Welcome
Other issues and questions
FAQ
Local employees remain the responsibility of their former or current employer. Local employees who have not yet been notified of intended admission should contact their former employer, provided their employment did not end before 2013. For communication with former local employees who have submitted hazard applications, the Federal Foreign Office is working with an external service provider who uses the domain @threatno.org. One of the tasks of this external service provider is to request the necessary data.
Afghans active in civil society, the media, culture or academia, for example, who have received approval for admission to Germany from the German Government because they are at particular individual risk will be actively contacted by the Federal Foreign Office (via an email from an external service provider using an email address with the domain name @vaoffice.org) and informed that they have been granted approval for admission. This initial contact, announcing approval for admission, is the basis for further communication with the service provider, using the email address info@vaoffice.org.
Please do not write to these email addresses yourself. You will be contacted when your approval for admission has been granted.
In the case of local employees, it is up to the former or current employer. Local employees who have not yet received notification of intended admission should contact their former employer, provided their employment did not end before 2013. For communication with former local employees who have submitted hazard applications, the Federal Foreign Office is working with an external service provider who uses the domain @threatno.org.
Afghans active in civil society, the media, culture or academia, for example, who have been identified as being at particular risk and for whom the Federal Ministry of the Interior has granted approval for admission, are currently being actively contacted by the Federal Foreign Office (via an external service provider using the domain @vaoffice.org) and informed about their approval for admission as well as the next steps.
Those Afghans the German Government is in principle ready to admit to Germany are contacted by the Federal Foreign Office via an external service provider and informed about this by email (and, in some cases, also by phone). This service provider uses the domain @vaoffice.org. Partly for data protection reasons, these emails are not personalised. However, they do include a reference number which allows the individual to be identified, for instance when applying for a visa.
The German Government and the international community support numerous aid organisations active in Afghanistan. These aid organisations are helping people in need in almost all parts of the country. Depending on where they live, we suggest that they contact the local or international organisations in their vicinity.
Applications for national visa for family reunion for Afghan nationals residing in Afghanistan may be submitted in Islamabad or Tehran.
The application procedure for a visa for family reunion in Tehran is outsourced to the external service provider Visametric. All applicants who are already registered for an appointment to apply for a visa for family reunion with preferred application in New Delhi will be contacted by Visametric in due course and invited to an appointment in Tehran. If you have not yet registered, you can do so here. Applicants who have registered for an appointment in Islamabad will be invited to an appointment in due course.
Filing of applications at the embassy in New Delhi, which has also been responsible up to now, is not possible as long as the current problems for Afghan nationals when entering India persist.
The website of the German mission in Kabul contains concrete information on the procedure.
Afghan nationals who wish to apply for a visa to work or study in Germany may also contact the missions abroad in Islamabad and New Delhi.
Short-stay visas (Schengen visas) can also be applied for at the German missions in Istanbul and Dubai.
If you have already applied for a visa at the competent mission abroad, we kindly ask for your patience. In view of the difficult current situation and the sharp increase in applications, these procedures can last several months. The visa section will contact you once a decision on your application has been reached, or if additional clarification is required.
Individuals must leave the country to collect a visa themselves. Whether it is worth risking the journey to a neighbouring country, by land or otherwise, is something you must decide for yourself depending on your individual circumstances.
As soon as you have managed to leave Afghanistan, please contact the local German mission wherever you are, with your passport and the notification that your visa is ready to be collected. The mission will help you get the visa that is waiting for you, or will inform you about the further procedure.
If you are a local employee, your former or current employer remains your point of contact. Members of your immediate family – i.e. minor, unmarried children – can be admitted. Only in exceptional cases can adult children who are unmarried and who live in their parents’ household be admitted under the resettlement programme for former local employees.
As a general rule, only members of the immediate family can be considered for travel to Germany. In very specific exceptional cases, it is possible to examine whether there is a particular case of hardship allowing other family members to be considered. This examination would always look in detail at the individual circumstances of the case, taking account of the narrow scope for interpretation of the relevant German legislation.
Afghan nationals who already have a valid residence permit can enter Germany on this document. Afghan nationals wishing to enter neighbouring states or third countries must take note of the relevant entry regulations for these countries. If your residence permit is due to expire soon, please contact the foreigners authority that is responsible for you without delay.
If the residence permit has expired, Afghan nationals can contact our missions abroad in Islamabad or New Delhi to apply for a re-entry visa.
A humanitarian admission programme as envisaged in the coalition agreement is currently being drawn up.
Current support for individuals wishing to travel to Germany is restricted to very specific groups: German nationals, local employees working for German authorities from 2013 as well as Afghans who are at particular risk who have been granted approval for admission. We are also assisting these individuals’ immediate families who have also been granted approval for admission.
A humanitarian admission programme as envisaged in the coalition agreement is currently being drawn up. It is not yet clear who will be considered under this programme, or under what circumstances.
For local employees of the EU, NATO and other international organisations, their points of contact will remain the respective organisation or third country by which they were employed.
During the military evacuation operation, various partners cooperated closely with a view to evacuating as many local employees and their close family members as possible. We will now continue these efforts, in line with existing arrangements and to the greatest extent possible, in order to assist with the safe departure of local employees who are still in Afghanistan. As it does for its own local employees, Germany will assume its share of responsibility for local employees of the EU, NATO and international organisations.
Project workers should contact their former employers for information on whether they might be covered by the resettlement programme for former local employees.