Before you pay anyone to get your degree recognised for the EU Blue Card, spend ten minutes in a free database. If your university and your specific degree are both listed with an H+ rating, you are usually finished, and you have saved EUR 208 and two to three months.
Most guides skip straight to the paid assessment. Here is the order that actually saves time and money.
Step one: look yourself up in anabin
anabin is a free public database of foreign qualifications and the institutions that award them. It exists so that employers, universities and immigration authorities can look up an answer rather than commission one.
Two separate lookups, and you need both to come back positive:
| Lookup | What you are looking for |
|---|---|
| Your institution | H+ means recognised. H+/- means assessed case by case. H- means not recognised |
| Your specific degree from that institution | Listed separately. An H+ university does not automatically make every degree it awards acceptable |
If both come back positive you can usually proceed without any further assessment. Take a dated screenshot for your file. The official guidance on assessing higher education qualifications sets out how the process works.
Step two, only if you need it: the ZAB statement
If your institution is H+/- or H-, or your degree is not listed, that is when the paid route becomes relevant. It is not a rejection. It means nobody has published a general answer for your case and somebody has to look at it individually.
| Statement of Comparability | |
|---|---|
| Who issues it | The Central Office for Foreign Education, the ZAB |
| What it says | Whether your qualification is comparable to a German one, and what it can be used for professionally and academically |
| Cost | EUR 208 |
| How long | Around two to three months, with reports from several weeks to a few months |
Two practical notes. Start it before you need it: two to three months is longer than most visa decisions, so a statement begun after a job offer arrives becomes the thing everyone waits for. And it is worth having even when anabin covers you, if you expect to deal with several employers or a professional body, because one document ends a lot of arguments.
The exception: IT specialists need no degree at all
Worth checking before you spend anything, because for one group this entire page is irrelevant. Under Section 18g of the Residence Act, an IT specialist can hold an EU Blue Card with no academic qualification whatsoever:
- Three years of professional IT experience gained within the past seven years.
- At a level comparable to a graduate’s, and genuinely required by the role you are being hired into.
- A gross salary of at least EUR 45,934.20, the reduced Blue Card rate rather than the standard EUR 50,700.
- Federal Employment Agency approval, which typically adds two to four weeks.
The work is the documentation rather than the qualification: employer references, payslips and project descriptions covering three years inside that seven-year window. If you came up through a bootcamp or your own projects, that file is your application. See the German salary thresholds in full.
Recognition is not a licence
This is the distinction that costs the most, and it is worth stating flatly. anabin and the ZAB deal with academic comparability. Neither gives you permission to practise a regulated profession.
- Doctors need Approbation: general German at B2, professional German at C1 through a medical language examination, and a knowledge examination if equivalence is not certified. Realistically 18 months to three years.
- Nurses need recognition from the relevant state authority, with its own language and adaptation requirements.
- Engineers, teachers and trades each have their own recognition body, and for trades the chambers and the Meister system decide whether you are hired as a skilled worker or as a helper.
If your occupation is regulated, run both processes in parallel and assume the professional one is the long pole. A perfect ZAB statement does not shorten Approbation by a day. More in Germany’s bottleneck professions.
What to do, in order
- Look up your institution in anabin. Note whether it is H+, H+/- or H-.
- Look up your specific degree from that institution.
- If both are positive, stop. Screenshot it with the date and proceed with your application.
- If not, apply for the ZAB statement now, budgeting EUR 208 and two to three months. Before an offer, not after.
- If you are in IT, check Section 18g first. You may not need any of this.
- If your profession is regulated, start that separately today. It is slower than everything else here.
Related: what the EU Blue Card is and the German Opportunity Card. Browse German shortage jobs with visa sponsorship on our board.
Last checked September 2026. anabin entries are updated continuously and the ZAB sets its own fee and timescales. Professional recognition is handled by regulators at state level and varies between states.
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