Do you qualify?

The Chancenkarte lets you move to Germany without a job offer and search for ML/AI engineering roles for up to 12 months. You need a qualifying degree (ISCED 6 or higher) and — if not fully recognised — at least 6 points.

A 4-year BSc Computer Science or BSc Statistics from a recognised Ghanaian university meets the base requirement. HNDs from Technical Universities (below ISCED 6) do not.

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Which route applies to you?

Your situation	Route
4-year BSc CS or Statistics from H+ institution, programme listed	Route 1: no points needed
4-year BSc, programme not individually listed	Route 2: 6 points required
HND	Not eligible

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Route 2: points table

Criterion	Points	Notes
Partial equivalence (ZAB decision)	4
Shortage occupation (ML engineering, ISCO-08 group 25 or 21)	1
At least 2 years qualifying experience in last 5 years	2	Production ML, not only research or notebooks
At least 5 years qualifying experience in last 7 years	3	Replaces 2-year tier
German A2 / B1 / B2+	1 / 2 / 3
English at B2 or higher (certificate required)	1	WAEC English not accepted — IELTS, TOEFL, or Cambridge required
Age under 35	2
Age 35–39	1
Prior lawful German residence ≥ 6 months in last 5 years	1
Spouse applies jointly	1

Worked example: Kofi Appiah, 28, ML engineer, BSc Statistics KNUST (programme unlisted), 3 years production ML (PyTorch, MLflow, SageMaker), IELTS 7.0 (C1), no German: 1 (shortage) + 2 (experience) + 2 (under 35) + 1 (English) = 6 points ✓

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Financial requirement: the Sperrkonto

€13,092 in a blocked Sperrkonto before your appointment. Open at least 4 weeks early (Fintiba, Coracle, Expatrio).

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What you can do on the Opportunity Card

• Part-time work: up to 20 hours per week on average
• Trial employment: up to 2 weeks per employer
• Freelancing: not permitted

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Document checklist

• Passport (at least 2 empty pages)
• Degree certificate with MFARI apostille
• Academic transcript with MFARI apostille
• anabin printout or ZAB Statement of Comparability
• Language certificate (IELTS/TOEFL/Cambridge or Goethe-Institut/telc/ÖSD)
• Experience letters (frameworks: PyTorch, TensorFlow, scikit-learn; MLOps: MLflow, SageMaker, Vertex AI, Kubeflow; production deployment, monitoring, architecture) and payslips
• Sperrkonto certificate (€13,092)
• Travel health insurance

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Common mistakes

WAEC English used as the language certificate. Not accepted. IELTS Academic, TOEFL, or Cambridge B2/C1 is required.

Experience letters focused on model experiments rather than production deployment. Qualifying experience must show production model ownership — not Jupyter notebooks or Kaggle rankings.

HND candidates applying without verifying eligibility. HNDs are below ISCED 6. The base requirement for the Chancenkarte is not met.

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Sources

• § 20a AufenthG, Bundesministerium der Justiz
• Opportunity Card: Make it in Germany
• anabin database, KMK / ZAB

Not legal advice. Verify requirements with the German Embassy Accra before applying.

See also

• Chancenkarte for Ghanaian applicants
• EU Blue Card for Ghanaian ML engineers