Ask HN: What visas are available for working in Europe without a degree? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What visas are available for working in Europe without a degree?

125 pointsbrailsafe86 comments

I'm a 26 year old software developer with no degree from Canada. Navigating the waters of under 30 work permit visas for all European countries is turning out to be quite complex and I feel like I'm missing information.

My goal is to find work and live in a European country before age 30, ideally with a possible path to stay. If you have information on non-euro countries, I'd be very curious about that as well.

Part of the confusing bit is that some countries have working holiday visas with no highly skilled restrictions, Germany has the blue card and specific restrictions, all have separate skilled worker (with qualification) permits, and the list goes on. I feel like the job market is good, but I have no idea where I stand.

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In Sweden there are plenty of jobs and if you have several years of working experience no one is asking for your degree. Jobs with relocation option could be found, among others, on Stackoverflow or on local labor agency website (Arbetsförmedlingen [1], in Swedish;)

After four years in Sweden you would be granted a permanent residence, and one year later you could apply for Swedish passport.

The requirement of 'degree in computer science' is just a part of standard job description, at least I was never asked about my (missing) degree.

One interesting option to consider are 'consultant agencies'. They hire you on a permanent basis (often offering relocation) and then offer you to companies. This way you may reach companies not offering relocation themselves (e.g. startups). A small consultancy I am working for now, Go See Talents [2], is offering relocation from outside EU (along with mentoring for less experienced developers, which is probably not the case for you)

[1] https://www.arbetsformedlingen.se

[2] http://goseetalents.com

In neighboring Norway there is Job Seeker visa [0] and the main requirement is you need to qualify as a skilled worker.

According to UDI one of the ways you qualify as a skilled worker : special qualifications that you have obtained through long work experience, if relevant in combination with courses etc. A permit is only granted in such cases in exceptional circumstances. Your qualifications must be equivalent to those of someone who has completed vocational training [1].

You also need to show that you can support yourself for 6 months (NOK 119 392)

[0] https://www.udi.no/en/want-to-apply/work-immigration/job-see...

[1] https://www.udi.no/en/word-definitions/skilled-worker/

This is sort of the problem that is at the heart of my question. Job markets seem to be pretty good for software people right now, but this is in conflict with residency requirements. If I could find a job in Sweden, I'd have to be able to legally work and live there. Just as well, even if a company wants to hire me, they have to be able to go through a legal process to do so.

I have faint feeling that (atleast in Scandinavia) - if you find a suitable employer, they will help visa legalities if you are a match for them.

I'm working in Sweden, coming from Brazil and I didn't finish my degree, I can say that finding a company here which wants to sponsor a visa for skilled workers without a degree is not hard.

Mind describing how you managed that for my sake and that of my Brazilian friend looking at returning to Canada?

Nothing special, got recruited by a Swedish company that does visa sponsorship, never got asked about the lack of a degree and the company applied for my visa as a high-skilled worker, they asked for the documents they needed (nothing major, my CV, a form detailing my previous occupations and contact details from previous employers were basically it) and I got the visa approved a month later.

If a company is willing to sponsor your visa then it's really not hard over here.

That's certainly interesting, thanks for expanding on your experience. How many years of experience did you go in with? That's the other standard route that doesn't involve a degree. For example, if I was interested in working in the U.S, I'd either need a degree or 12 evident years of experience.

It's exactly like @rasjani & @piva00 put it.

I was in a pretty much similar situation to you when I started to think about moving to Europe (or Canada, btw): some work experience; no formal degree; late twenties. I also felt there is some chicken and egg problem, though the solution is simple: just send your CV to interesting companies, asking if they are offering relocation from outside EU. Many large companies like Spotify, Klarna offer relocation, as well as meny smaller companies.

As you have went through recruitment process (which in Sweden is quite humane) and accepted the offer, your employer would have applied on behalf of you for work visa (typically 2-years, which later could be extended unless you get a permanent right of residence after four years).

