Unlike the last 2 years, my work permit extension for this year is much easier. Even better, my wife and I got 2 years extension 🙂

Everything was started 3 months before.

Normally, you have to wait for the immigration office (Auslanderbehoerde) to send you an appointment letter via post. Last year, the letter came 10 days before my permit ended. When we met the officer, we found out that we need an approval from the state job agency (Arbeitsamt) which took another 4 weeks. For almost 1 month, I couldn’t work…

So this year, I wrote an e-mail (in German) to them asking for earlier appointment. I’m lucky to have my friend to help me translating the e-mail 😉 It took 2 weeks to get a reply. They send me an appointment letter via post. Strangely, even though I wrote the e-mail 3 months in advance (explaining why and including the last year’s nightmare), they still gave me an appointment in early October, which was 8 days before the expired date of my permit.

So I talked to my HRD, asked her nicely to help me. She contacted the immigration office, wrote them e-mails, fax them some my documents, and make sure that 10 days was actually enough to get my visa extended. After 2 weeks, she get an confirmation e-mail. The e-mail stated that I don’t have to get approval from the Arbeitsamt since I have been working on the same company for the last 2 years.

On the appointment date, 5th of October, we went to immigration office. We went directly to the officer room, gave him our documents, and got a waiting number. One hour later, he gave us our new permits and explained that we got 2 years permit 😯

He was nice to us and we left after saying thank you with a big smile 🙂

Everything went well! On our new permit, we are allowed to work on any company or even do freelancing 🙂

Thanks to Doreen, my HRD, for being patient enough dealing with the immigration stuff 😉