The occupation of “nursing assistant (geriatric care)” or “nursing assistant (nursing care)” is not regulated in Bavaria. People with a foreign professional qualification can work in non-regulated professions without recognition.
You may only call yourself a “nursing assistant (geriatric care)” or “nursing assistant (nursing)” in Bavaria if the equivalence of your foreign qualification has been recognized.
Information on Bavarian training and the profession of nursing assistant in Bavaria can be found here.

Responsibility Recognition of nursing assistants

The Bavarian State Office for Nursing will be responsible for the state recognition of foreign nursing assistants in Bavaria from 01.01.2025.

Requirements for the recognition procedure

Prerequisites are:

• You are planning to work in Bavaria in the future.
  You have completed training / a professional qualification / a course of study as a nurse abroad. You have a certificate of completion (diploma).
• For recognition, your foreign professional qualification must be equivalent to Bavarian training as a nursing assistant.
• Please submit an application.
  We will then check whether the requirements are met.

Please note our “Information sheet requirements”.

General course of the procedure

1. You submit an application
   You will receive an e-mail from us immediately after submitting the online application confirming that we have received your application. If documents are still missing, you will receive a message from us within one month of submitting your application. We will let you know which documents you need to submit to us.
2. Application review
   We will review your application on the basis of your documents. As soon as the documents are complete, we will check whether there are any significant differences in terms of content or time between your foreign professional qualification and the Bavarian qualification as a “Pflegefachhelfer/-in (Altenpflege)” or “Pflegefachhelfer/-in (Krankenpflege)”.
   We will also consider documents relating to your professional experience and your further training/continuing education in the field of nursing.

3. Decision
   If there are no significant differences , you will be recognized as a nursing assistant: You will receive a notification of full equivalence from us. This means that your foreign nursing qualification is then equivalent to the Bavarian training.
   With the notification of full equivalence, you can call yourself a nursing assistant and you have the same legal status as graduates of the Bavarian training.

If there are significant differences, recognition is initially not possible. We will inform you in writing about your further options.
If we are ultimately unable to determine equivalence, we will have to reject your application. Please refer to our “Information sheet on the procedure”.

Processing time

We will decide on your complete application within three months. Important: The three-month period only starts when we have received all the documents in full. The deadline can be extended once in justified cases.

Necessary documents

We need various documents from you so that we can process your application. Please read our information sheet and only submit the application once you have prepared all the necessary documents. You can find the information sheet here. We do not need your documents in paper form, but only in digital form (photo or scan). Important: The photos/scans must be in color, legible and complete. As a rule, we do not require original documents, officially certified copies, apostilles or legalizations unless we expressly request them. We need your documents in the original language and additionally in German translation. Important: Translations must be provided by a publicly appointed or sworn translator/interpreter in Germany or abroad.

Costs

The process costs money. We charge you a fee of 40.00 to 70.00 euros.
There are funding opportunities. Please note our FAQs and our “Cost information sheet“.