The irony… I am a senior software engineer trying to get a Canadian visa :D

Last year I tried to immigrate to some European countries (Germany, Norway, Czech Republic, Spain) without success. While I could ace the interviews with multiple startups and medium/big companies, none of them wanted to sponsor the immigration considering the lack of formal education. One of my coworkers suggested to get a business visa either in Czech Republic or Germany because these two countries offer a straight-forward paperwork process that only requires some money, generic documents and a translator. He incorporated himself, got health insurance, a long term rent, did some generic paperwork and in a couple of months he got the letter of acceptance from the immigration office.

I was going to do the same but in Germany, considering that 5 different startups were interested to hire me, I was honest with them and explained my situation and they were okay, but I would need to get the visa by myself. The German government has a visa called "Residence Permit for the Purpose of Freelance or Self-Employment" [1] the page explains very well what you need to get the permit, you can live in the country for two years (one year + renovate for 6 months two times), then you can apply for the blue card which grants you the same rights of a regular citizen.

[1] https://service.berlin.de/dienstleistung/305249/en/

Careful, the blue card won't let you move around Europe as a citizen. They're issued by individual countries, so you'll have residency rights in that country, but standard "90 in 180" freedom of movement within Schengen beyond that:

> If you hold a residence permit or a long-stay visa issued by a Schengen area country, you will have the same freedom of travel as a Schengen short-stay visa holder.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180108183307/http://ec.europa.... (the main website is down, but here's a wayback snapshot)

Well that is true in theory. But it's also the case that there are no border checks within the Schengen area, so you should be able to move around as much as you like in practice.

> it's also the case that there are no border checks within the Schengen area

While this was true before, it's increasingly not like that anymore. The border between Spain-France has historically been easy to pass without proper checks, they are checking more and more individuals crossing the border. As I've been told, the increase is happening across other borders (in EU/Schengen) as well.

While sometimes they don't check at all, it's possible they do random controls. So keep in mind that you might not be able to pass the border without proper identification.

That’s potentially dangerous advice. I’ve seen police go through a train asking people for papers passing between Schengen countries. Just because the chances of being caught are small doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to do something illegal wrt to immigration.

Yep, Sweden & Denmark were doing passport checks on the train between Malmö and Copenhagen for a while:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35222015

But there is a long list of countries which citizens need NOT any Schengen Visa, and - namely - Canada, as an example for the OP, is among them:

https://web.archive.org/web/20171003065628/http://ec.europa....

So it really depends on where you are from originally.

Regardless if you need a visa or not, you cannot (legally) stay more than 90 days every 180 days outside of the country you have a visa for.

Even as a permanent resident of Germany, I have no special rights within any other Schengen member states that grant me any ability to stay. (Though, there is a permanent residence category called "Daueraufenthalt-EU" which does grant additional rights through other Schengen(/EU?) states.)

>Regardless if you need a visa or not, you cannot (legally) stay more than 90 days every 180 days outside of the country you have a visa for.

Sure, you remain - until you become an EU resident/citizen - a foreigner and you don't have the same rights of an EU citizen.

What I was trying to say is that a Canadian citizen can come and stay up to 90 days in any EU country within the Schengen group without any need of any Visa.

The "Daueraufenthalt-EU" you are referring to is a sort of "intermediate status" that you may gain after having legally resided in Germany for 5 years, I presume there are similar provisions in other EU/Schengen countries as well.

Where are you coming from and why are you interested in Canada?

We’ve had no problem hiring people without degrees in the Netherlands (from outside EU/EER). But you need a high-skilled job, with requirements to your salary (which with CS you’ll most likely meet), and you need to sign a contract before you can get the visa. Most Companies will take care of the visa for you. I don’t know the exact name of the visa, I can look it up for you if you like.

Thanks, I'd really appreciate that. The name is surprisingly important because some countries have very similar sounding visas with very different requirements. Netherlands is definitely one of the countries I'd be interested in but haven't yet researched.

You're going to have a ball. Would definitely recommend Germany, once you're there you'll come across plenty of opportunities for sponsorship to other countries of your choosing - just get over there on the Freelance visa to begin with. Or alternatively go to the UK first for a 2 year visa, and find a country that's happy with remote work.

