Ausbildung in GermanyHonest, sourced information for students in Nepal

The Au Pair route — slower, real, and not what you are being told

Au Pair comes up often in Nepal as an alternative to Ausbildung, usually when the B1 exam queue looks impossible. It is a genuine route into a German qualification. It is also, more often than not, suggested for the wrong reason.

A knitted teddy bear sitting in grass among daisies.
Au Pair is childcare first and a qualification route second. That is the part being left out when it is recommended to you. Photo: Pixabay

Au Pair gets suggested to people in Nepal as an alternative to Ausbildung, and it comes up most when the B1 exam queue starts to look impossible. That advice is not mad. But the reason it is usually given is a bad one, and both halves are worth understanding before you follow it.

What an Au Pair placement actually is

These come from the German Embassy in Kathmandu's own Au-pair page, so they are the rules that will actually be applied to you.

So it is not a job and it is not training. It is a year of living in a German household, at pocket-money rates, while your German improves faster than any classroom could manage.

Why it works as a route into an Ausbildung

This is the part nobody explains properly.

The restriction that stops private agencies recruiting people from Nepal into German health and care work applies to recruitment from Nepal. It does not follow you. Someone already living legally in Germany who applies to a Pflegeschule or a care home on their own initiative is in a completely different position from someone being placed there from Kathmandu.

And this is documented, not theoretical. Five Nepali women are currently in Pflegeausbildung at a clinic in Osnabrück; the first two arrived in Germany as Au Pairs, decided during that year that they wanted to train in care, and applied directly. Another Nepali woman in Wedel introduced herself at a care home, did a trial day, and was taken on.

So the sequence is: Au Pair → a year of immersion and a much better German level → apply from inside Germany → Ausbildung. It is slower than going straight in. It also sidesteps two of the hardest obstacles at once — the B1 certificate queue and the restriction on care-sector recruitment.

But check the reason you are being given. If someone is recommending Au Pair because "Ausbildung is too late this year" or because the exam queue is impossible, they are treating a symptom. Notice what that advice actually means: you cannot get an exam slot, so you are being redirected onto a path that needs a lower certificate.

That may genuinely be the right call for you. But it is a workaround for a bottleneck, not a judgement about what suits you — and it is being given to girls far more often than to boys.

The thing that makes this advice worse than it looks

Au Pair has the longest visa queue of all.

The embassy in Kathmandu publishes an approximate wait of 8 to 12 months for Au Pair and FSJ visa appointments. And it told us directly that trainees usually move through the waiting list faster than Au Pairs:

Die Wartelisten treffen alle gleich. Jedoch geht es bei Auszubildenden meist etwas schneller als z.B. bei Au-Pairs.

So switching from Ausbildung to Au Pair to escape the exam queue can put you into a longer visa queue. And the Au Pair route has no equivalent of the §81a accelerated procedure, because that is something a German employer triggers — a host family is not an employer in that sense. The three-week route is not available to you as an Au Pair.

Add it up honestly:

Ausbildung Au Pair first
German needed to leave Nepal B1 A1
Visa queue Long, but faster than Au Pair 8–12 months published
Accelerated §81a route Yes — employer can get you an appointment in 3 weeks No
Paid ~€1,000/month, rising €280/month pocket money
Ends with A recognised German qualification Nothing, on its own
Time to qualification 3 years 4 years

What it is genuinely good for

Set against all that, there are real cases where this is the better path:

If care work is what you want, apply for care work

If care work is the reason you are considering Au Pair, this is the section that matters, because the common belief here is wrong. Au Pair is not a shortcut into care. It is a longer, worse-paid way to reach the same place.

The recruitment restriction binds agencies, not you. Nepal is on the World Health Organization's health workforce safeguards list, and German law (§ 38 BeschV) responds by prohibiting private recruitment and placement into German health and care jobs from those countries. It regulates what an agency may do. It is not a rule about whether you may apply. Someone from Nepal applying on their own initiative is doing something different from being recruited.

So the direct route exists: apply to a clinic or a Pflegeschule yourself, the same way you would apply for any other Ausbildung. Compared with going via Au Pair it is a year shorter, it pays a trainee wage instead of €280 a month pocket money, and the §81a accelerated procedure is available because there is a real employer at the other end.

The genuine obstacle is language, not law. The Ausbildung visa needs B1. Care schools commonly ask for B2 — the university clinic in Ulm, which actively takes applicants from abroad, wants a recognised B2 with all four modules passed at 85% or better. That gap is real, and Kathmandu's exam queue makes closing it slow.

That is the honest case for Au Pair here. Not that it is cleaner — it is not. It is that a year of living in German can carry you from B1 to B2 faster than waiting in Kathmandu can, if care work is genuinely what you want and the language is what is stopping you.

One thing we still cannot tell you. Whether § 38 BeschV touches a Pflege Ausbildung, as opposed to qualified care employment, is not something we have been able to settle, and we will not pretend otherwise. What is established is that the restriction is written about recruitment and placement by agencies. Anyone who tells you flatly that care is closed to Nepalis, or flatly that it is open, is going further than the evidence goes. If this route matters to you, it is worth an hour with someone who does immigration law properly.

Where to find a family without paying 5 lakh

You do not need an agent in Kathmandu to find a host family, and the embassy itself expects you to arrive having found one: "Please only register on the waiting list once you have actually found a host family and have a valid contract."

The RAL Gütezeichen is the test worth knowing. It is the German quality mark for Au Pair agencies, awarded by the Gütegemeinschaft Au pair e.V., set up in 2014 with support from the federal family ministry. Certified agencies are audited by an outside body on how they prepare, place and support people.

The reason to care is not the badge. It is that the embassy in Kathmandu treats a RAL contract differently: normally you must hand in the original signed Au Pair contract, but "for RAL-Au-Pair contracts: copied/scanned version of the contract is sufficient". A German quality mark that saves you posting an original document across a continent is worth more than any promise an agent makes you.

Where What it is Address
Gütegemeinschaft Au pair — Agenturfinder The official list of RAL-certified agencies. Filter to Incoming for agencies placing people into Germany — 24 of the 27 listed do. There is an English version of the site guetegemeinschaft-aupair.de
AuPairWorld The large matching platform, run by AuPairWorld GmbH in Kassel. States plainly that it is free for au pairs. You search families and write to them yourself aupairworld.com

Know which of the two you are using. An agency places you and supports you, and charges the host family for it. A platform introduces you and does nothing else — no agency behind you, and the visa is entirely yours to do. Both are legitimate. Neither should be charging you 5 lakh.

What to check before you commit

The fee. Au Pair placement is being quoted in Nepal at around 5 lakh. Ask exactly what that buys. Matching with a family is a real service — and it is also available free, from the platforms and RAL-certified agencies above. See what you should pay.

The family. You will live in their house for a year, at 30 hours a week, in a country where you know nobody. Speak to them, more than once, before you agree. Ask to speak to their previous Au Pair.

That the contract says what it must. €280 pocket money, the €50 language course contribution, maximum 30 hours a week, two days off a month. If any of that is missing from the contract, that is the conversation to have now, not after you arrive.

Where this comes from