Does contractor experience counts for the IT Specialist experience?

Contractor experience counts the same as permanent employment here. The key thing the Auslanderbehorde looks at is whether the work was skilled and continuous, not the legal structure of your contract. I've seen people get approved with freelance and contractor backgrounds as long as they had the paperwork lined up.

For the IT specialist visa, they want to see that your skills match the field and that your salary is above the threshold, which is around 43k euros for IT roles right now. The blue card is trickier without a degree, but the new rules for IT specialists let you substitute 3 years of relevant experience in the last 7 years, so you're covered on that front. Just make sure your reference letter from the client spells out the technical tasks clearly, not just vague job titles.

One thing people often miss is that the ZAV (the federal employment agency) might need to check if your role qualifies as a shortage occupation. That's standard for IT specialist applications, and it can add a few weeks to the process. If your salary is above 50k, you skip that step and it moves faster.

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tbh the biggest hurdle isnt the contract type, its proving the work was at a degree-level skill set. the auslanderbehorde has a checklist and if your reference letter doesnt mention specific technologies or frameworks they might push back. i'd ask your contractor agency or client to write it in german if possible, or at least have it notarized.

also worth noting that the burgeramt or Lageso often asks for the original contracts and all payslips for the whole 6 years, not just the last 3. missing a month can stall everything. if your salary is under 50k expect the ZAV check, which took a friend of mine 8 weeks last year. not a dealbreaker but plan for the wait.

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honestly contractor experience counts the same as permanent for the IT specialist visa. the Ausländerbehörde cares about the actual work you did and your pay, not the contract type. just make sure your contracts and payslips are clean and you have a reference letter from the client.

for the blue card you need a degree or specific proof of 3 years of relevant work in the last 7 years, so your 6 years should cover that. the tricky part is convincing them the skills match a degree-level role without the paper. if your salary is above like 43k for IT specialists you should be fine at the Lageso or wherever your Burgeramt sends you.

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Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.

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if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point

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honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.

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