Marrying French Citizen and Moving to Berlin

[sangel10]

Hey there,

I'm an American national who is set to marry an EU national (she is French) in a few months. Rather than staying in France and applying for a Carte de Sejour we were planning instead on moving to Berlin.

We're both aware of the difficulty of finding work in Berlin and are not moving with blind optimism thinking we'll land something and be fine. Rather, next year she has to start her PhD and will have to be somewhere in France for the next few years and we've both wanted to live in Berlin and both have enough money saved up to last us for the year - which will be our worst case scenario.

We would both like to move and live off of a combination of savings and some money that we make through working a part time job.

I will be spending most of my time working on my own programming project and will be looking to take some freelance programming gigs, online or local(I want to have the freedom to do both) if the need arises.

She is hoping to get any type of work teaching languages/translating (she has a Masters in Literature and Linguistics).

My questions:

I have read that the Carte de Sejour will not allow me to work if I am outside of France but it will allow me to travel to other countries as long as I am with my spouse. Is this accurate?

Will it be possible for me to move to Berlin if my spouse does not have a job lined up beforehand?

What should I be applying for? Permanent residence? Again, will my spouse's job situation affect my chances of getting approved?

How quickly will the paperwork go through? I will only have 3 months to stay in the EU once I fly to France and part of that will be spent actually getting married and having the paperwork go through, after that I guess I should go directly to

Berlin to apply for whatever it is I need to stay there.

I had just assumed that once you married an EU national that you could live/work anywhere in the EU, I guess that isn't the case...

[ALKB]

Originally Posted by sangel10

Hey there,

I'm an American national who is set to marry an EU national (she is French) in a few months. Rather than staying in France and applying for a Carte de Sejour we were planning instead on moving to Berlin.

We're both aware of the difficulty of finding work in Berlin and are not moving with blind optimism thinking we'll land something and be fine. Rather, next year she has to start her PhD and will have to be somewhere in France for the next few years and we've both wanted to live in Berlin and both have enough money saved up to last us for the year - which will be our worst case scenario.

We would both like to move and live off of a combination of savings and some money that we make through working a part time job.

I will be spending most of my time working on my own programming project and will be looking to take some freelance programming gigs, online or local(I want to have the freedom to do both) if the need arises.

She is hoping to get any type of work teaching languages/translating (she has a Masters in Literature and Linguistics).

My questions:

I have read that the Carte de Sejour will not allow me to work if I am outside of France but it will allow me to travel to other countries as long as I am with my spouse. Is this accurate?

Will it be possible for me to move to Berlin if my spouse does not have a job lined up beforehand?

What should I be applying for? Permanent residence? Again, will my spouse's job situation affect my chances of getting approved?

How quickly will the paperwork go through? I will only have 3 months to stay in the EU once I fly to France and part of that will be spent actually getting married and having the paperwork go through, after that I guess I should go directly to

Berlin to apply for whatever it is I need to stay there.

I had just assumed that once you married an EU national that you could live/work anywhere in the EU, I guess that isn't the case...

As far as I know, she can come to Germany as a jobseeker and you can accompany her. My understanding is that she doesn't need to show income in the first three months but needs to show that she is exercising treaty rights by working or studying if you apply after three months.

You will need to go to two different places: to the Meldeamt (registry) to register your residence and to the Auslaenderbehoerde to apply for your Aufenthaltskarte (German version of Carte de Sejour).

There are loads of Meldebehoerde offices all over Berlin and you don't need to register at a specific one but most people use one close to their home.

The Auslaenderbehoerde is a centralised body in the north of Berlin (subway station Amrumer Strasse).

This is the form you need to fill in:

Formulare des LABO - Berlin.de

You do need your marriage certificate and if it is not in German (mine is an international one in four languages - handy!) it is likely that they will ask you to have it officially translated.

The residence card is an actual biometric card that will have to be printed, so it takes three to four weeks to get to you after your application.

The card is valid for five years. After that you can apply for permenent residence or renew your permit but if you just want to stay for only a limited time before going to France, that might not be interesting for you at all

Good luck and give me a shout if you need any help. I am from Berlin and although I have just moved to Edinburgh, I still know my way around