Germany

German naturalisation is not a concession. Section 10 says a foreigner who has had lawful habitual residence in Germany for five years and is legally capable is to be naturalised on application - the verb is mandatory - once identity and nationality are clarified and the conditions are met. Those conditions are a declaration of commitment to the free democratic basic order; a declaration, added in 2024, of commitment to Germany's special historical responsibility for the National Socialist regime and its consequences, in particular for the protection of Jewish life; an unlimited right of residence or a Blue Card or a permit for a purpose other than the listed temporary ones; support for oneself and dependants without recourse to basic or social assistance; and German at level B1. What is no longer there is the requirement to give up the nationality already held.

Germany's skilled-worker route is written in one sentence: a skilled worker with academic training is issued a residence permit for the exercise of any qualified employment. No labour market test appears in it and no named employer. The Blue Card sits beside it with a price: a salary of at least 50 per cent of the annual contribution assessment ceiling in the general pension insurance, or 45.3 per cent for an occupation in one of the listed shortage groups and for someone who finished a degree within the previous three years. Settlement follows after three years of such a permit, 36 months of pension contributions, sufficient German and a job the permit allows.

Germany decides tax residence with two concepts and neither counts days in the usual way. A person has a residence where they keep a dwelling in circumstances suggesting they will retain and use it - no minimum stay at all. A person has a habitual abode where they are present in circumstances showing they are not there merely temporarily, and a continuous stay of more than six months is always and from its beginning treated as a habitual abode, short interruptions ignored. The six months do not create a threshold to cross; they reach backwards and make the whole stay a residence. The deeming does not apply to a stay taken purely for visiting, recreation or a cure that lasts no longer than a year.

German law converts a foreign licence without examination only for states named in Annex 11 to the driving licence regulation, and only for the classes named there. For a licence from a listed state the regulation switches off the medical examination, the eyesight test, the proficiency test, the first aid training and the training requirements. Annex 11 lists Albania, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, French Polynesia, Gibraltar, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Israel, Japan, Jersey, Kosovo, Moldova, North Macedonia, Monaco, Montenegro, Namibia, New Caledonia, New Zealand, South Korea, San Marino, Switzerland, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the Australian territories, the United States by state and the Canadian provinces. No Latin American or Caribbean state appears anywhere in it.

A foreigner is issued a residence permit for full-time study at a state or state-recognised higher education institution, or a comparable body, if that institution has admitted them. Admission is the operative word: the permit follows the place. The purpose of study also covers preparatory measures and a compulsory internship, and the regulation names the two preparatory things it means - a preparatory language course where admission is conditional on it, and a Studienkolleg or comparable institution where the applicant has been accepted to one.

Germany's spouse route has three conditions on its face and the second is unusual: both spouses must be eighteen, the spouse joining must be able to communicate in German at least in a simple way, and the sponsor must hold one of the listed titles - a settlement permit, a long-term EU residence permit, certain research and protection permits, or a residence permit held for two years that is not barred from leading to settlement. The language requirement sits before the move rather than after it, which is what distinguishes this from most of the family provisions recorded in this corpus.

Germany does not sell residence. The self-employment permit may be issued where there is an economic interest or a regional need, where the activity can be expected to have positive effects on the economy, and where its financing is secured by equity or a loan commitment. The assessment is then described rather than scored: the viability of the business idea, the applicant's entrepreneurial experience, the amount of capital, the effect on employment and training, and the contribution to innovation and research - with the bodies competent for the trade at the planned location consulted.

Germany's ancestry route is not a residence permit: it is a declaration that makes the declarant German. Section 5 lets people born after the Basic Law came into force acquire German citizenship by declaring they want it, in four situations - a child of a German parent who did not acquire citizenship at birth; a child of a mother who lost German citizenship before the birth by marrying a foreigner; a child who lost citizenship acquired at birth through legitimation by a foreigner; and the descendants of those children. The right is barred by a conviction of two years or more and by the exclusion grounds of section 11.

Whether a short visit to Germany needs a visa is not in any German instrument. Regulation (EU) 2018/1806 carries two annexes: nationals of the countries in Annex I need a visa to cross the external border, and nationals of the countries in Annex II are exempt for stays of no more than 90 days in any 180-day period. The Regulation is directly applicable, so the answer is the same here as in every other Schengen state.

Personal property imported by someone transferring their normal residence from a third country to the customs territory enters free of import duties, on conditions that do the work: six months' ownership and use at the old residence, twelve continuous months lived outside the customs territory, and entry for free circulation within twelve months of the move. Alcohol, tobacco, commercial vehicles and trade equipment other than portable instruments get no relief at all.

The right to open a basic payment account in Germany is a Union right before it is a German one. Article 16 of the Payment Accounts Directive obliges member states to ensure that consumers legally resident in the Union have the right to open and use one, and names in the same sentence consumers with no fixed address, asylum seekers, and consumers who hold no residence permit but whose expulsion is impossible for legal or factual reasons. Germany transposed it in its own payment accounts Act, which this record does not reach: the portal refused every request for it made here.

The Residence Act creates titles by purpose: employment, self-employment, study, training, research, family, humanitarian protection. None of them is living on your own money. A person with capital and no intention to work has no route written for them, and the nearest thing in the Act is the self-employment permit, which asks for an economic interest and positive effects on the economy rather than for a balance.

Nothing in the Residence Act is addressed to retired people, and nothing in it turns on age. Germany is the only one of the four European destinations covered here with no route for a person who intends to live on their own money, in retirement or otherwise.

Germany belongs to the European Union's free movement regime, which reaches nationals of member states, of the European Economic Area and of Switzerland and nobody in this corpus. There is no agreement between Germany and any Latin American or Caribbean state that lets a national enter and stay on nationality. What the Union does decide for a reader here is the visa at the border, and nothing after it.

Germany does not give residents access to a health service. It requires them to be insured before it gives them a residence title at all. The Residence Act makes secured subsistence a general condition of every title, and then defines secured subsistence to mean being able to meet one's needs including adequate health insurance cover without recourse to public funds. Child benefit, parental allowance and several training allowances are expressly not treated as public funds for this purpose. The consequence for a reader is the reverse of most countries in this corpus: the insurance comes first and the permit follows it.