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I thought there were some questions specific to the Länder on the exam and you had to take one in the same place as you apply? Although maybe there is a way to get the appropriate test question pool even at a different testing locations or perhaps they would accept one from another location? I did see something that seemed to indicate that this test could be taken outside of Germany the other day, so they must have some way of handling it in that situation.

I don't think https://www.berlin.de/labo/_assets/zuwanderung/vab.pdf is available in English, but the part relevant to your visa is page 187 to 199 and you can probably machine translate that. Note that there are two types of freelance visas discussed there and yours is section 21 paragraph 5 (21 Abs. 5). Although there are other sections that may have relevant regulations in general as well.   Being away for 6-7 months could be an issue as it may mean that your current visa is technically invalid as stays abroad for over 6 months without permission invalidate most residence permits. I'm not sure how this would be handled if it were split up over multiple trips, and I doubt they will scrutinize it, but it could still technically be a problem that could come up depending on how you explain that you were out of the country much of the time.    Artists are technically supposed to be insured with the KSK in Germany, but in practice that doesn't always happen and the KSK doesn't always accept all artists. The Ausländerbehörde probably mostly cares that you have valid health insurance rather than about the KSK specifically. The KSK is just a way of paying into the normal public health insurance, except it is a special system where artists only pay half as an employed person would rather than both the employer/employee parts as most self-employed people must.    You could always try to renew with your current insurance and proof that you have applied for KSK. If that fails, most likely they will explain the problem (need better health insurance, more German clients, etc.) and ask you to fix it and come back.   If you have contracts, invoices, bank statements, etc. for the orders abroad, that would be helpful to show them as proof you can support yourself. Also if you can get letters from people running the local events you participated in confirming your participation etc. that could at least show that you are engaging with the local market/field.  

So, I'm going to challenge the "no artist visa" thing a bit. Legally, there is no such thing. However, sometimes the Ausländerbehörde has a different visa policy in practice for artist visas. And it is not an unspoken, undocumented, case-by-case thing in practice, but rather in some cases there are documented differences in how the visa should be handled for artists in the Verfahrenshinseise/Verwaltungsvorschriften. Even though the overall legal category is the same as the freelance visa (section 21 paragraph 5).   The original poster should check the Verfahrenshinweise or Verwaltungsvorschriften for their Ausländerbehörde to know if this is the case where they live. But I noticed that in Berlin, while artist visas are the same legal category as freelance work, there is a specific section on page 197 that discusses how visas for artists and language teachers should be handled, including differences in health insurance requirements! From https://www.berlin.de/labo/_assets/zuwanderung/vab.pdf page 197:   This may be a specific provision for Berlin due to specific local economic interest in the arts, and I'm not sure other cities have this (but it is worth checking).  But it seems to emphasize lower requirements in some cases, including that travel insurance is acceptable if someone is only temporarily in Berlin! However, if someone is renewing their visa, probably this paragraph doesn't apply unless they can show that they aren't here long-term yet.   Anyways, all of the above doesn't really answer the original poster's question directly and they should check the regulations their Ausländerbehörde uses rather than the ones quoted above to see if there is a similar section. If there is a similar provision in Düsseldorf, it is possible that if they can actually prove they have been away due to their work that they may be able to get a visa with travel insurance.   But the safer bet if they are worried, or if they try that and it fails, would be to find some cheap private, non-travel, BaFin-approved insurance while waiting for the KSK application to process. Normally this is a pain to switch away from, so I'd be cautious about it if they don't already have private insurance, but if approved the KSK would immediately allow them to switch to public and require back payments anyways, so it may not be a terrible option. Probably the best option would depend on how likely it is that their KSK application gets accepted. And yes, they could try and go with travel insurance and emails from the KSK and try to get a Fiktionsbescheinigung. If their Ausländerbehörde has a similar provision as Berlin does, that could very well work.   Also, the poster doesn't say if they had insurance or not here. It's possible they may already have gotten insurance (as, after all, it sounds like a visa was approved once). If they have acceptable insurance already and are just worried that the Ausländerbehörde will want to see that they are accepted to KSK, then they probably don't need to worry. The Ausländerbehörde mostly cares that people have acceptable insurance somehow, not if they are in the KSK or not. Although showing that you applied for the KSK certainly can't hurt.   The lack of orders in Germany could be an issue, but depending on how Düsseldorf processes it, they may have similar provisions where acceptable resources in general (personal assets, orders in another country, etc.) are enough for a visa to be granted even if there aren't specific German clients. This may be location-dependent though, so again check the manual if it is available.

