Your licence – up to 100 % fundable

Employees may be funded for further vocational training if that training is necessary in order to integrate them into work during unemployment or to avert unemployment that threatens them, if the employment agency has advised them before they start taking part, and if the measure and the provider are approved for funding. For unemployed people, necessity is also recognised where broader vocational competences improve their employability and this is expedient given the state and development of the labour market. The education voucher is the certificate that these conditions are met.

As a rule, no: the benefits of active employment promotion are discretionary, and for further training the statute says employees “may” be funded. But there are exceptions. The further training costs of catching up on a vocational qualification are expressly taken out of that discretion – there the law says funding “is” granted where the conditions are met. Under the accident insurance, insured people are entitled to benefits for participation in working life; only their kind, extent and delivery are decided at the institution’s discretion. The pension insurance has to provide its participation benefits where the personal and insurance-law conditions are met. And fixed-term soldiers are entitled to support for their vocational training under the Soldiers’ Pension Act. Whether those conditions are met in your case is examined by the funding body in every case – we prepare the application; nobody who does not take the decision themselves can promise you the funding.

There is a separate provision for employees within an existing employment relationship. Its conditions include a measure lasting more than 120 hours, content that goes beyond short-term adjustment training tied purely to your own workplace, a vocational qualification obtained as a rule at least two years ago, no funding under this same provision in the two years before the application, and an approved measure at an approved provider. Training your employer is legally obliged to provide anyway is excluded. Depending on the size of the business the employer is expected to contribute to the course costs; in businesses with fewer than 50 employees that contribution is to be waived. The application can also be filed by your company.

Not for funding under the Third Book of the Social Code: the employment agency must have advised you before you started taking part, and the provider you chose must present the education voucher to it before the measure begins. A measure already under way therefore cannot be turned into a voucher after the fact. What is still possible: talk to us and to your funding body before you book the next step – the next section, the one that has not started yet, is worth discussing.

For as long as your voucher says. The law names no fixed period – it only allows the employment agency to limit the voucher in time and to restrict it to a region and to particular training goals. The rules of thumb that circulate are in no paragraph of the statute. So read your document, ask your adviser if anything is unclear – and tell us early if the deadline is getting tight.

What gets funded is always an approved measure at an approved provider, not a qualification as such. Both the accelerated initial qualification and the periodic training can be the subject of such a measure. For employees the hurdle of more than 120 hours is added, which short units do not clear. Which of our measures are approved we will tell you in the consultation and give you in writing – please do not guess, just ask.

Yes. The statute speaks expressly of the provider “chosen by the employee”, who presents the education voucher before the measure begins. The limit is not your choice but the approval: provider and measure both have to be approved. On top of that come the restrictions your voucher may carry – regional ones and ones tied to particular training goals.

Ideally everything that shows your situation: ID, your driving licence if you already hold one, and the name of your contact at the funding body. If you already have an education voucher or an invitation to an advisory appointment, bring it – then we can see straight away what it is restricted to. Everything else, offer and measure sheet, you get from us.