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As a non-EU citizen I moved to Bayern and I finished both my bachelor's and master's degree on a german university. While I was in Bayern I lived with a residence permit for non-EU citizens for 5 years. Currently I am working in another Bundesland again with a residence permit, still in Germany. My question is, do the 5 years count towards my needed 8 year stay for citizenship, because I read somewhere that Bayern does not count the years as a student, but I read that only on one page, I didn't find anything about that on their official site.

user20075
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1 Answers1

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The Nationality Act is a federal law and thus applies to all states.

One of the main conditions is that you have an unrestricted residence permit which is generally issued after 5 years

  • the full time as a student does not count to recieve this
    • since the student residence permit is not issued with the intention of a long term residence
    • only 50% of this time will be taken (§9 (4)(3) AufenthG)

Persons who do not have a unrestricted residence permit can still be eligible if the present permit has been issued with the intention of a long term residence.

There are different conditions where the default 8 years can be reduced to 7 or 6 years. The responsible authority have a certain amount of leeway to determine if the degree of integration expected after 8 years has already been achieved after 6 years.

If you had a student residence permit for 4 years and afterwords a long term residence permit for a further 2 years

  • the 6 years would count fully
    • Page 21 of PDF: Bei besonderen Integrationsleistungen kann die Frist auf sechs Jahre verkürzt werden.

If, after 8 years, you still are studying with a student residence permit

  • the 8 years don't count

Sources:

Mark Johnson
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  • Hi, Mark, just a small note: your example of "If you had a student residence permit for 4 years and afterwords a restricted residence permit for a further 4 years" is quite unrealistic, since one is expected to get a permanent residence permit earlier. E.g., 4 years as a student count as 2 for permanent residency; after 3 more years with restricted residence after study is finished, one can already apply for permanent residency. – Andrey Sapegin Jul 03 '20 at 07:44
  • @AndreySapegin Where did you get that information? – Mark Johnson Jul 03 '20 at 08:14
  • AufenthG §9, (4) Punkt 3 (siehe https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/aufenthg_2004/__9.html) – Andrey Sapegin Jul 03 '20 at 08:27
  • @AndreySapegin Yes, that is clear. Will adapt the answer. The text of the pdf stated otherwise: that the complete time of legal residence will be counted. – Mark Johnson Jul 03 '20 at 08:46
  • @AndreySapegin Wait, that applies to the permanent residence permit. The condition here is for citizenship without permanent residence permit. Will look the citizenship law and commentaries to see if it is meantioned. – Mark Johnson Jul 03 '20 at 08:51
  • it might be that the complete time is counted for citizenship application (Einbürgerung), but for permanent residence it is differently regulated. So my note is just for example you provided. In the end, one does not need to have permanent residence permit in order to apply for a citisenship. – Andrey Sapegin Jul 03 '20 at 08:51
  • @AndreySapegin Our messages crossed each other. – Mark Johnson Jul 03 '20 at 08:52
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    @AndreySapegin The answer has been adapted that better reflects the situation than your suggested changes. – Mark Johnson Jul 03 '20 at 09:16
  • @MarkJohnson can you please point me where is the section that confirms your example "If you had a student residence permit for 4 years and afterwords a long term residence permit for a further 2 years. then 6 years would count fully". I can't find it in the PDF. Thanks – iOSGeek Nov 20 '20 at 12:51
  • @iOSGeek Page 21: Bei besonderen Integrationsleistungen kann die Frist auf sechs Jahre verkürzt werden. – Mark Johnson Nov 20 '20 at 13:06