Your biggest hurdle will be your first job in the EU. So make sure your first visa isn't tied to your job, because you'll likely want to change it in the short-term. After that - it's smooth sailing.

Thanks for the support :)

It sounds like you've followed a similar path. Mind expanding on your experience?

Am from NZ, moved to AU but no visa requirements for me. Half of my friends have moved to the EU or Australia and told me about their move.

AU. Is that Australia or Austria? Was your first comment based entirely on your the experience of your friends?

It's probably Australia, as (AFAIK) people from New Zealand don't need any kind of visa to live and work in Australia.

That's what I figured, perhaps just a little confused about the structure of the sentence.

AT is Austria ;)

Heh, thanks. Didn't find it in a quick search.

It's called high-skilled migrants. You can always check IND we-site for more information https://ind.nl/en/work/Pages/Highly-skilled-migrant.aspx

I recently moved to nl, with no degree. You just need to earn more than 36k to be accepted as a highly skilled migrant, and on top of that you get a big tax rebate, the "30% ruling"

Euros I presume?

How’s the situation for folks over 30 without a degree trying to get in eu?

In Netherlands it's better for you if you are older than 30 because your salary requirements imposed by the government are much higher(4.404 euros per month) than those for under 30 y.o. guys(3.229 euros per month).

So it's actually worse, right? Having to find a job that pays much more is actually more difficult, isn't it?

I can only tell from my experience - I(35 y.o.) had 3 interviews in NL, 2 offers and took the one that had the highest wage that is even greater than required minimum..Also, I believe that it's pretty easy to find a developer job in NL because it seems that the country lacks IT professionals..

Dude, all offers are greater than the minimum. Doesn't make sense to offer otherwise.

I believe [1] should contain the information you need. And thanks to brilliant lobbyists and reluctant politicians you'll get a 30% tax reduction then as well [2], lucky you!

[1]: https://ind.nl/en [2]: https://www.belastingdienst.nl/wps/wcm/connect/bldcontenten/...

I have 17 years of experience in my area (DevOps) and was recently denied a work visa by Germany. Reason: no degree. I had an already signed contract with a major company to earn 58k EUR/year.

The company appealed to the ZAV multiple times and got rejected.

And software developer is in the shortage list. I don't advise trying it without a degree even though I got assurances from every recruiter I talked to that a degree was absolutely not necessary. I should have trusted my gut.

EDIT: I showed the embassy formal proof of my work experience, countless IT courses, many certifications (LPI, Kubernetes, Oracle, etc), participation in open source projects. They shrugged it all off and said "no degree, only ZAV can approve you". ZAV wasn't happy about it either. So I'm not how serious these countries are when they talk about a shortage of skilled workers. It seems they can't help themselves with the bureaucracy.

Was that for a BlueCard? I know a ton of people working here under the BlueCard scheme but I don't personally know anyone who's been approved without a university degree.

I'd never bothered to officially graduate, but I did it before immigrating here in case I have to move to a BlueCard post Brexit.

No, it was for a regular work visa. The person handling my case explicitly asked if I was applying for a BlueCard and I said no (because it does require a degree).

At this point I'm blaming it on the situation being too different from what the immigration workers are used to, but it gave me a lot of headaches (and wasted time/money for me and the company).

AFAIK, the BlueCard theoretically allows you to substitute 5 years work experience for the degree requirement according to the EU level stuff but Germany still hasn't passed the legislation to explicitly allow it.

It's still odd they denied your work visa, though. I had a friend who got a work visa for a management position at a coworking space.

Have been approved for a BlueCard (but ultimately didn't take it) without a degree. Quite a few hoops, but it's possible.

I'm from Argentina. Are you a non-EU citizen? Some country with better relationships?

New Zealand which has a pretty good relationship with most of the EU since we're part of the Commonwealth. We're synonymous with Australians who seem to be everywhere in the EU, and English is our primary (and often only) language usually.

