For many Kenyan families, a spouse, parent, or child settling in Germany is only the beginning. The next step — bringing the rest of the family along — runs through a legal process called Familiennachzug, or family reunification, and it comes with requirements that are easy to underestimate.

How Family Reunification Works

Family reunification allows the spouse and minor children of someone already living in Germany to join them there. In most cases, the process involves:

• Proof of the family relationship — a marriage or birth certificate, sometimes needing an apostille and, if it isn’t already in German, a certified translation.
• Basic German (A1) for the joining spouse. Proof of elementary language skills is required before the visa is issued in most cases. Proof must come from a recognized exam provider. The ÖSD certificate we prepare students for is fully accepted by the German Embassy for this purpose; self-study or an online course alone isn’t accepted.
• Health insurance for the family member joining.
• An application at the German Embassy in Nairobi, which coordinates with the relevant immigration office in Germany before a final decision is made.

Once submitted, applications commonly take four to six months to process, sometimes longer — so the earlier the language certificate and translated documents are ready, the smoother the rest of the process tends to go.

How AG Supports Your Application

We’ve built our family reunification services around the two things applicants need most: a recognized A1 certificate, and paperwork German authorities will accept the first time.

• A1 courses start every month at all five of our branches.
• ÖSD exams, accepted by the German Embassy, now run three times a month — every two weeks in Nairobi, and once a month in Mombasa.
• Guaranteed exam slots for our own students — a fully booked sitting will never leave you without a seat.
• An express option for tighter timelines, with results in under two weeks.
• Certified translations, done in-house — as the only sworn English–German translator in Kenya, we can translate and certify the marriage certificates, birth certificates, divorce certificates, and other civil documents your application needs.