Work permit for an Indian national rejected

Hi,

I am an Indian who travelled on a business visa to Stuttgart in Jan this year for a training course with our sister concern in Stuttgart. The invitation letter from our sister concern, inviting me for the training, had mentioned that I need to come to germany for 20 days for the training. How ever after reaching germany, my training was extended by 5 days, so I stayed for additional five days in Stuttgart, but I didnt inform this to any authorities in Germany. ( I didnt know I have to inform at that point of time, I thought the 90 days max on my 6 month valid business visa means there was no problem for me staying for 5 more days; mistake on my part! )

When I applied for a work permit last week, My visa got rejected. Could my overstay have been a reason for the reject? How could I correct my fault now?

Any advices will greatly help!

So what makes you think you overstayed? Did the immigration official tell you so when you showed your passport on the way out, or why do you think you overstayed? (If your visa gave you 90 days, and you stayed only 25, then I don't see why you would have overstayed)

tom,

This is what the travel department in my company tell me. They have told me that I should not have stayed even one day more than what the invite letter said I would stay for.

The immigration authorities dont look at my invite letter etc. when I leave, so they didnt tell me anything when I left germany.

Given that the embassy does not provide a reason for the visa rejection, this extra stay is what my company is thinking the reason could be, which is leaving me very upset.
If there are any options to correct things now, I want to do it immediately.

the stay period as written in the invitation letter is hardly official and is needed for just showing that you have good cause of travelling. If visa is granted for 3 months, then you have not overstayed, regardless of what the invite says (eg: lots of people come here on business and then take some leave in addition to see the sights, so you were in the seminar/training for 5 days then vacation for 10) so thats not the case.

Why it could have been rejected is that the works council may have objected to coming here and working and the company has to show good cause as to why you (a non-EU national) should be given this job and why a EU national (specifically German national) cannot do it. In which case the visa is rejected not by the government but the local unions from whom permission is required when issuing a work visa.

All this is just theory though, for actual reasons, best to call the embassy and request for grounds of rejection. I know companies where there are redundancies planned, it is nigh impossible for a foreign national to get a permit unless you have some highly specialized skills.

good luck!

I concur with @arshoo. business visa <> work permit and the rules for work permit is a lot stricker. For example, using business visa, one could not seek employment, and earn any income legitimately. Business visa means, you are here to attend meetings, training etc while being employed in some other country where you are allowed to work.

If the purpose of your visit is to set up a business, again, I think you would need work permit, a lot of collateral to support your claim and a business plan. Otherwise, unoccupied positions has to be offered to EU nationals first and only after a certain period the company has to prove to authorities that they cannot get soeone within EU to do the work, only then you might get the permission to seek skilled people outside EU. Usual disclaimers apply (ie. I may not know what I am talking about).

oozen, arshoo

This time the purpose of my trip IS work, though its kind of a deputation to our sister company for a short duration (2 months).

And also the Nation work authority (ZEA) has already approved my work permit request, only after which I got an invitation letter from my sister company this time for work permit.
Even after this the "work permit visa application" got rejected, to which my travel department site the "overstay" as possible reason.

So, could I conclude, that the 5 days extension last time could no way be reason for reject this time ? (In which case I lost a bit of time, looking for options to resolve it!!! )

dude, we can only hypothise...and it may not be right (eg. we thinking that the work council had rejected it), dont listen to anyone or your travel department...ask the embassy yourself...anyway if it was the exactly what the travel department said...I dont think anyone of us here qualify to tell you what you should do next, but call the embassy, make an appointment and meet the consular officer in person.

The best you can do, to to, is to follow arshoo's advice if you really must know why you application was rejected. Keep in mind they don't have to tell you why, though.

My husband's (German semiconductor) firm tried to arrange a month's training in Munich for an Indian national a couple of years ago. His application was also rejected, and the German authorities refused to say why. They just said no point in re-applying in future.

So maybe even if they won't give you a reason for the rejection, they might tell you whether you might get an approval if you apply again later.

I am surprised you found out about your rejection in just a week. I applied for work visa and its been 6 weeks already with no news.