Family reunification
For most people joining a husband or wife in Germany, an A1 certificate is the gate: no certificate, no visa appointment worth attending. The level itself is modest - simple sentences about yourself, your family and everyday life - but the exam has to be the right one, and it has to be recent.
PassDeutsch prepares you for the A1 exams named here - Goethe, telc and the DTZ - with full-length model tests in each provider’s own format. See the A1 guide.
Exceptions and special cases
These are the situations that most often change the answer. None of them replaces advice on your own file.
Citizens of Australia, Israel, Japan, Canada, South Korea, New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as Andorra, Brazil, El Salvador, Honduras, Monaco and San Marino, do not have to prove German before entry.
Spouses joining EU Blue Card holders, intra-corporate transferees, researchers and certain skilled workers are exempt from the language requirement. Which category applies depends on the permit your spouse holds.
Where the sponsor holds protection under §§ 23(4), 25(1) or 25(2) AufenthG and the marriage already existed before they moved their life to Germany, the language requirement does not apply.
The requirement falls away where illness or disability makes learning impossible, or where courses are not realistically available in the country of residence. The European Court of Justice confirmed in the Dogan case that hardship must be examined individually - illiteracy and the absence of any learning opportunity are the classic examples.
Step by step
Nationality, your spouse's permit type and your own health can all remove the requirement. The embassy page for your country lists the exemptions that apply in practice.
Goethe-Institut and telc centres exist in most capitals. Book early: in high-demand countries the wait for an A1 sitting can be weeks, and the visa appointment queue runs in parallel.
Listening, reading, writing and speaking - about 65 minutes of written exam plus a short group speaking test. The speaking part includes introducing yourself, spelling your name and giving a phone number, which is where unprepared candidates lose easy marks.
The certificate goes into the file with your marriage certificate, passports and your spouse's documents. Keep the original safe - some missions want to see it, not a copy.
A1 is about 650 words and a small grammar syllabus - a finite target. PassDeutsch gives you full model tests in the Goethe, telc and DTZ formats, with AI feedback on writing and speaking.
Free to download · all 210 model tests included
What goes wrong
Only certificates from providers the mission recognises count. A course completion certificate from a local language school, however good the course was, is not a substitute for an A1 exam.
Missions generally want a certificate issued within the last year. If your visa appointment is far out, time the exam so the certificate is still fresh when the file is reviewed.
It is the module people skip when studying alone, and it is taken in a group with strangers. Practising out loud - including your address and phone number - removes most of the difficulty.
FAQ
Goethe-Zertifikat A1: Start Deutsch 1, telc Deutsch A1 and ÖSD Zertifikat A1 are the certificates missions accept as standard. Check your embassy page as well, because the recognised list can differ slightly by country.
Citizens of a list of privileged countries including the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Israel; spouses joining EU Blue Card holders, researchers and certain skilled workers; recognised refugees in defined circumstances; and cases of illness, disability or genuine hardship.
Course providers plan roughly 100 to 150 hours of guided learning. Studying an hour a day and practising with model tests, eight to twelve weeks is realistic from a standing start.
You will usually be entitled - and often obliged - to attend an integration course: 600 hours of German up to B1 plus 100 hours of orientation, ending with the DTZ and the "Leben in Deutschland" test.
Page last checked against these sources in July 2026.
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