Preparation at Home
You might have heard that Germany is a highly bureaucratic country. And this is – at least – a bit true. You will need a lot of documents, also original ones and sometimes they even have to be legalized or apostilled. On exchange, you will get a lot of new documents, which you should keep on file. You might need them again. So before you are leaving your home country we recommend you to check what exactly you might need.
Making Tübingen/Stuttgart your home and not just your work place as quickly as possible is the aim of the Welcome Service. The Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems wants to welcome you by assisting you in settling in. You are becoming not just part of an institute but of a community.
Apartment / Living Information
NEVER transfer any money or send any personal data or documents to anyone who has advertised an apartment before seeing the place! This is a popular scam! Please be very alert if an ad sounds too good to be true! It is common to pay a deposit AFTER you have seen the place/signed the contract, never before. |
Note: Information relevant to Stuttgart and the Stuttgart campus will follow soon |
Looking for an apartment / room in Tübingen online
Tübingen suffers from a severe shortage of housing, especially affordable for students/PhD. Please give your housing situation some thought well before you arrive here.
Websites
Tübingen suffers from a severe shortage of housing, especially affordable for students/PhD. Please give your housing situation some thought well before you arrive here.
- wg-gesucht.de (Shared apartments and rooms and short term rentals; website available in English)
- Uni Tübingen (University accomodation for guests and employees, also available to MPI members if free; website available in English)
- Studierendenwerk Tübingen (University’s dormitories, also available to MPI members if free; website available in English)
Even if you do not speak German, you might want to give German websites a try. There is a list of abbreviations commonly used in German real estate ads translated into English available.
- Mitwohnzentrale (Short term and limited term rentals - only available in German)
- Tagblatt (Local newspaper; only available in German. Advertisements on Wednesday and Saturday; Placing an ad in the local newspaper also works well and is affordable)
- Immbilienscout24
- Immonet (Only available in German)
Feel free to mention Max Planck – it might do the trick!
Real Estate Agents
Real estate agents in Germany do not look for an apartment for you!
Their service consists of making their offers available to you and accompanying you when you visit an apartment. Be careful, you might be charged for these kinds of "services"!
- Home Company (Real estate broker that only charges you when you rent an apartment, available in English)
There is a list of short term accommodations available with me, if you feel that you need more time in Tübingen to look for an apartment.
The list of options given here is by no means complete. If you would like to add to the list, please let us know.
If you need help placing or understanding ads, please feel free to contact:
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Registration Information
Note: Information relevant to Stuttgart and the Stuttgart campus will follow soon |
Going to the Registration and the Foreigners Authorities
This is a rough overview of what you have to do once you arrive in Germany and in Tübingen:
Registration with the City of Tübingen
If you move to a German city, you have two weeks to register your new address with the city. In Tübingen, this is done in the "Ausländeramt", the Foreigner’s Office.
Since 2016 it is obligatory to confirm that you are currently living somewhere in Tübingen to register to the city. There is a document for that called “Wohnungsgeberbestätigung” that you can pick up at our HR and Welcome Service office. Beside that you also need to bring your rental agreement with you. If you don’t have it because you’re staying at a hotel or in sublease, you’ll need a letter by your landlord of hotel staff that confirms that you’re staying at the hotel/apartment for a certain period of time.
You also need to reregister when you move within Tübingen and deregister when you leave Germany for good at the Bürgerbüro:
Universitätsstadt Tübingen | |
Bürgerbüro Stadtmitte | |
Schmiedtorstraße 4 | |
72070 Tübingen | |
(0049) (0) 7071 204-2020 | |
(0049) (0) 7071 204-2223 | |
Monday, Thursday and Friday 7.30 am to 12 pm | |
Tuesday 7.30 am to 12 pm, 2 pm to 6 pm | |
Wednesday closed |