Belong Germany tracks your journey to citizenship
one requirement at a time.
Your tracker stays on the phone. No account, no tracking.
Android
The same tracker, the same 449 questions, the same German rules.
7 day free trialYour tracker stays on your phoneEvery rule dated and sourced
Android
There is no account and no tracking in Belong Germany. Here is exactly what that means on each phone.
The iOS app keeps your tracker on your iPhone. There is no account to create and nothing you enter leaves the device. The documents you attach are encrypted by iOS while the phone is locked and are deliberately kept out of your iPhone backup, so they never reach another device. Belong Germany never uploads them and never sees them.
On AndroidThe Android app keeps to the same rule: your tracker stays on the phone, with no account and no tracking, and documents in the app's own private storage rather than anywhere we can reach. The only Belong Germany on Google Play is the one linked here, published by Belong Europe ApS.
One tracker, and the same promise on either phone: what you type in stays where you typed it.
The Dashboard now opens on a ring with one segment per requirement on your route. Green is met, amber is in progress, red is blocked and the number in the middle is how many you have met. Every tab got the same treatment: one colour per tab, clear boxes and coral on the details. Out now on iPhone and on Android through Google Play.
The Dashboard splits the journey into the part you control and the part you do not. The ring shows how close you are, one segment per requirement, green when met, amber in progress, red when blocked. The number in the middle is how many you have met. Below it Belong Germany lists the routes open to you: the uniform five year route and the three year route for the spouse of a German citizen, each carrying its own status. Germany decides naturalisation administratively through your local Einbürgerungsbehörde, so your route reaches a real finish line.
What's coming sits just under that split: the dates ahead of you, soonest first. The day your residence time is complete, the day after a trip ends, each year of residence as it lands, a document about to expire. Every date says whether it is yours or the authority's, and one that is only a projection says so. On either phone you can turn on alerts from the You tab and get a handful a year, with notice, never a feed.
New Every alert opens what it names. Tap a date alert and the Dashboard opens on that row. Tap the Daily 5 reminder and the round opens, with the question it quoted inside it.
The headline reads straight off the meter, so the words can never say more than the ring does, and when every requirement on your route is met the meter says so: your part is done. Standing sits on the Dashboard too, a card one tap from the meter it explains. Every tab is headed with the date the rules it uses apply from.
New After you apply. Tell the app the day you filed and the Dashboard follows the wait with you: days since filing, BAMF's page on Einbürgerung one tap away and the updates you log from the Behörde's letters, with a reply window that becomes a date ahead and an alert. No expected date, because none is published.
What if sits on the Dashboard and answers that without touching your file. Flip German at B1 or the Einbürgerungstest to passed, add a settled residence status, spend months abroad and watch your finish line move under the real German rules. It runs on a copy of your situation, so nothing you try is saved and nothing you entered changes.
Path opens your route and lays out every requirement in order. A green tick is met and a coral dot is in progress: lawful ordinary residence, a settled residence status, German at B1, the Einbürgerungstest, self support and a clean criminal record. Each item explains the rule in plain language and links to the official source, the StAG on gesetze-im-internet.de or the BAMF. The test facts sit here too, and the full Practice tab is one tap away.
New Stage one: the settlement permit. Path now opens in two stages. Stage one lists the requirements of the Niederlassungserlaubnis under § 9 AufenthG, counts your years and lets you tick off the rest, with the skilled worker and Blue Card routes and the fee underneath. Naturalisation asks for a settlement permit or another qualifying title, so for most people this is where the tab opens.
New Never miss a permit renewal. Add the day your residence permit ends and the Dashboard counts down to it. Apply before that day and your permit counts as still valid while the Ausländerbehörde decides. Apply late and the gap can break your five years. The first reminder comes twelve weeks ahead, so there is time to book an appointment.
Every requirement can carry the evidence for it: a language certificate, a residence permit, a payslip, a test result. Note when a document expires and that date joins What's coming a month ahead, so a certificate never lapses quietly while you are waiting. Documents stay on the phone you added them on. On iPhone they are encrypted by iOS while it is locked; on Android they will sit in the app's own private storage. On both they are kept out of the backup, so a restored phone will not bring them back, and you should keep your own copy of anything hard to replace. Belong Germany never uploads them and never sees them.
The requirements as § 10 StAG sets them, with the three year route for the spouse of a German citizen and the rules on time abroad under § 12b, dated, sourced and free to read.
