Moving from Nigeria to Germany: my experience
Amara Okafor3 min read3 views
Rated 4 out of 5
I moved from Lagos to Berlin in March 2021 on an EU Blue Card, to join a logistics software company as a backend engineer. Five years later I have permanent residence, a flat I like in Wedding and a very different idea of what "moving abroad" means than I had at the start.
The visa part
The Blue Card itself was the smoothest part. My employer's HR team sent a contract, a job description and a letter confirming the salary, which was above the threshold at the time. I had my degree checked in the anabin database (my university was listed as H+, which made life easy). The embassy appointment in Lagos took about six weeks to get, and the visa was issued nine weeks after that. Total cost, including translations and a courier, was around 180,000 naira at the exchange rate then.
The hardest part was waiting. I resigned from my job in Lagos before the visa came, which I would not recommend. I spent two months unemployed and anxious.
The first month
I landed in winter. Nobody had warned me how early it gets dark. My company booked me a furnished apartment for six weeks, which saved me, because the Anmeldung appointment took almost a month to get. Without it, I could not get my tax ID, which meant my first salary was taxed at the highest emergency rate. I got the difference back through my tax return a year later, but it hurt at the time.
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