Your first week in Germany has five jobs: register your address at the local Bürgeramt (the law gives you two weeks from moving in), put the weekly plan in writing and check it against 30 hours a week and six hours a day, open a bank account and get a German SIM, find out where your insurance papers are, and sign up for your German course. If you came on a visa, add the appointment at the immigration office. Everything else can wait.
That list is short on purpose. The first week is when you are most tired and least able to ask for things, and it is also the week that sets how the rest of the year runs. The figures below come from the Federal Employment Agency's au pair sheet, the sheet the immigration offices work from.
Your hours, tasks and host family chat, in one app.
The first two days
Sleep, eat, walk around the neighbourhood. Nobody expects you to start properly on the morning after a long flight, and a host family that does is telling you something worth noticing.
Two things are worth doing while everything is still new. Ask for a short tour with the practical details written down: the door code, which bin goes out on which day, the wifi password, where the nearest supermarket and pharmacy are, how the heating works in your room. And ask for the name of the family's insurer and where your insurance card or policy is. Your host family pays your health and accident cover, and the moment you need a doctor is the wrong moment to find out nobody knows where the papers are.
Then ask the one question that saves the most trouble later: what does a normal week look like here? Not the contract version. The real one, with the school run, the football training and the evening the parents both work late.
Register your address within two weeks
This is the only item on the list with a legal deadline. Anyone who moves into a home in Germany has to register with the local registration office within two weeks of moving in (§ 17 BMG). It applies to you too, whether you came on a visa or from inside the EU.
You go to the Bürgeramt or Meldebehörde of the town you live in. Take your passport and a Wohnungsgeberbestätigung, the short form your host family signs to confirm you live at their address. Many cities only take booked appointments and the slots go fast, so ask your host family to book one before you arrive or on your first day.
Keep the registration certificate you get. You will need it for the bank, for the residence permit, and for more or less every German form for the rest of the year. Photograph it as well.
Put the weekly plan in writing
Your tasks in the household, including looking after the children, must as a rule not take more than six hours a day and 30 hours a week. You get at least 1.5 full rest days a week, at least four free evenings, and at least one free Sunday a month. Your family also has to free you up for your language course.
If nobody wrote the plan down before you arrived, write it down in week one. Put the hours next to each day, mark the free evenings, and name the rest days. Then check it: the au pair schedule checker adds your week up and tells you which days break the rules.
A written plan is not a sign of distrust. It is the thing you both point at in November when the week has quietly drifted. If your family asks for hours beyond the plan, that needs to be agreed in advance and the extra hours come back to you as time off, not as money.
Bank account, phone and getting around
Your pocket money is €280 a month, whatever hours you work, and board and lodging are free on top of that. A German account makes the transfer simple and gives you something to show when you sign up for a course or a phone contract. Take your passport, your registration certificate and your host family, who can usually answer the questions the clerk asks faster than you can.
A German SIM matters more than it sounds. Your host family needs to reach you at the school gate, your course provider will text you, and the people you meet in your first weeks will want a number that works.
For getting around, ask about the Deutschlandticket, which costs €63 a month and covers local and regional public transport across the country (Bundesregierung). Some families pay it, some split it, some do not. It is a normal thing to ask about in the first week, and it is much more awkward to raise in month four.
Your German course
Your host family contributes at least €840 in total towards learning German over your stay, either as €70 a month or as one payment, and only for costs you actually have, so keep the receipts. The fare to the nearest suitable course is paid on top.
Sort this early for a practical reason: the course times have to fit the weekly plan, and it is much easier to build the plan around a course than to move a plan that has already set. Bring the course times to the table before you enrol.
The class is also the easiest place to meet people. Everyone in the room arrived recently and knows nobody, which is a rare and useful thing. More on that in making friends as an au pair in a new city.
If you came on a visa
Your au pair visa is usually issued for three months. Before it runs out you apply for a residence permit at the immigration office (Ausländerbehörde) for the place you live. Issuing it costs €100 (§ 45 AufenthV). Take your passport with the visa, your registration certificate, the au pair contract, the insurance confirmation and biometric photos.
Book that appointment in your first week even if the date is months out. Waiting times in the bigger cities are long enough that people miss their own deadline. The full route, including who needs a visa at all, is in the au pair visa guide for Germany.
Au pairs from the EU, the EEA and Switzerland skip this section. You still register your address.
When the first week already feels wrong
Sometimes it does. The room is smaller than the photos, the children are harder than described, the hours on day three already look like more than six.
Say something in week one. Not a speech, one sentence at a kitchen table: "Can we look at Tuesday together? It ran to eight hours." Most first-week problems are misunderstandings rather than bad faith, and they are far easier to fix before they become the normal way things are done. If you want the longer version, talking to your host family when something is wrong goes through it properly.
If talking does not help and you came through an agency, contact them. Mediation is part of what you paid for.
A first-week order that works
- Day 1 and 2: rest, tour of the flat, insurance papers, the door code.
- Day 2 or 3: Bürgeramt appointment booked (deadline two weeks).
- Day 3: sit down with the weekly plan and write it out.
- Day 3 or 4: bank appointment and a German SIM.
- Week 1: course times checked and enrolment started.
- Week 1: immigration office appointment booked, if you came on a visa.
- Week 2: registration done, plan agreed, first free evening actually taken.
The au pair preparation checklist covers the documents behind each of these and prints on one page, which is handy when you are standing in an office with no signal.
Frequently asked questions
How soon do I have to register my address in Germany?
Within two weeks of moving in. Section 17 of the Federal Registration Act applies to everyone who moves into a home in Germany, including au pairs. You register at the local Bürgeramt or Meldebehörde and you need a confirmation from your host family that you live at their address.
What should I agree with my host family in the first week?
The weekly plan. Your tasks must not take more than six hours a day and 30 hours a week, you get at least 1.5 full rest days a week and four free evenings, and at least one Sunday a month has to be free. Write the plan down and go through it together.
Do I need a German bank account as an au pair?
Not by law, but your pocket money of 280 euros a month is easier to receive in a German account, and most course providers and phone contracts expect one. Ask your host family to come along to the branch appointment in your first days.
When do I start my German course?
As soon as your weekly plan is settled, because your host family has to give you time off for the course. They pay at least 840 euros towards it over your stay, either 70 euros a month or in one payment, plus the fare to the nearest suitable course.
What if the first week already feels wrong?
Say it early and say it plainly. Most first-week problems are misunderstandings about hours, food or the bathroom rota, and they are far easier to fix in week one than in month three. If talking does not help and you came through an agency, that is what the agency is there for.
The rest of your rights, every figure with the official source next to it, is on the au pair guide for Germany.
AuPairSync keeps the plan you agreed, your documents and your hours in one place, visible to you and your host family.