Standing watches the moving ground, your time abroad and your record. Under German law a single stay abroad of up to six months does not interrupt your residence, so Belong Germany measures your longest single stay against that six month line and tells you honestly when a trip could break your continuity. Your record sits here too with a plain read: minor penalties up to 90 day-fines are generally disregarded.
Standing lives on the Dashboard, one tap from the meter it explains: a card with your trip count opens the full view, with trips, offences and continuity all editable.
New Plan a trip before you book. Add a trip dated ahead and the trip sheet shows what the days away would do against the six month line, on a copy of the real rules. Planned trips sit in their own group, marked as planned, and count for nothing until they have happened. The day after a trip ends, What's coming asks whether the dates held.
Practice trains you for the Einbürgerungstest, the real naturalisation knowledge test: 33 questions in 60 minutes, four options each, and you pass at 17. Thirty of them are about Germany as a whole and three are about your own Bundesland. BAMF writes the questions and accredits the test centres that hold the sittings, and each attempt costs 25 €.
The 449 practice questions sit in five chapters, each showing how much you hold, so you drill the section costing you marks rather than the whole bank. They are in German, like the real test, with an English study toggle, and the official BAMF test centre is one tap away.
Mocks run at the real pace: 30 questions in 55 minutes, the federal share of the sitting, with the results broken down by chapter and a rematch of only what you missed. Put your sitting date in and the app counts down to it.
Today's five is about a minute a day: what you get wrong comes back sooner, what you know comes back later. Practice, Chapters, Progress, News and Guides share one tab, a segment apart.
New The guides, on your iPhone. The five guides from belonggermany.app sit inside the app as a Guides segment, each dated to the day its facts were checked, readable on a plane with no connection at all. The Practice tab also says how the Einbürgerungstest is booked: at a test centre through the year, on demand, with BAMF's finder one tap away.
New On the iPhone, set a daily reminder and it quotes one of the questions waiting for you. Tap it and the round is already open, and once today's five are done, tonight's reminder is withdrawn.
Ten questions on the open web, in German as the real paper is set and with an English translation underneath, plus what BAMF and the Einbürgerungstestverordnung have actually published about the test. No account, no download.
News by The Local Germany. The immigration and citizenship news that actually affects your path, from The Local Germany, the English-language newspaper for Germany, inside the app. Two of their feeds, immigration and German citizenship, merged and newest first, so the story that changes your case is one tap away and opens without leaving the app. Turn on news alerts on the You tab and the app checks in the background and sends one quiet notification when something new is published. On iPhone a fourth widget shows the newest story on your home screen or Lock Screen. News sits as one of the five segments alongside Practice, Chapters, Progress and Guides, so what changed is never more than a tap from the drilling.
Passport is the newest tab and the reason for all the rest: the document your road leads to. The real cover in colour with the facts that matter beside it: validity, fee, where to apply and dual citizenship. Every figure is taken from the issuing authority's own published pages, dated and linked to the source.
Add your name, and a photo, and the passport carries them as the holder's. A pill under the cover says when you could apply, at the earliest, from the same figures your Dashboard reads, and the tab tells you what makes this passport particular: the Brandenburg Gate hologram, the first line of the anthem in the data page and the Gate and the federal eagle under UV light. Valid ten years from age 24 and six before, 70 euros from 24 and 37.50 before, applied for in person at your Bürgeramt, and since 27 June 2024 you keep your existing nationality.
You is where every number comes from. Set the month you became resident and a short list of honest toggles: your settled residence status, marriage to a German citizen, your citizenship background, the language exam, the knowledge test and self support. Change one and the Dashboard updates right away. Your name lives here too, and a photo of you, and the Passport tab carries them as the holder's; both stay on the phone. The legal disclaimer closes the tab, because Belong Germany tracks the rules but does not give legal advice.
New On your home screen. Four iPhone widgets, for the home screen and the Lock Screen: where you stand, your longest stay abroad against the six month line, whether today's five is done and the newest story from The Local. The same numbers the app shows, run through the same rules, and nothing leaves your iPhone. Setting up now ends with your name and the reminders you want, all optional.
New A second person on the same iPhone. Add your partner, or another adult, under Household and they get their own count, with their route, their years and their trips. Switch between you from the same card, and the header says whose count is on screen. A trip you took together is logged once and counted for both of you. Practice, documents, reminders and widgets stay with you, the phone's owner, and everything about the second person stays on the phone, like everything else here.
New Tell a friend. Know someone on the same road? A card on the You tab sends Belong Germany to them in two taps, with a short message and a link to this site. Nothing about you is sent.
