Ausbildung visa in Rabat: the real route, from a signed contract to a passport back in your hand

The real route, in order: from the signed contract to the passport you collect yourself

Your Ausbildung contract is signed. From here, order matters as much as speed: gather the file, legalise and only then translate what needs it, prove what you will live on during the training, obtain an appointment, file in Rabat, collect your passport in person. A document produced in the wrong order usually costs more than a missing one.

Two very different waits add up, and almost nobody explains this. The first is the wait for an appointment: the German embassy in Rabat publishes estimates by visa category, explicitly given without guarantee. The second is processing once the file is filed, for which the embassy refuses to state any duration. A total from contract to passport exists nowhere: anyone quoting one is inventing it.

One caveat covers everything below: document lists, amounts and booking routes change. These are administrative rules, not carved law. The one instruction that never expires is to print the checklist in force on the embassy site on the day you prepare your file, and to work through it line by line.

And this is a national D visa, not a Schengen tourist visa: it opens a long stay that is completed once you are in Germany. It is therefore assessed under an entirely different logic, and German authorities are involved whose timelines the embassy has no power over, from the immigration office to the Federal Employment Agency.

• The Ausbildung contract, signed and stamped, as an original
• Proof of the vocational school (Berufsschule)
• Proof that you will have the required monthly amount available during the training
• The language certificate, original and recent
• Moroccan papers legalised first, translated second
• Health insurance covering arrival until the contract starts

Appointment: the waiting list gives you the slot, TLScontact takes the application

On the regular route nobody buys an appointment: you register on the waiting list for the exact visa category. A first email confirms the registration, and a second one carries the date once a slot opens. Several categories skip the waiting list and book directly with TLScontact: researchers, scholarship holders, graduates of PASCH schools leaving to study, doctoral candidates, employment with a university degree, doctors (including recognition measures), skilled workers under the Skilled Immigration Act, and the Chancenkarte since 1 June 2024.

The embassy's own page on the vocational training visa states that, for this category, the application can only be submitted through the external provider TLScontact. That is not a contradiction with the waiting list: the waiting list is how you get the slot, TLScontact is the counter where you hand the file in. So register on the waiting list, and check the page on the day you start.

The most counter-intuitive point of the Moroccan route lies elsewhere: the estimated wait depends enormously on the category, and it is the employer, not you, who moves your file from one box to another. Prior approval from the Federal Employment Agency, under section 36(3) of the Employment Regulation (§ 36 Abs. 3 BeschV), cannot be requested from Morocco. So ask your company in plain terms: will you apply for prior approval from the Federal Employment Agency, and will you trigger the accelerated procedure? The answer shifts your box in the waiting list far more than anything you can do from Morocco.

One decisive point is rarely written down: for ordinary vocational training, au pair, voluntary service, language courses, the Chancenkarte and list B, the embassy states that demand is so high it cannot give any estimate of waiting times. And when you register, check your details letter by letter, exactly as they appear in your passport: registrations containing incorrect information are cancelled, and where registrations are repeated with forged passport numbers, the embassy deletes all the data and every appointment attached to it.

• Family reunification: over a year
• Studies, list A: around 12 months
• Employment with a recognised qualification: around 3 months
• Work or training with prior approval (Vorabzustimmung): around 4 months
• Training in care and health without prior approval: around six months

The Ausbildung-specific file: what Rabat asks for on top of the form

Two documents are yours to write. A tabular CV in German with no gaps: every period must be covered, including months with neither school nor work. And a personal motivation letter answering three questions: why this trade, how it fits your path, what you plan to do once qualified. Your school diploma and any earlier training go with them. A CV without gaps is not a formality: every uncovered period turns into a question at the consular interview.

Then come the documents only the company can produce. The contract and its training plan, signed by all parties, are required as originals and stamped by the company. The Erklärung zum Beschäftigungsverhältnis form is completed by the employer and must carry the Betriebsnummer. Finally, health insurance covering the period between your entry and the start of the contract. Originals are usually returned at the end of processing.

Proof of vocational school blocks many applicants for nothing: one single document out of four possible ones is asked for, not all four. And if the contract is already signed and stamped by the Berufsschule, nothing further is needed. On general documents, two embassy pages do not say the same thing: an older one mentions three photos, the CIN and a stamped envelope; the current one, two biometric photos and a passport with two free pages. Follow the current one.

Do not send documents nobody asked you for either: the visa section does not answer progress enquiries, and extra letters speed up nothing. Better one file that is complete the first time, built from the checklist you printed on the day you file.

• Contract with the Berufsschule
• School place reservation (Schulplatzvormerkung)
• Registration confirmation (Anmeldebestätigung)
• Confirmation that the IHK or HWK has registered the contract
• Or none of these if the Berufsschule already signed and stamped the contract

Proof of funds: 1,048 euros gross, and three thresholds never to be mixed

The embassy checklist is explicit: during your training you must have at least 1,048 euros gross per month available. The federal scale writes the same threshold in its net form, 822 euros net for 2026 — two ways of writing one amount, not two requirements. If the pay in your contract falls short, you prove only the difference, never the whole sum, through a blocked account or, in some cases, a formal undertaking (Verpflichtungserklärung). The threshold is monthly: nobody asks you to block three years of resources, only to cover the monthly difference between your apprentice pay and the threshold.

Two details are worth real money: accommodation or meals provided free by the company are counted in and lower the sum to be proven, and the planned accommodation must be stated together with the rent. In practice, accommodation provided by the employer can bring the sum to be proven down to almost nothing, while a high rent in a large city pushes it up. Ask your company about this before opening a blocked account, because the answer can change the whole figure.

