You might have heard that Germany is a highly bureaucratic country. And this is – at least – a bit true. You will need a lot of documents, also original ones and sometimes they even have to be legalized or apostilled. On exchange, you will get a lot of new documents, which you should keep on file. You might need them again. So before you are leaving your home country we recommend you to check what exactly you might need.
Making Tübingen/Stuttgart your home and not just your work place as quickly as possible is the aim of the Welcome Service. The Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems wants to welcome you by assisting you in settling in. You are becoming not just part of an institute but of a community.
Here we try to answer general question on all topics that concern everyone who comes to Tübingen/Stuttgart: directions, bus lines, dealing with authorities (visa, residence permit, etc.), house hunting, and becoming a PhD student:
Contact us at anytime about anything related to the Welcome Service:
NEVER transfer any money or send any personal data or documents to anyone who has advertised an apartment before seeing the place! This is a popular scam! Please be very alert if an ad sounds too good to be true! It is common to pay a deposit AFTER you have seen the place/signed the contract, never before. |
Note: Information relevant to Stuttgart and the Stuttgart campus will follow soon |
Tübingen suffers from a severe shortage of housing, especially affordable for students/PhD. Please give your housing situation some thought well before you arrive here.
Tübingen suffers from a severe shortage of housing, especially affordable for students/PhD. Please give your housing situation some thought well before you arrive here.
Even if you do not speak German, you might want to give German websites a try. There is a list of abbreviations commonly used in German real estate ads translated into English available (Please contact Sabrina Jung or Mara Cascianelli for this list):
Feel free to mention Max Planck – it might do the trick!
Real estate agents in Germany do not look for an apartment for you!
Their service consists of making their offers available to you and accompanying you when you visit an apartment. Be careful, you might be charged for these kinds of "services"!
There is a list of short term accommodations available with me, if you feel that you need more time in Tübingen to look for an apartment.
The list of options given here is by no means complete. If you would like to add to the list, please let us know.
If you need help placing or understanding ads, please feel free to contact:
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Note: Information relevant to Stuttgart and the Stuttgart campus will follow soon |
This is a rough overview of what you have to do once you arrive in Germany and in Tübingen:
If you move to a German city, you have two weeks to register your new address with the city. In Tübingen, this is done in the "Ausländeramt", the Foreigner’s Office.
You can either go there yourself (the employees speak English and will assist you in filling in the form) or you can ask either Sabrina or Mara to come with you, if you think you need help with that. If you choose to go by yourself, please remember to bring your passport!
Since 2016 it is obligatory to confirm that you are currently living somewhere in Tübingen to register to the city. There is a document for that called “Wohnungsgeberbestätigung” that you can pick up at our HR and Welcome Service office. Beside that you also need to bring your rental agreement with you. If you don’t have it because you’re staying at a hotel or in sublease, you’ll need a letter by your landlord of hotel staff that confirms that you’re staying at the hotel/apartment for a certain period of time.
You also need to reregister when you move within Tübingen and deregister when you leave Germany for good at the Bürgerbüro:
Universitätsstadt Tübingen | |
Bürgerbüro Stadtmitte | |
Schmiedtorstraße 4 | |
72070 Tübingen | |
(0049) (0) 7071 204-2020 | |
(0049) (0) 7071 204-2223 | |
Monday, Thursday and Friday 7.30 am to 12 pm | |
Tuesday 7.30 am to 12 pm, 2 pm to 6 pm | |
Wednesday closed |