I am a UK citizen living in Germany for the past six years, I was granted a 10 year aufenthaltstitel in 2021. I don’t have the necessary requirements for permanent residence as a normal non-eu citizen, however on the government website [https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/faqs/EN/topics/constitution/brexit/faqs-brexit.html](https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/faqs/EN/topics/constitution/brexit/faqs-brexit.html) it says the following regarding UK citizens
under Right of residence > Can I obtain a right of permanent residence even after 31 December 2020?
*”Yes, that is possible. You are required to have lived in Germany for five years, with interruptions of up to six months, or up to 12 months in exceptional cases (more). Periods before and after 31 December 2020 are added together. You automatically have the right upon fulfilling the conditions without the need for an authority to take action. If you wish, this can also be certified on a residence document.”*

this seems to indicate this is an automatic process, so I went to the Berlin Ausländerbehörde recently to renew my aufenthalstitel to a new passport (my old one expired) and asked them to update it to a permanent residency. They were a little confused and told me I would have to book a different appointment to do that. I was since told that normal applications for permanent residency – for non EU / UK citizens – are done by sending your documents to the Ausländerbehörde. Currently the wait times for this service are very long.

So my question is have any UK citizens been through this process? How do I do it? Is there any written documentation of how to apply and what documents are needed? I don’t want to send documents off, wait months and then find out that I forgot something and have to start the process over again.

1 comment

  1. Did you go through the right process? Or perhaps it varies from Bundesland to Bundesland. Because the confusion with my Aufenthaltstitel came when I had to have it looked at (Agentur für Arbeit) and they were asking me why it didn’t have an expiry date – my understanding is that my Aufenthaltstitel is a special article 50 one (it’s referenced on the card) that doesn’t expire unless I give up my residency by leaving for more than 3 or 6 months (forgotten now)

    I arrived in 2017 and started working and paying taxes from 2019 for context, and I got my Aufenthaltstitel in 2021 – my Ausländer Büro contacted me to organise the appointment

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