Thanks for the contrary input. Always valuable to know what can go wrong and where cost can be sunk. What is your country of origin?

Argentina

You can get into the EU through Spain but you need some savings (~30.000€). More info here:

https://qotoqot.com/blog/best-countries/

Certainly, for Canadians, going to France is very straightforward option.

You only need insurance and proof of finance means to support yourself and/or leave (return home); you can stay 12 months and extend to 24, possible 36 if you're studying too.

https://ca.ambafrance.org/ExperienceFrance

Brilliant. Thanks.

There are many countries that have youth mobility programs for Canadians -- check out https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...

Great resource. Thanks.

UK: Youth Mobility Scheme for people under 30. This visa is for 2 years, and you can live / work in the UK. Quite easy to get, and does not require a degree / job offer.

Germany: Berlin Freelancer/Artist Visa. Do anything you want for 2 year, and does not need a regular job offer (involves a bit of paperwork).

Thanks :). Hadn't come across the Germany freelancer visa.

I know more Canadian/Australians/South Africans in the Berlin Tech Scene than Germans, and they seem to mostly share your motivations and seem rather happy with their choice.

The Freelancer visa rather easily lets you stay for two years. In that time, you can find a company to hire you and sponsor a more permanent visa. IIRC, you can apply for permanent residency after five years in the country.

Berlin was dirt cheap for a long time, and still is compared to cities with similar size in similar countries. It's full of people trying all sorts of alternative approaches to life. As long as it's not criminal[0], you can do almost anything and probably find five to five thousand others than want to do it with you, two journalists than want to make a documentary about it, and one New York Times article declaring it the new trend.

[0]: or probably even if it is

Does freelancer visa cover partner/children? If I get the freelancer visa can my partner work in Germany, or my children enroll to public schools?

"European countries" is a pretty wide net. Some you'd enjoy living in, some you may not, and preferences vary.

I moved to Finland because I had paid a visit before and had "fell in love with it," so to say. And even though it's an advanced country with an extremely high standard of living, getting in and settling was surprisingly easy.

They did ask me for a degree at the embassy, but I just gave them a good resume and recommendation letters (whom they never contacted). I told them I'm self-taught and don't need a degree. Their official website speaks vaguely on the subject of degrees, but their law does not explicitly require it. If you're in the IT sector, you mainly need a high salary and an offer from preferrably a stable company. That's enough to qualify you for a visa called "Residence permit for a person employed as a special expert."

This visa grants you a lot of freedom. After moving to Finland For example, you have 4 months to choose to stay in your new job. If you decide to leave the job, this visa allows you to stay in the country to find another job. Doing that with a non-specialist visa may cause you trouble when you decide to extend your stay the next year.

The visa also easily renews after one year of working, giving you four additional years, after which you can apply for permanent residence or citizenship.

Since you're a Canadian citizen, the process should be even easier for you. Basically a company gives you an offer and relocates you to a hotel/airbnb in Finland right away, so you can start working before the authorities decide on your visa. Once you're in Finland, you can visit the immigration office and apply for residency there.

Once you have your permit, you can go ahead and get a permanent place to live, which most companies help you with. They usually lend you the rent deposit, pay for a hotel before you find a place, and help you with your rental contract, etc.

There is very little paperwork in the whole process. Setting up a bank account is easy. Taxes are done online and are mostly automatic. Health insurance is granted from day one. Additional insurance is cheap and a single phone call away.

The whole process was so smooth that most of the time I didn't even realise there was a process there. It was only after I had moved to Germany (a country that I love to live in and hate to do paperwork in) that I realised just how well oiled the Finnish system really is. And I hear they've made it even better since I left :)

Not A Nomad (who sometimes posts here) has a nice in-depth guide on emigrating to Germany:

https://notanomadblog.com/how-to-emigrate-germany-startup-jo...

I also have a friend-of-a-friend who moved from SF to Berlin to work for Deliveroo, so you could try reaching out to that company directly.

Sorry, I can't help you, but I am curious as to why do you want to move out of Canada when many Europeans want to go the other way?

