Germany Freelancer Artist visa

Hi Sharja,

I'm a freelancer, and came across a lot of information about this while researching my own visa.

You basically need to have a business proposal, guaranteed customers, money in the bank to support yourself, health insurance (at around 15% of your monthly earnings) and demonstrate that you will be able to support yourself.

You will also require work samples, information about your qualifications, and no, nothing is approved on the same day here.

I didn't use an agency, I simply did my homework. This blog is really useful:

http://raptcat.com/2013/08/08/how-to-ge … n-germany/

I don't think you'll be able to bring your whole family with you on a freelance visa, so if that's your plan, you might want a plan B.

Health insurance is difficult, organise it in advance. They only speak German, I would recommend to contact BARMER GEK, TECHNIKE KRANKENKASSE or any other gesezlische krankenkasse, and pay before you get here.

Applications for freelancers must be done in person!

Good luck

Hi Mannheim,

Thanks for your Reply..
When you say Business proposal it means Business plan? Guaranteed Customer where? In Germany? and The Bank Can be in the country of residence or it must be in Germany? If Germany then can we open the Bank Account while on Tourist visa? How come we can take 15% out of our earning while we did not get the freelancer visa and we yet to apply? So At the time of apply we need to have a general insurance and then lately every month according to our earning we have to give health insurance? Bank statement or savings are enough to demonstrate for self support?

I am a designer and have my portfolio with me... I also work as an sketcher where required.... I have my 4 years Design degree with me so regarding the qualification no issue....

And thanks for the Blog link you send I already visited that.. but may be I did not read each and everything I will do it.

Regarding bring my family.. I have spouse with no kids..... Are you sure I can not bring her on this visa? or sponsor her on this visa? When you say Plan B what does it mean? to adopt another route of getting residency visa? if so what can be that? but for me more favorable visa is Artist Visa..

Regarding the Health Insurance company recognition thanks a lot I will do contact them but if they speak German How I wil communicate with them....

Can you please share with me what is your profession? and first you went on tourist visa there?? how did you manage to get clients or reference in a short period before applying for visa? and if they do not give visa in same day of application how long they take then?

Regarding the Application in person I heard this visa issued only in Berlin?

I have only concern about the reference and clients... Do they really have to be from Germany if so then how come to make clients from there while you on tourist visa? or one can fulfill the requirement by getting reference letters from some friendly people there but one must make some clients during the first year of the issuing of visa?? I think one must learn German prior to arrive in Germany?
The other concern is to show Bank account? Actually I am living in Dubai and I have my Bank Accounts here.. I do job here and I have 2 accounts 1 personal and one is salary account.....

I am really really thankful to you Mannheim for replying me on my query......
and one more thing do you get all of your information through the link you give me? DO u also contact to that blogger??

These are many and very specialised questions. I suspect nobody on this forum can answer them.
Please contact your nearest German embassy - they are the experts on all visa matters!

It can be remarkably easy to get the Artist Visa (I have one, it was approved about a month ago).

I think variable factors that could make this more difficult may be:
*your country of nationality (sadly this seems to be of importance for how smoothly things go for you, I am from New Zealand, which is one of about 6 countries that Germany privileges)
*your ethnicity (likewise, I think this sadly can be a factor, I am white, but a friend here from Nicaragua has a much harder time from officials - and he has Italian residency so he's technically allowed here with almost no questions)
*whether you have good German language skills or can bring someone along who does (my partner is German, so again this was easy for me)
*and the general mood of your immigration officer at the Auslaenderbehoerder. You are allocated one officer based on the first letter of your last name, so you never have a chance to switch to a new official.

Things you might have to do (but which I did NOT):
*prove that you can support yourself (bank account or similar statement proving that you have a minimum of 800 euro available each month for the next year)
*or prove that your art is profitable and provide a business plan. Again I did not have to do this.

Other things I did which my officer was not even interested in seeing (but yours might be):
*provide an artist's profile including my training, exhibition history (yours may vary), and examples of work. They simply flicked through mine and handed it back to me.
*a certificate from the police in my country, saying that I have no criminal record. Again, they never even wanted to see this.
*my partner is working, so he was prepared to sign a statement saying that in case of financial trouble, he was willing to support me, but they never wanted to see this.

The artist's visa is a freelance visa. That means that you have to pay your own tax etc, you'll be self-employed.

The reason the visa can take longer is because your application won't be approved by the Auslaenderbehoerder, they will forward your application to the IDK (the art and conservation institute or some such). Mine only took a couple of weeks to come back, plus another 2 weeks for them to have my Ausweis ready.

I applied for another condition on my visa: English language instructor (since I had an offer of work through a language school). There was an offhand comment from my immigration officer that the artist's visa is *easier* to get than the language instructor visa (and I had a letter from the language school saying they needed English native speakers, there would realistically be no way that this would have been declined).

Regarding insurance: there is a state subsidised insurance for artists, but I think you have to have worked in the industry for a few months before you can be eligible to apply for it. That means that you'll need to get other insurance just to apply for the visa. It's a bummer but that's how the cookie crumbles.

Good luck.

Hi there Anette,
Hmm, so I understood that the role of English language instructor was covered by the Artist Visa. Is that correct or did you have to do a separate visa for the English language teaching..? I have my interview this Thursday and have specified my intended employment as 'Musician/Producer, Creative Assistant, English Language Instructor' - if this is going to cause me unnecessary problems I'll change it.

Thanks,

Whisky

Hello Whisky,

Welcome on board 

It's been more than a year that Annette is not active on this thread. Her post is well detailed, yet you are most welcomed to create a new topic specific to your query on the Germany forum.

Cheers,
Bhavna