Three thresholds circulate and get mixed up constantly. Yours, for a company-based Ausbildung, is 1,048 euros gross. A purely school-based, unpaid Ausbildung falls under a different figure, 959 euros net per month. And the 992 euros net per month, that is 11,904 euros a year, apply only to the study route, meaning students enrolled at a university.

Published thresholds differ from one German mission to another and change from year to year: do not copy an amount seen on another country's page, open the Rabat checklist. In concrete terms, the legal minimum pay for a first year of Ausbildung is 724 euros a month in 2026 (682 euros in 2025), so an apprentice paid the minimum is always below the threshold and will have to prove the difference. The observed average is much higher, around 1,133 euros gross, but it is never assumed — what counts is the amount in YOUR contract.

The language certificate: two conditions almost nobody writes down

The minimum level for an Ausbildung visa is B1, but two conditions come with it and eliminate honest files every year. Before the details, a warning: B1 is the minimum for the VISA, not for the trade. In care and health, schools almost always require B2 with a certificate — the only route that opens below that is nursing assistance (Pflegefachassistenz). A B1 is enough for the visa task; it will not be enough to get the contract.

The first condition: the list of accepted providers is closed — Goethe-Institut e.V., telc GmbH, ÖSD, TestDaF from level B2 only, and ECL. A certificate from a private language school counts for nothing here, even if that school is authorised to run integration courses. The reason is simple: the consulate checks the issuing body, not the look of the paper or its stamp.

The second condition is a date: the certificate must not be older than twelve months at the time of application. If you retook a module, the date of the oldest passed module is the one that counts. It is required as an original, and the embassy may check your actual level orally: a clearly insufficient level is grounds for refusal. In Morocco the Goethe-Institut exists only in Casablanca and Rabat, so book your exam date early. Sessions fill up, and a certificate taken too early can expire before you even get your filing appointment.

There is an exception, but do not take it for more than it is. If a German course is built in ahead of the Ausbildung, in Germany, a lower level can be enough. The file then contains, alongside the certificate of your current level, an attestation for the course stating its duration, weekly hours, type and target level, plus confirmation from the company that the course is part of the training. That is not a general waiver of B1.

Legalisation and translation: why the apostille is worthless for Germany

This is the costliest mistake on the Moroccan route. Morocco did accede to the Hague Convention of 5 October 1961, in force for the country since 14 August 2016, but Germany raised an objection: the convention does not apply between the two states, and classic legalisation remains required. An apostille bought for a German file is money thrown away. An objection can be withdrawn, so check again before spending.

The circuit follows a strict order. First pre-legalisation, depending on the document: civil status records (birth, marriage, death) at the Court of First Instance of the place of issue; any other document — a divorce judgment, a criminal record extract and so on — with the President of that same court; the anthropometric record issued electronically on the DGSN form skips this first step. Then the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 5 rue Tamsloht in Rabat-Hassan, or its branches in Tangier, Nador, Agadir and Béni Mellal. Finally the German embassy, charging 36 euros per document since 1 July 2025.

Since 1 January 2021 documents are received through TLScontact, by appointment and with a service fee; the embassy keeps a small number of direct slots, Monday to Friday from 8.00 to 8.20, by appointment only, and itself recommends going through TLScontact to avoid the wait. Since the second pre-legalisation category covers every document that is not a civil status record, a diploma follows that same path: President of the Court of First Instance, then Foreign Affairs, then the embassy.

The order of legalisation and translation is the second classic mistake: the translation is best commissioned once the Moroccan legalisations have been placed on the original, and it should state that it was made on that basis. The embassy adds that the receiving German authority will require a translation in any case, so it can be worth having it drawn up before the embassy's final legalisation. Ask that authority too whether it accepts a translation made in Morocco or requires a translator sworn in Germany — that single question sometimes saves a complete retranslation. The embassy neither translates nor certifies content; it publishes an indicative list of translators while warning that quality varies widely for lack of independent oversight. It also advises obtaining the pre-legalisations in person rather than by post, a third party being able to do it with a written power of attorney, and points out that simple certificates such as a certificate of celibacy or of residence cannot be legalised at all; it publishes this information without guaranteeing that it is exhaustive.

Filing day, processing times, section 81a — and the scams living off this route

The national visa fee is 75 euros, or 37.50 euros for a minor, paid in cash in dirhams at the day's rate when you file; TLScontact service fees come on top. For the regular procedure the embassy refuses to announce a processing time: it can take up to three months, and longer in exceptional cases. The visa section is not reachable by phone and does not answer progress enquiries.

The accelerated procedure under section 81a of the Residence Act changes things, but not the way middlemen tell it. The employer triggers it at the immigration office of its own location, holding a power of attorney from you: neither you nor an agency can start it instead. It covers section 16a, so the Ausbildung, and costs 411 euros, owed by the foreign candidate unless the employer takes them on in writing. That fee comes on top of the 75 euros for the visa.

Beware a very common shortcut: two three-week periods exist and do not mean the same thing. After the prior approval, the filing appointment is meant to be offered within around three weeks; and Rabat writes that, in the accelerated procedure, the decision is issued as a rule within three weeks of the file arriving. Neither is guaranteed.

The embassy writes the essential part itself: it strongly recommends booking your appointment yourself, allocates none through resellers, consultants or service providers, and warns that a lot of money and time can be lost that way. Registrations containing incorrect information are cancelled, and the passport is collected by its holder. Once in Germany, register your address within two weeks of moving in, and contact the immigration office before your visa expires to apply for your residence permit.

• Someone sells you a TLScontact appointment: nobody sells them, and fraudulent registrations are cancelled
• Someone promises to speed up your file for a fee: only the employer can trigger section 81a
• Someone announces a visa in three weeks: that timeframe is neither promised nor guaranteed
• Someone charges you for an apostille for Germany: it has no effect there