I love Canada and it's a great country, but I'm a wanderer and a curious person if I were to simplify it. I discussed a few practical aspects as well in response to a similar question above.

Edit: Are you considering moving to Canada? If not, can you speak to why you think more Europeans are interested in doing so?

If you're under 30, you should still be eligible for the Working Holiday Visa. This was the website I used for initial research when I applied for working holiday visas a few years ago to Germany & Canada:

http://www.workingholidayinfo.com/canadians/

It has info for other nationalities too (I'm Australian). I'm not sure if Kirsty is keeping it updated, so you might want to double-check her info, but it should be a good starting point.

If you're intending to stay, Germany's Blue Card might be the best path. If you can learn the language and attain B1 level of fluency, you can gain permanent residency in 21 months.

I'm seeing some conflicting replies here regarding the Blue Card. Does it not require a degree?

Ahh, I missed the "without degree" part of the question. It looks like it's strongly recommended, certainly the Australian Germany Embassy page suggests you need a degree:

http://www.australien.diplo.de/Vertretung/australien/en/03/V...

But it looks like there are also exemptions for "bottleneck" industries that urgently require specialists, and Software Development and Programming are currently listed. (Some of the commercial sites suggest 5 years of commercial experience will also qualify.) You'll note that IT also gets a discount on the minimum required salary to qualify.

Try the Make It In Germany website, which is an official government site and links out to some of the exemption documents:

http://www.make-it-in-germany.com/en

Oh, and also note that Canadians (like Australians & Americans) get a favored status. Note at the bottom of that first link that Canadians can apply for a Blue Card after arriving in Germany. So maybe you could try applying for the Working Holiday visa (easier to get), and once you're over there look into converting your visa to the Blue Card.

Each country in Europe has its own visa, and depending on the visa you might need other visas for other countries if you want to travel around. So the first question is where do you want to go? Do you know other languages than english? (north countries speak English either as first or second language) Oh, don't forget one country is leaving the European Union in the next years (it might impact you).

First find a couple of places you want to live in and then search for their visas, doing it the other way is going to be a nightmare as you already know.

Northern Countries would be first on my list and the UK would be interesting to live in for a period of time regarding that whole leaving the EU thing. I've casually been learning German for a while and can get by. Skill building is super important to me and languages are a key component of that.

I'm not sure this is going to be the good kind of "interesting". Assuming you get the Tier 5 visa you'll be OK while it's valid, but the anti-immigrant rhetoric and proceduralism is pretty high so if anything goes wrong you'll hit the unsympathetic part of the immigration system.

Plus the country hasn't decided if it wants to collapse into chaos in March 2019.

(A consideration for you whereever you go: what happens if you meet someone and want to have a relationship with them that outlasts your visa?)

Are you referring to the UK? I could have re-phrased my comment. What I meant to say is that while I think it would hypothetically be interesting to live and work in the UK for a short period of time, perhaps if my options are very limited, given the circumstances I'd not go all in on that as a priority. I spent a very short time in England and Scotland in 2016, had a great time, and had some interesting political discussions ;)

Regarding the relationship, I can only hope that would happen. At that point, I'd have some different considerations to make. Problems come and problems go.

Curious and also from Canada. Are you considering moving to Europe to find better work opportunities? Why is that so when Canada offers a pretty decent career path in tech?

This isn't a tech consideration. Tech can be made anywhere in the world. In Canada however, there are only a few places that overlap in terms of places I want to be and that have plenty of opportunities. This is pretty limited to Vancouver and maybe Montreal. So it's more of consideration towards exploration. Cultural and otherwise. Vancouver is great, but it's outrageously expensive and lacks any cultural flavor. Montreal has cultural flavor but lacks mountains and so on.

There are other considerations as well, such as the vastness of Canada vs the closer proximity of mainland Europe to other countries. I'm from Winnipeg, and it's a 6 hour drive to the next minor city.

