Ausbildung in GermanyHonest, sourced information for students in Nepal

What you should pay, and what you should not

Paying for German lessons is normal. Paying nine thousand euros to have your documents forwarded is not. Here is how to tell the difference, and what the law on both sides actually says.

A twenty euro banknote.
Figures on this page are converted at roughly 173 rupees to the euro. Photo: Pixabay

Some of what you pay for is real and worth paying for. German lessons take a teacher's time. Exams cost money. Translating and certifying documents costs money. Nobody should expect those for nothing.

The problem is not that money changes hands. It is that almost nobody tells you which part of the fee is teaching, which part is the exam, and which part is simply for passing your papers along — and the last part is where the very large numbers hide.

What is actually being charged

Reported to us in August 2026 by someone going through the process, for handling documents and the application after B1 or B2:

For Charged Roughly
Au-Pair 5 lakh about €2,900
Ausbildung — at the cheaper end 7 lakh about €4,000
Ausbildung — commonly quoted 15–16 lakh about €8,600–9,200

Converted at the 2026 average of about 173 NPR to the euro. This matches Nepal's own government figures, which put payments for Europe at Rs 500,000 to Rs 1.2 million.

The German side may not charge you at all

German law is clear about its own actors. Under § 296a SGB III, fees for arranging an Ausbildung may be demanded or accepted only from the employer — never from you or your family — and that covers the preparation too: assessing you, advising you, putting you forward.

So a German company or German agency may not bill you for finding your place. The German employer is the party expected to carry that cost.

But German law binds German actors. A Nepal-registered institute, charging a Nepali student in Nepal, in rupees, is a different legal question, and one we cannot answer. Anyone who tells you confidently that your Kathmandu institute is breaking German law is going further than we can.

Nepali law is the law that applies to them — and it asks quite a lot

This is the part most people do not know.

Language schools and preparation classes are regulated. The Educational Consultancy, Language Teaching and Preparation Classes (Operation and Management) Rules, 2026, made under the Education Act, cover counselling services, language teaching centres and preparation classes alike. Under them:

And for foreign employment there is a fee ceiling. Under section 15 of the Foreign Employment Act, recruitment agencies may charge a worker at most the equivalent of one month's salary for non-Gulf destinations. An Ausbildung wage is in the region of €1,000 a month — roughly Rs 1.7 lakh. Whether an Ausbildung counts as foreign employment under that Act, or falls under the consultancy rules instead, we cannot say. But it is a benchmark worth holding in your head when someone says 15 lakh.

Nepal is enforcing this. In May 2026 the Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office raided 95 consultancy offices in a single day and detained 69 operators. Of an estimated 5,000 consultancies in the Valley, only around 900 hold permits.

What the German federal employment agency says about this

We asked the Bundesagentur für Arbeit about the false information circulating in Nepal. Their answer, August 2026, is worth carrying with you:

Die Vermittlung durch die Bundesagentur für Arbeit ist für Bewerberinnen und Bewerber stets kostenfrei, da Deutschland konsequent nach den Prinzipien des Fair Recruitment („Employer Pays Principle") agiert. Keinesfalls sollten Interessierte Geld an private Mittelsmänner zahlen, die mit angeblich garantierten Visa oder Programmplätzen werben.

Placement through the Bundesagentur für Arbeit is always free of charge for applicants, because Germany operates consistently on Fair Recruitment principles — the Employer Pays Principle. Interested people should on no account pay money to private middlemen who advertise supposedly guaranteed visas or programme places.

Read it carefully, because it says two separate things and the second is easy to overstate.

The first sentence is about the agency's own service. If the Bundesagentur finds you a place, that costs you nothing, and Germany's fair-recruitment principle is the reason why. It is not a statement about what a Kathmandu institute may charge — for the German side of that, the law above is § 296a, not this letter.

The second sentence stands on its own, and note exactly who it is about: middlemen who advertise guaranteed visas or programme places. Nobody can guarantee either one. The visa is the embassy's decision and the place is the employer's, and anybody selling you certainty about either is selling something they do not have. That is a German federal authority saying so in writing, and it is worth carrying with you.

Five questions to ask before you pay

None of these are accusations. A good institute will answer all five easily, and the answers tell you almost everything.

  1. Are you licensed? Ask to see the permit. It is a legal requirement, not a rude question.
  2. Where are your fees published? The rules require them to be on the website. If the price is only ever spoken aloud, ask why.
  3. Can I pay by bank transfer and get a receipt? Cash is banned. Anyone insisting on cash is telling you something.
  4. What exactly is this fee for? Ask for it split: lessons, exam fees, translation and certification, document handling. You are entitled to know which is which.
  5. What happens to my money if I do not get a place, or the visa is refused? Get the answer in writing before you pay, not after.

Be careful how you use this. For many people the person charging them is also the person helping them — the one teaching them, or preparing their papers, or simply the only realistic route they have to a certificate. Often that help is real. Someone who does actual work, charges openly, and can tell you what each part of the fee is for is not the problem this page is about.

The problem is the operator charging 15 lakh for an introduction, refusing to break the fee down, wanting cash, and promising things they do not control. Knowing the questions is not a reason to fall out with someone who is helping you. It is a reason to understand what you are buying before you borrow against your family's land to buy it.

Where this comes from