Check, copy, report: employer duties for residence titles under section 4a AufenthG

Section 4a(5) AufenthG requires three acts of a German employer. Before employment begins, satisfy yourself that the foreign worker is entitled to take up employment. For the whole duration of the employment, keep a copy of the title in electronic or paper form. If the employment ends early, notify the Ausländerbehörde within four weeks.

Two authorities test those three points: the Ausländerbehörde and the Finanzkontrolle Schwarzarbeit, the customs unit for undeclared work. Neither asks whether the employer meant well. They ask whether a document existed before the first working day and whether its copy is retrievable today.

What satisfying yourself actually means

Being shown a card is not enough. On the electronic residence title the decisive sentence sits on the supplementary sheet or in the field for secondary provisions: employment permitted, employment only with approval of the Ausländerbehörde, or a restriction to a named employer, an occupation, or a number of hours. The title on its own says nothing; the secondary provision says everything.

So four things get checked before day one: the validity period, the employment endorsement, any restriction as to employer, activity or working time, and the identity of the person. With a Duldung or an Aufenthaltsgestattung the permission does not live in the document itself but in a separate entry; where that entry is missing, the person may not be employed.

The copy is not a formality, it is the evidence. Section 4a(5) AufenthG requires it to be kept for the duration of the employment, electronically or on paper. In a customs inspection the missing copy is the point where clean employment turns into administrative offence proceedings, because the employer can no longer show that the check happened before work started.

Deadlines and penalties at a glance

Employment without work authorisation carries the harshest figure: up to 500,000 euros for the employer and up to 5,000 euros for the worker (section 404 SGB III, as customs states it for 2026). An employer who gains an economic advantage or acts on a commercial scale leaves the territory of administrative offences: sections 10 and 11 SchwarzArbG read with section 404 SGB III provide for custodial sentences from six months, and from one year in particularly serious cases.

The four week notification after an early end is the duty most often missed, because it sits outside the usual HR process. It runs from knowledge, meaning the day the resignation arrives or the person stops appearing, not from the legal end of the employment relationship. How a customs inspection asks for these documents is described in customs inspections for undeclared work.

The duty added in 2026

Since 1 January 2026 the Skilled Immigration Act adds an information duty: on the first working day the employer must point the newly hired foreign worker to the advisory service on labour and social rights. In practice that note belongs in the onboarding pack, in a language the person understands, with a short acknowledgement of receipt kept in the personnel file.

Three failures recur in inspections. The first is the expired card: the title was valid at hire, runs out in month fourteen, and nobody set a reminder. The second is a change of duties, from warehouse work to driving for instance, while the secondary provision restricts the occupation. The third is a title that required approval from the Ausländerbehörde which was never obtained, because the card looked sufficient at a glance.

All three are solved by one reminder per person: the expiry date of the title minus three months, linked to the copy, the secondary provision, and the name of the competent Ausländerbehörde. Where a recognition procedure runs in parallel, its own deadlines are set out in foreign qualification recognition for employers, and an employer that wants an extension decided faster will find the route in the fast track skilled worker procedure.

Section 4a AufenthG asks for little work, but at fixed moments: once before the first working day, continuously in the archive, and once within four weeks of an early exit. A personnel file holding the copy, the secondary provision and the reminder answers the questions of customs and the Ausländerbehörde in a single morning. The wider set of duties in employing international skilled workers is collected on our employers page.