telc B1 for Ausbildung: What Employers Accept

Short answer

Is telc B1 enough for an Ausbildung? An Ausbildung is job training in Germany: you work at a company and also learn at a trade school. For the training visa, the official rule names a level, not one exam. Make it in Germany, the German government's website for people who move to Germany to work or train, says the training visa normally needs German at level B1. telc B1 is one of the well-known certificates people use to show B1. The visa office and the place that gives you the training decide which certificate they accept. The company that hires you also has its own wishes, and it tests your German in job interviews. On the nursing route, when your path ends in official recognition as a nurse, you will need B2 for that recognition. So do three things: get a B1 certificate they accept, practise speaking German for interviews, and ask your employer which certificate they want before you book.

The B1 rule, and who uses it

The clearest rule here is the training visa rule. You will normally need German at level B1 if the place that gives you the training has not tested your German yet, or if you have not finished a German course in Germany to get ready for the training. The visa for coming to Germany to look for a training job also asks for proof of B1.

But the visa is only one of three places where your German is checked. The employer decides whom to hire, usually after job interviews in German. And once the training starts, the Berufsschule, the trade school part of the Ausbildung, gives its lessons and its written tests in German. So you normally need a B1 certificate in your visa papers, and the visa office decides which one it accepts. But you also need B1 German that you can really use, because you need it from the first month.

Who	What they ask for	How they check it
Visa office (training visa)	Normally B1, unless the place that gives you the training has tested your German	The language certificate in your papers; the visa office decides which one it accepts
Employer	Their own level, different for each company	Job interviews in German, often by video before the contract
Berufsschule (trade school)	German good enough for lessons and written tests	The schoolwork itself, from the first week
Nursing, when the path ends in official recognition as a nurse	B2 for the recognition itself	The state office that does the recognition, using its own list of certificates it accepts

Where telc B1 fits

telc B1, also called Zertifikat Deutsch, is a well-known B1 certificate that has been used for a long time. It is one exam with two parts. The written part takes 150 minutes. It includes Sprachbausteine, a grammar section that is special to telc. The spoken part is done in pairs, with another person taking the exam. The pass mark is 60 percent, and you must reach the minimum score in both parts. All of this is on the official telc B1 exam page, and the whole exam is printed in the official practice test. Goethe B1, the exam from the Goethe-Institut, is split into separate parts, and the two exams are compared in Goethe B1 vs telc B1. Each employer or chamber (the IHK or HWK, the office for job training in your area) decides if it wants telc, Goethe or either one, so ask before you choose an exam.

Fees, dates and centres change; BookGermanTest keeps the live list (opens in a new tab).

Getting ready for more than the certificate

People who win a training contract get ready in two ways at the same time. The first is the exam. telc B1's task types are public. The writing task is one reply email. telc publishes what it checks when it marks the email, and you improve fast when you practise that exact task. It is explained step by step in the telc B1 writing guide. The second is the job interview, and that means speaking: saying who you are, explaining why you want this job and this company, and understanding questions asked at normal speed. Ten minutes of speaking practice a day, in the months before you apply, usually helps more in the interview than a certificate alone. The employer hears your German before they read your papers.

A clear timeline helps too. People apply for training jobs long before the training starts, and the visa takes extra weeks after you get the contract. So your language certificate needs to be ready when applications open, not when the training begins. Here is the order. First, decide which job and which employers you want to apply to. Then book the exam early in the application season, before your first interview invite, so the certificate does not delay your plan. Count backwards: if you send your applications in autumn for a training start in late summer, take the B1 exam in the months before that autumn. Leave enough time to take the exam again if something goes wrong on the day.

Find the path first, then the exam

Do things in this order: first choose the kind of job and the employers you want to apply to, then take the language certificate they ask for. Our partner site GoAusbildung (opens in a new tab) helps with the path: which jobs are open to people from other countries, how applications work, and what employers look for. Sprachpass helps with the exam itself: the format, the scores and how to prepare. Read the telc B1 exam guide for the full format, and the telc B1 preparation topic for more guides. A certificate from close to the time you apply is newer and safer than one from a year earlier. Some visa offices also set strict limits on how old your certificate can be. The visa guide is telc accepted for German visas shows an example.