Can you bring your spouse to Germany while you’re doing your Ausbildung? Legally, family reunification exists as a route under German residence law — but the honest answer for most trainees, especially in their first year, is that it’s genuinely difficult to qualify for, not a straightforward add-on to your training visa. Here’s what the statute actually requires, rather than an optimistic gloss over it.
The Legal Basis
§30 AufenthG governs spouse reunification (Ehegattennachzug) to Germany. It sets out a language condition directly in the text: the joining spouse must be able to communicate at a basic level in German — “der Ehegatte sich zumindest auf einfache Art in deutscher Sprache verständigen kann.” The statute does list a number of exceptions to this specific language requirement — including cases of medical inability to learn German, applicants from certain visa-exempt nationalities, spouses of holders of an EU Blue Card or specific highly skilled work permits, and cases of demonstrated hardship. A standard §16a Ausbildung trainee’s spouse does not fall into most of these carve-outs.
The Bigger Obstacle: Secured Livelihood
§30 doesn’t waive the general residence-law condition in §5 AufenthG, which requires that your livelihood be secured — “der Lebensunterhalt gesichert ist” — as a standard precondition for a residence permit. In a family reunification context, this means the foreigners’ authority (Ausländerbehörde) assesses whether your household income, as the sponsoring trainee, is sufficient to cover both of you without recourse to state benefits — factoring in actual rent, health insurance, and general cost-of-living calculations for your household size in your specific city.
This is where the numbers genuinely work against most trainees, particularly early on. Germany’s federal training institute, BIBB, sets the statutory minimum training allowance for 2026 starting apprentices at €724/month in year one, rising through €854, €977 and €1,014 by year four — and while many trainees in tariff-bound arrangements earn more than the statutory floor, even the average tariff-bound first-year allowance sits well below what a single income typically needs to clear to support two adults under German subsistence-calculation standards. In plain terms: a first- or second-year training wage, on its own, is unlikely to clear the secured-livelihood bar for a second adult, and this gap doesn’t necessarily close until later in the training or after qualification into skilled employment.
What This Means Practically
- It’s not automatically available alongside your training visa — you need to separately demonstrate your household clears the secured-livelihood threshold, not just hold a valid §16a permit yourself.
- Timing matters. Many trainees find the calculation only works once their training wage has progressed into its later years, or after they’ve completed training and moved into full skilled employment, where wages are substantially higher.
- Housing counts too. Beyond income, the authority also assesses whether your accommodation is adequate for two people, not just one.
- Your spouse needs basic German before joining, in most cases, unless a specific statutory exception applies to your situation — this is worth starting early given language courses take time.
Don’t Let This Derail Your Own Application
None of this affects your own eligibility for the Ausbildung visa — the training route itself has no requirement to support a family, and §16a’s own conditions are unrelated to marital status. If bringing your spouse is a priority, treat it as a separate, later-stage goal you plan toward as your income grows through your training, rather than something to build into your initial visa application. It’s also worth discussing your specific household finances with an immigration adviser once you have an actual training offer and salary figure in hand, since the secured-livelihood calculation is done against real numbers, not general guidance.
For questions about how your specific training offer might affect longer-term plans like this, contact our team, or browse current Ausbildung programmes to see the range of first-year training wages on offer.
Where This Comes From
Statutory requirements are quoted directly from §30 AufenthG and §5 AufenthG on gesetze-im-internet.de, Germany’s official portal for federal legislation. Training-wage figures are from the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training’s (BIBB) 2026 statutory minimum training allowance release. This post deliberately does not state a specific euro threshold for the secured-livelihood calculation, since that figure is set by household size, location, and current benefit-rate standards and is assessed case by case by the local foreigners’ authority — confirm your specific situation with the Ausländerbehörde responsible for your city once you have a firm training offer.
