than 6 months and 2 if you left the country for a reason not deemed temporary. In the first case, the permit is invalidated after 6 months of exit, in the second case - immediately. F.e. both further studies or a job outside of Germany is considered not a temporary reason.

If you have not received a paper to keep your permit valid, you need to apply for re-entry or a national visa for Germany for the reason of you stay (i.e. for study purposes if you are a re-admitted student or currently enrolled student; for job-search purposes if you have graduated from a German university and wish to look for a job in Germany, etc.).

When the new residence permit is issued and sent out, the old one is invalidated. We recommend therefore to use a postal service and have it delivered to you!

If you come from a visa-free country (please check: https://www.jacobs-university.de/student-records/visa-information-system), you can return and apply again for a residence permit. If you come from a country that is required a national visa for long-term stay, you need to apply for a re-entry or national visa in order to return to Germany.

When you apply for the residence permit, you will be issued a paper in A4 format at no additional cost, which is a valid residence permit. However, the paper is intended as a temporary permit for Germany only and is therefore in German only. Generally, you should not have problems returning to Germany with it at the German border, but we have experienced several cases, where the airline refuses boarding with that document (because it is not how a standard German residence permit looks like). If your intended travel is known to you at the time of residence permit application, we suggest making this known to the officer and requesting something that will allow you international travel without any problem.