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Work Permit & Visa Compliance

Every employee with a visa or residence permit must always hold a current, valid work permit matching their actual employment (contract type + weekly hours). This guide summarizes what to check before a contract change, how we handle §16 student permit holders after graduation, and provides a quick overview of visa types and key things to note.

Contract Changes — What to Check First

  • Always verify a valid, current visa is on file before requesting any contract change. The Workforce Support team processes contract changes only when the visa documents remain valid for at least one month from the effective date. Example: contract change effective 01.08.2026 → visa expires 29.08.2026 → deny the change; visa expires 02.09.2026 → process the change. If you do not have access or do not know what to check, that's fine, as the Workforce Support team will check everything and inform you in the request.

  • Working student with a student visa (§16b):

  • A current enrollment/school certificate is required in addition to the residence title — no certificate, no change.

  • Conversion to full-time or part-time (24/32h) is not possible on a student visa, due to the allowed working-days limit. Working students are allowed to work over 20 hours per week only during semester break, and no contract change is needed.

  • Only working student (12h) contracts are allowed. If you are requesting a contract change to part-time while the employee is still enrolled in university, it must be approved by the Area manager, just like the exmatriculation cases.

  • §16 student permit (e.g. exmatriculation-adjacent cases): up to 12h/week during the period when an employee is changing the visa type (e.g., job seeker).

  • Non-compliance: missing/expired visa documents → Quinyx account is blocked for 7 days → if still unresolved, the employment relationship is terminated.

Student Permit Holders — Graduation & Visa Change

When a §16b student permit holder graduates (or is exmatriculated):

  1. Confirm the enrollment end date — the student visa purpose lapses once studies are completed or discontinued.

  2. Request updated status documents: exmatriculation certificate, plus any new residence title or Fictional certificate (§81 Abs. 5) issued while a follow-on permit is pending.

  3. Most common next step: Job seeker permit (§20 Abs. 3 Nr. 1) — allows any type of job, valid up to 18 months post-graduation; cannot be extended (must convert again once it expires).

  4. Do not rely on a Fictional certificate alone — it only proves an application is pending, not what it grants. Always request the underlying permit/green paper (Zusatzblatt) once issued, and verify the conditions.

  5. The hours increase is possible only after an employee provides a new visa type, which does not have a working hours limitation.

  6. What Workforce Support needs in case of student permit exmatriculation, and how we terminate or process contract changes to Part-time same hours:

    1. Recollect exmatriculation certificate and proof of new visa type or visa appointment request confirming that the employee started the process of the visa purpose change.

    2. Receive Area manager confirmation in #de-wfs-requests-hubs to either terminate or process the contract change to Part-time same hours.

    3. If the decision is made to terminate the employee, next steps will be done by colleagues from the People Operations team.

    4. If the decision is to keep the employee, the Workforce Support team processes the contract amendment to the closest month after graduation. Note, in case of retroactive contract change to part-time, an employee will be accounted by the Payroll team also retroactively for full tax & social contributions.

    5. The Workforce Support team keeps monitoring the case and makes monthly follow-ups regarding the visa appointment and to recollect the new visa type.

  7. Important to note! If the employee does not successfully graduate and drops out of university, the current visa conditions become invalid immediately, and the employee must be terminated without waiting for the 7 days, as a new visa appointment application does not guarantee a new visa as previous work permit conditions were breached.

Student Permit Holders' Allowed Annual Working Days

Student permit holders are allowed to work a maximum of 140 full days. How do we count half and full days?

  • Shifts worked less than or equal to 4 hours — half day

  • Shifts worked more than 4 hours — full day

  • 2 half days are considered as one full day.

Important! Do not confuse this with the allowed days to keep Working student benefits, such as not paying full tax and social contributions.

What Happens When an Employee Is About to Reach or Reaches the Allowed Annual Working Days?

  • Before an employee reaches 140 days, they receive a notification via Fountain that they are about to reach the allowed working days.

  • Once an employee reaches 140 full working days, they are paused and employment with Flink is terminated.

  • Suspending an employee until the next calendar year is possible only if they reach 140 days in December and if requested by the Hub manager.

  • If an employee is suspended until the next calendar year, they receive an employment suspension document to sign via Docusign.

Note! If an employee has a second employment or had previous employment this year, they are obliged to inform Flink of the actual number of worked days so we can update it accordingly. The 140 full days is an annual allowance and not per employer.

