I am an immigrant and I recently relocated to Regensburg. So I had read horrible reviews about the Ausländerbehörde (foreigner’s office) and how the process is tedious and unnecessarily complicated. I had a relatively different experience so I thought I’ll share some tips here.
1. The Ausländerbehörde is located at Maximilianstraße 26. Any bus that goes to Hauptbahnhof will be convenient to reach there. It’s a one minute walk from the Hauptbahnhof.
2. The office doesn’t have an appointment system but rather a ticket system, first-come-first-serve basis. They are open from 8-10am in the morning (Mon,Tues,Thurs,Fri) for walk ins. There is quite a bit of queue here, so I would recommend going between 7-7.30am and mentally preparing for a 50-60 minute waiting time. I went in at 7.15am and by 9am, I was in front of the desk.
3. The security guard does not speak English. So just learn a couple phrases to convey what exactly do you need to do at the office. Even catch words like “Aufenthaltserlaubnis (Residence Permit)” “Address Anmeldung (Registering the address)” are enough, so that they can guide you. Everyone else at the office can converse in English, so that should be okay.
4. Since you have to stand in queue for a while and basically waste your morning, I highly recommend coming to office prepared, with all forms filled in and all necessary documents attached. For instance, I needed to apply for my blue card as well register my new address in Regensburg, I collected everything necessary and went for both the things on one day.
5. All the forms are available online on the [Stadt Regensburg Website](https://www.regensburg.de/buergerservice/formularcenter).
6. In case you’re moving as a student or an employee of the University, contact the [Welcome Center](https://www.uni-regensburg.de/international/io/index.html)
They have an international office, with a wonderful staff. They’re super kind, helpful and can converse in English. If you explain your situation to them, they will help you out with the forms and necessary documents as well. Just write an email, call or walk in and they are very helpful.
I went in with my documents for blue card application as well as address registration. They were super nice to me. After getting to the desk, I was able to finish my work within 20 minutes and was out by 10.30. All of this, because I had all my documents ready.
The process of immigration in Germany is quite strenuous and unfortunately there is nothing you can do to change it immediately. Also, I’ve lived in two cities in Germany and dealt with two Ausländerbehörde offices. The people working at these offices are usually super nice. They’re overworked and almost always understaffed. So I sympathise with them. However there are zero doubts about the inefficiency of the system.
I hope this helps someone and if you have any tips, feel free to share in this thread.
by Advanced_Elephant_19