Edit: I don't think these interests are rare, but I get the feeling that people more or less want to find a paying job that let's them buy a single family home and move out to the suburbs. I don't subscribe to this idea, and want to explore other avenues of living.

Furthermore, work culture here hasn't been desirable so far in my career. I don't necessarily expect it to be different elsewhere, but why not broaden my horizons in that respect too?

It's also worh noting that I do have a 1 year technical diploma, but no formal undergraduate degree. Though I am working on it slowly because learning is interesting and in case other ways don't pan out.

I went the one year working holiday visa route from Australia to Sweden >5 years ago and ended up getting a normal employment-based residence permit after getting a full time job. So that's one option.

In Germany you can definitely get a job without a degree.

The company will need to dig much further into the bureaucracy path in order to do so, so you need to be a great candidate.

That's not my experience at all. The company that hired me went to great lengths to get the approval and got rejected every time.

If you don't have a degree, it's more like a lottery that depends on whoever gets to see your case at the embassy/labor department.

Spouse visa? ;)

Heh, I've considered it. Wouldn't be impossible, but not feasible right now.

Hi!

I run http://www.visaok.in/ a job board listing curated visa sponsored tech jobs in over 20 countries around the world. A while back, I painstakingly created Visa Guides for the top 20 most popular countries around the world (most of them are in Europe and Asia). These Visa Guides provide details on the Visa Requirements in various categories of 'Skilled Tech Workers'. All Visa Guides are listed here => http://www.visaok.in/work-permit/blog/

I found that in almost all the countries that have some sort of a 'Startup Visa', there is no requirement for having a degree.

I've listed the Guides for European employers below. It shouldn't take you too long to identify a country of choice and review the short, but detailed Visa Guide to see if you fit in without a college degree. You can then search the main job site after selecting the Visa from the dropdown and entering your skill / job title.

My email is in bio. Feel free to write back for more info or if you have any feedback on the job board.

Germany Visa Guide http://www.visaok.in/visa-guide-germany/

Netherlands Visa Guide http://www.visaok.in/visa-guide-netherlands/

UK Visa Guide http://www.visaok.in/visa-guide-united-kingdom/

Czech Republic Visa Guide http://www.visaok.in/czech-republic-visa-guide/

Hungary Visa Guide http://www.visaok.in/hungary-visa-guide/

Ireland Visa Guide http://www.visaok.in/ireland-visa-guide/

Spain Visa Guide http://www.visaok.in/visa-guide-spain/

Finland Visa Guide http://www.visaok.in/finland-visa-guide/

Austria Visa Guide http://www.visaok.in/austria-visa-guide/

Denmark Visa Guide http://www.visaok.in/denmark-visa-guide/

Poland Visa Guide http://www.visaok.in/poland-visa-guide/

Sweden Visa Guide http://www.visaok.in/visa-guide-sweden/

Estonia Visa Guide http://www.visaok.in/visa-guide-estonia/

This is a great resource. I hope you see even more traction - I'm going to share this with my friends! Thank yoU!

Thank you! I appreciate it.

This is insane. While I'm in a bit of a rush and haven't yet had time to read too in depth just yet, I did click through on a few and can tell this is an incredible resource. Thanks so much for putting this together and taking the time to construct such a robust response. I'm sure many viewers of this thread will find it useful, as will I.

If I have any questions for you directly, I'll be sure to reach out. Thanks for extending the invitation.

I didn't pay $ for NL Highly SKilled Migrant application. Probably the company did.

For canadian citizens <30 y/o:

https://www.gov.uk/tier-5-youth-mobility

Met my fair share in London on this visa. Sadly there is rarely a way of staying after your 2 years unless your employer really commits to sponsoring you, which they never do.

Estonia E-Residency?

https://e-resident.gov.ee/become-an-e-resident/

E-residency gives you no rights to enter or live in Estonia.

It does give you the ability to begin trading within the EEU and thus have established trade/consulting/income links. Which means when applying for a trade/consulting/income related visa you can demonstrate a tax compliant income stream. And you can get an estonian bank account, and its an ID card. And cool.

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