Work Eligibility by Role — Hour & Contract Requirements

Visa Types and What They Permit

Visa type

Max contract/hours allowed

Rider

Ops A

Ops A+

Apprenticeship, §16a

Working student, 12h only; visa valid while enrolled at the training institution

✅

✅

✅

EU Blue Card, §18b Abs. 2

Tied to a qualified role ≥€55770/yr; generally can't hire, as blue-collar positions aren't considered qualified work and don't meet the income threshold. If an employee already holds this visa, they must inform us of any changes to their work permit conditions (e.g. company or position change).

❌

❌

❌

EU citizen dependant, §§2, 3, 4a, 5 FreizügG/EU

Full-time or part-time, if stated

✅

✅

✅

Exit agreement (GB), §18 Abs. 4 Austrittsabkommen

Full-time or part-time, if stated

✅

✅

✅

Fictional certificate, §81 Abs. 5

Depends on the underlying (expired) permit

✅

✅

✅

Humanitarian, §24 / §25

Full/part-time, if work is permitted; may be tied to a specific federal state (Bundesland)

✅

✅

✅

Job seeker, §20 Abs. 3 Nr. 1–4

Full-time or part-time

✅

✅

✅

Chancenkarte, §20a

Max. 20h/week; full-time trial work permitted for the first 2 weeks of employment

✅

✅

✅

National Visa D

Depends on the underlying purpose

✅

✅

✅

Permanent residence, §9

Unlimited — all contract types

✅

✅

✅

EU long-term residence, §9a

Unlimited — all contract types

✅

✅

✅

Political refugee, §23

Full/part-time, if work is permitted and approved by the immigration office

✅

✅

✅

Asylum procedure, §55 AsylG

Full/part-time, after 3 months + approval from the immigration office

✅

✅

✅

Professionals, §18a&b Abs. 1

Tied to the employer/role trained for (can't hire for Workforce)

❌

❌

❌

Spouse visa, §28/§29/§30

Full/part-time, unless restricted (approval is needed)

✅

✅

✅

Student visa, §16b Abs. 1

Working student: 12h (term) / 40h (only during official semester break)

✅

✅

✅

Toleration, §60a + §19d

Full/part-time, after 3 months + Erklärung zum Beschäftigungsverhältnis (EzB)

✅

✅

✅

Working Holiday, §19c Abs. 1 + §29 BeschV

Full/part-time; working period with an employer is restricted by country of origin (e.g. Chile/Argentina — 6 months; Israel/Japan — 3 months; Canada — 1 year)

✅

✅

✅

Short-term/Schengen visa, §6 Abs. 1

No employment

❌

❌

❌

Rule of thumb: always cross-check the green supplementary sheet (Zusatzblatt) — it can restrict or expand beyond what the base permit type normally allows. If the back of the residence permit card mentions "Siehe Zusatzblatt," we must obtain the full document in order to validate that the work permit conditions are met and confirm the employee is allowed to work with us.

Visa Pausing and Terminations

When Does Workforce Support Pause and Terminate Visa Cases?

  • Employee does not have valid work-eligibility documents / no visa.

  • Visa has expired and the renewal appointment was requested after the expiry date (pausing and termination follow immediately).

  • Student permit holder has not provided an up-to-date university enrollment certificate.

  • Working holiday visa holder has reached the allowed working period with Flink.

  • Employee's visa is denied and they receive a deportation notification.

  • Employee's visa has expired and they requested a visa appointment; however, they do not send us monthly updates and do not inform us once the appointment is scheduled.

When to Terminate

  • General rule: the employee is paused for 7 days; if there is no update, terminate on the 8th day.

  • Exceptions to the 7-day rule:

    • During peak certificate re-collection periods with high workload, the window is shortened from 7 to 5 days.

    • Employee holds a working holiday visa and has reached the allowed working period → terminate the same day or within the following days, without waiting the standard 7 days.

    • Employee has breached visa conditions (e.g. a student permit holder reaching the allowed 140 full days in a calendar year) → terminate immediately.

    • Employee's work permit conditions no longer allow them to work at Flink → terminate immediately.

    • Employee's visa application was rejected by the immigration office and they do not inform the employer (withhold information), and they have missed the deadline to contest the immigration office decision.

Contacts & Support

You still have questions or need support?

  • For blue-collar (Riders, OA, OA+) visa-related (documents upload & document requests), reach out to the Workforce Support team.

  • For White-collar visa-documents updates, reach out directly to Olga Memmer or the Workforce Support team.

  • For White-collar visa support documents or promotions, reach out directly to the Expansions People Operations team.

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