Language certificates — which paper, for which authority

Language requirements says what level each profession needs. This file says what document proves it, who accepts it, and what it costs — and disentangles the two exams that are routinely confused with each other and with everything else.

The two professional exams that are not language certificates

These are the most-cited exams in this repo and the least well understood. Neither can be sat at a language school, and neither produces a CEFR certificate.

Fachsprachprüfung (FSP) Kenntnisprüfung (KP)
Tests Professional language Professional knowledge
Held by The relevant Kammer (Ärztekammer, Apothekerkammer) The state authority / a university clinic
Form Oral, roughly 60 minutes Oral and/or practical, several hours
Needed when Always, for Approbation in the medical professions Only when equivalence is not established, or the Gutachten finds substantial gaps
Failure means Retake, usually after a waiting period Retake; limited attempts in some states

What the Fachsprachprüfung actually is

A structured role-play at the Kammer, typically in three parts:

  1. Patient interview — take a history from a simulated patient in everyday German, then explain a diagnosis and a plan in lay terms
  2. Handover to a colleague — the same case in professional register, with correct terminology and abbreviations
  3. Documentation — write it up, plus questions on terms and their Latin/German pairs

It is examined at C1 in the professional register on top of a general B2, and the combination is the point: candidates fail it who speak fluent clinical German but cannot explain a diagnosis to a frightened layperson, and candidates fail it who are conversational but cannot produce correct written documentation.

Both the Arzt and Apotheker files name the FSP as the usual failure point for third-country applicants, and it is worth taking that seriously: reported pass rates in several Kammern sit well below what candidates expect, and a failure costs months as well as the fee.

Practicalities: fees run to several hundred euro and are set per Kammer; you generally need a general B2 certificate to register; each Bundesland runs its own procedure, so the waiting time and the retake interval depend on where you apply. A few states accept telc Deutsch B2·C1 Medizin in place of the Kammer exam — a real shortcut where it applies, and worth checking before booking anything else.

Equivalents exist beyond medicine under other names — patient-safety-relevant professions such as nursing frequently face a berufsbezogene Sprachprüfung at B2 set by the state authority rather than a Kammer.

The general certificates

Certificate Issued by Levels Mainly accepted for Notes
Goethe-Zertifikat Goethe-Institut A1–C2 Visas, recognition, employers, universities (C2) The most universally recognised; also the most expensive
telc Deutsch telc gGmbH A1–C2 Visas, recognition, employers Widely available and cheaper; telc B2·C1 Medizin / Pflege are the profession-specific versions
ÖSD Österreichisches Sprachdiplom A1–C2 Visas, recognition Austrian, accepted in Germany; useful where Goethe dates are full
TestDaF TestDaF-Institut TDN 3–5 (≈B2–C1) University admission Digital, four skills, scored per skill rather than pass/fail
DSH The individual university DSH-1/2/3 That university’s admission Cheap, but sat at the university and not portable
DTZ BAMF / telc A2–B1 scaled End of an Integrationskurs; Niederlassungserlaubnis Free at the end of a funded course

The practical rule: for an authority — Kammer, Landesprüfungsamt, Ausländerbehörde — use Goethe, telc or ÖSD. For a university, use TestDaF or DSH. Certificates from the first group are frequently not accepted for admission, and TestDaF is frequently not accepted by a Kammer. People lose a semester to this.

What each authority actually demands

Purpose Level Notes
Spouse joining you A1 Waived for some nationalities and for Blue Card holders’ families
Skilled-worker visa No general requirement in law But the job and the recognition will have one
§16d(3) Anerkennungspartnerschaft A2 The lowest entry bar to skilled work — see visa routes
Ausbildung (§16a) B1–B2 Berufsschule is taught in German and is not adapted
Niederlassungserlaubnis B1 Plus the Leben-in-Deutschland test
Einbürgerung B1 C1 for the accelerated route after three years
Healthcare recognition B2 general, +C1 professional in the medical professions State-set; see the FSP above
Teaching C1–C2 The highest bar in this repo

Nothing here expires by its own terms — a Goethe C1 has no printed expiry. But authorities routinely refuse certificates older than two or three years, and some Kammern insist on a recent one regardless. Sit it when you need it, not years ahead.

Funded courses — the part most people miss

You are unlikely to have to pay full price.

  • Integrationskurs — BAMF-funded, general language to B1 plus an orientation course. Entitlement or eligibility depends on your residence status.
  • Berufssprachkurse (DeuFöV, §45a AufenthG) — the important one. Profession-specific German at B1, B2 and C1, with dedicated tracks for medicine and care, commercial work, and technical trades, plus courses aimed squarely at preparing for recognition. Funded by the BAMF; usually free, with at most a small co-payment, and open to employed people as well as jobseekers.
  • Employer-funded — care employers recruiting internationally commonly pay for B2 and the FSP preparation. It is a normal thing to negotiate, not a favour.

A candidate arriving at B1 for a regulated profession should be in a Berufssprachkurs within weeks, not paying a private school for general B2.

English certificates — TOEFL and IELTS

They have a place in Germany, and it is a narrow one.

Useful for: English-taught Master’s admission; international schools; corporate R&D and software roles that run in English; and airline and air-traffic work, where aviation English to ICAO Level 4 is a licensing requirement in its own right.

Not useful for: anything an authority gates. No German regulator accepts an English certificate in place of German, and no recognition procedure is conducted in English.

The repo contains roles where English genuinely is half the job — Spedition says so outright, and software is the clearest case, with §19c(2) the one visa route in this repo that imposes no German requirement at all. Even there, German decides how far you go: the Mittelstand, the works council, and every internal process above your team run in it.

Sources

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