There are definitely other ways, but they seem to be harder and more case-by-case. It looks like it is removed now, but one that comes to mind is in the presentation that used to be here https://www.expath.de/getting-german-citizenship/ (looks like it is removed now), the person who ran the seminar explained that she kept US citizenship while obtaining German because she was considering starting a branch of Expath in the US. It took longer to process than normal (18 months), but eventually went through. It is unclear if business interests in the US are enough (and if so how those need to be demonstrated) or if it needs to be something beneficial to Germany specifically as it was in this case.

@ABC456 I just noticed here https://www.goethe.de/ins/de/en/kur/ort/swh.html that they are advertising that if you take Goethe exams at Schwäbisch Hall, you get the certificate the same day. There are two B2 exam dates open before Brexit.

Berlin is a bit unusual in that it processes the applications by Bezirk, whereas the other cities I've checked seem to have a central office. This means that the situations are *very* different depending on where in the city one lives. This is a report on how the situations vary with regards to application wait time and processing time: https://www.clara-west.de/sites/default/files/anfrage_einbuergerung.pdf   Some Bezirke are quite reasonable or even fast, while others are extremely slow. Mitte didn't report their average processing time on that survey, but I heard from a lawyer that they are averaging about 6 years. I'm not sure how this can be true though and if it is the general average (rather than isolated cases where people were missing documents/had their situation change or some other issue), then that is absurd.

  This difference from the website is due to applying after 6 years rather than 8. Good to know that they are just requesting B2 vs. B2 and other proof of integration.    If you can't get Telc results in time, have you tried looking for any Goethe B2 exam dates and asking how long it takes to get results? The timeline varies I think and I had results after a month when I took B1, which if that is normal would be pushing it close as they often close booking a couple weeks before. But seeing reports here https://www.reddit.com/r/German/comments/40vavp/for_anyone_who_took_the_goethe_institut_exam_how/ that in some cases they return results faster. Maybe you cold try explaining the situation to Telc and Goethe and see if any is willing to ensure you have results before March 29th? You may need to travel to find one with available dates, but I bet you can make it work before the end of March if you find testing dates this week and talk to the test center about normal result processing time/possibilities to speed up.

  I've had an immigration lawyer tell me that B2 alone is sufficient to apply for citizenship after 6 years. But I'm also not sure how much experience they have with people applying after 6 years, so there is some chance that it just happened to work in the cases they are familiar with. It is probably worth trying with B2 at least, and as it is discretionary they may be more willing to accept it for British people trying to apply before Brexit.

How long have you been living in Germany? I wonder if she was thinking through the application requirements from the 6 or 7 year requirements standpoint, rather than the 3 years+spouse of a German standpoint. If that is what happened, then her initial request for an integration certificate (for 7 years), followed by B2 when you didn't have that specific certificate (for 6 years), may make sense.

Possibly useful- I just found this, which outlines the normal wait times for each Bezirk and the various staffing situations: https://www.clara-west.de/content/schriftliche-anfrage-erwerb-deutschen-staatsangehoerigkeit-weiterhin-einigen-bezirken-lange

Ask them nicely to backdate your Anmeldung when you register and show them the contract as proof of how long you have been living there. It is possible to backdate an Anmeldung by a lot longer than six months if they decide it is ok (have seen this happen). You may be fined, but not necessarily. They will probably be annoyed. It will depend on the person as to how this is handled, but sometimes they do have some tolerance for people forgetting to register in time.